nightmars, "flashes" and memories, how do I know what's real?

I've been having sort of "flashes" of images and feelings for years of things that i do not remember, sometimes eventually these develop into full memories which are backed up by external evidence and sometimes they deelop into things which look like memories but are blatently not real as there are bits in them that dont make sense or they involve people who could not have been about at thee time or they just don#t feel like memories (if that makes sense).

But recsently this has been getting more intense. I've started having nightmares every night which appear to refer to a period of tme from which I have very few memories, these nightmares are seriously terrifying I will not go into the cntent as I don't want to trigger anyone but seriously they are scaring me. I've started getting "flashes" along similar themes too... and it sort of feels like there is someting there, like when someone asks you a question and you know that you know the answer but you can't quiet access it...


Basically how do I know if these things are refering to real events, or are symbolic, or are just random rubbish with no basis? I've been trying to find out about my childhood by contacting people who I used to live near and things, but none of these sources seem to be able to comfirm nor deny if anything happened, they all seemed suspiious about certain events but these were normally periods of time when I would essentially go missing and my mum would seemingly not care, so none of the people I've spoken to actually know where I was or if anything happened, all they know is that I vanished and that I wasn't where my mum claimed that I was.

Anyway I'm getting side tracked here, basicall how can I know if any part of this refers to real things?

everyone has their own way of know or finding out when things they see in flashbacks/nightmares are real or just false memories/anxiety produced/ hallucinations.

I discovered what was real and true about me and what I was having memories and flashbacks and nightmares about through therapy, asking relatives about things that went on, journaling, talking with friends that I grew up with, looking at photos and writing about when those photos were taken, getting copies of all my medical records, school records and therapy records. There are a lot of different ways to do it. it just takes time to find out what will work for you.

talk with your treatment people and they can help you discover the ways that will work for you.

((((shadowlight))))

I hope you are able to get a therapist and work through this. EMDR is a therapy that helped me with my childhood abuse; can be hairy when you're in it but at least it brings out things that are pushed down so you protect yourself from them...

I wish you the best and I hope you achieve freedom from the dreams and nightmares

ye looking for external evidence is what I've been trying to do, guess just getting impatient lol

Don't have a treatment team right now unfortuantly : my last psych referred me as she decided that she didn't have enough experiance with dissociative disorders, but now I am moving to a new city in 3 weeks so it's been decided for me to be without a team until after I've moved insted of having to adapt to a new team twice


I went off my medication (sertraline) last week for no real reason other than not going to the pharasist :/ back on it now though so hopefully that will help it usually reduces the flashbacks at least so hoping it works on nightmares too