So that's sort of like a flashback...or maybe a quasi flashback. I think one thing that can help when you get triggered back into the past like that is to ground yourself in the moment. Remind yourself of the facts going on around you.

Can you give like an actual example? And what it reminded you of?

For example, one of my traumatic experiences was being snowed in with my mom when she had a psychotic break. At one point while I was sitting in the living room, she went into the kitchen and started futzing around with all these knives and silverware. Shortly after she was throwing stuff at me...Fast forward a few years later, sitting in my boss's office. She gets up and walks behind me and starts futzing with stuff on her desk, and all of a sudden I'm in a half hallucination that I was back in that cabin and I was frozen with fear for my life...

So I would focus on the facts at hand, on the present. I'm not in the cabin, I'm at work. My boss is not my mother. She is not going to throw things at me. She is not having a psychotic break. I am not snowed in. I can leave if I want to. etc...

Seesaw