Yeppers. My memories started as flashbacks of just emotion without context. I would be triggered... like by being trapped... and the emotion of pure rage and absolute panic would just happen but I had NO memory attached to the PTSD response.

As I started therapy the actual memory of events would come out. My therapist would ask me "Can you think back to the first time you remember feeling this way?". It would lead me to remembering the events. But I had NO emotional attachment to that memory at all. It was the oddest thing because a few time my therapist would actually cry because of his emotions hearing the experiences. There I was telling the events and my therapist pointed out that I was sharing the memory as if I were reporting on the news. I had no attachment between the memory and the emotion. Yet they both existed.

I have been in therapy six years now. It is a long and difficult process to work through reconnecting those two parts. That is a very large part of PTSD. It is the hardest thing I have ever done.. and continue to do. But it is also what saved my life.

PTSD sucks big time. Trauma sucks. I wish the most painful evil on anyone who intentionally causes harm to the innocent. But the PTSD brain response is actually a gift of survival. We could not process the horror as it would have overloaded us.. and we most likely would not have lived through the chemical body response and shock to our systems. So the marvelous brain takes the event and cuts it in half. It still stays in our short term memory. Both parts are still there. But our brain will not allow us to connect the two back together until it is safe to do so. All this happens at the subconscious level.

It is also why we end up with flashbacks at times when things are relaxed for us. Because the two parts are in short term memory they must eventually be linked back together so they can be moved into the long term memory. That is what removes the NOW from the experience.

My therapy included EMDR. That is eye movement desensitization. You can google that to find out more on how that works. A therapist has to be trained to use that. My therapist actually went through that training for me. It works.

I am so sorry that events occurred that resulted in your PTSD, Keep up the.great work on being your own hero. You deserve that.