Hello! I am new to the forum, so I will give a brief introduction before launching into the topic.

I experienced some trauma when I was really young. I think I was around 4, but I don't actually know since I don't remember any of what happened. I don't have any memories, so I only know factually the general idea of what happened. There are also some scars on my body that say, "Yes, this happened!" even if I can't confirm 100% that's what they're from.

What happened is very medically based, and in light of the current pandemic, seeing lots of images and videos related to medical stuff has been causing an increase in symptoms for me. I've been pretty much completely avoiding the news because of this, but the bit that I was exposed to has left lingering intrusive thoughts. Additionally, it seems that number of things that trigger me has increased and become more general now.

The main point of this post is a question that I wanted to pose. Although I'm aware that everyone experiences things differently, and even if no one else can relate to this it doesn't mean my experiences aren't valid, but I wanted to hear some people's thoughts and see if anyone could relate.

Basically, because of the fact that I don't remember anything about what happened, I've never really had a flashback or intrusive thoughts about the event itself, since I couldn't remember it even if I wanted to. Having said that, it almost seems like I have intrusive thoughts and memories about things that I've seen that were triggering and similar in content.

For example, I might see something that's very distressing for me related to medical stuff, and the next day I'll find that the picture I saw will pop up in my head repeatedly throughout the day while I'm doing stuff and not thinking about anything related to it. It's always seemingly unwarranted and out of nowhere that those images will pop up in my head, and it completely halts whatever I'm doing and kind of blocks whatever I'm seeing in the present, if that makes any sense. Then, before I know it, I'm completely consumed by a bunch of emotions and fixating on whatever image it was that popped up in my head. One night when I went to bed, it took me a long time to fall asleep because I kept hearing screaming from a video I had watched and it wouldn't go away (not related to COVID, but still medical in nature).

This can happen with images I saw, videos I watched, or stories that I read, regardless of whether I saw those things months ago. It's unsettling how it can be literally whenever, regardless of what I'm doing, and all of a sudden I'm seeing this thing in my head and I'll be feeling angry, sad, tense, upset, and a whole slew of other emotions for seemingly no reason. Sometimes I wonder if it's like an emotional flashback or something.

Can anyone else relate to this or shed light on what might be going on here?