[aloneinmusic]

I have not been diagnosed with PTSD, so for this reason I do not even know if this is valid or not.

But I've always been curious how people with PTSD experience their flashbacks? I get 'flashbacks', as in, random flashes of images from certain 'traumatic' scenarios and sometimes a prolonged replaying of the event inside my head to the point where I can't sleep because it won't stop.

I put those specific words in inverted commas because idek if they are truly flashbacks or if the events were truly traumatic.

But I've heard that some people when they get flashbacks almost hallucinate in the sense that what they see, hear and smell is all part of a memory that they wish they could forget. But mine aren't as severe as that, and idk if it HAS to be that severe for it to be full blown PTSD.

I'd just like some insight really. If you want to know what I get flashbacks of most, then I'm happy to say, if it well help.

For me it's lying on the ground thrashing about and screaming, trying to get away, trying to fight them off me. I hear and sense them; I have my eyes closed so I don't see them.

Alone.... I am like you. I actually hadn't even considered ptsd until i started therapy this last summer and my t said it. I still question whether the 'images' and 'video' i see is flashback because i don't find myself 'in' the experience as you mentioned. I have sense realized though, i have removed emotion from my life and block the images before they can engage me. In also get just 'reactions' such as terror, panic, etc... out of the blue. Also get triggered by bizarre tiny things.

Sooo, i say all this to say that I do believe the 'images' i see are of the flashback nature and i have just learned to protect myself from it.

My t plans to begin exposure in a few weeks and says things may change so i don't know what it will look like then.

[NurseCollie]

It starts with a very specific kind of stomach pain. I nickname it my "mortal fright". I get this awful stomach pain that is a mixer of butterflies, tummy aches, and a swift kick in the stomach. I get stomach pains all the time due to anxiety but my "mortal fright" is different. I only every had that pain when I was about to be abused. My "mortal fright" pain is only specific to my abuse (that is why I figured it needed a name so I can identify it). Rather than my mind flashes, I start remember sounds and feelings, and the sound of my abuser when he was doing it. This is because this all happened in the dark. Everything around me goes numb and it is like I am in my dark bedroom or closet all over again.

[ThingWithFeathers]

I have different types of flashbacks. I have the visual ones you talk about, I also get physical sensation-response type ones and auditory ones. The ones you describe sound like flashbacks - the key is if you have any control over them. Given your not sleeping because of them, it seems as though you don't.

[aloneinmusic]

Thanks guys for the replies.

I notice mine are definitely more visual, I sometimes just get the odd flash or intrusive image come up inside my head. It can be disturbing because it's like a violent image of some kind, and sometimes a flash of my abuser's eyes when they were hurting me come up and it's really unsettling, even if it's just a split second.

Because I primarily struggle with an eating disorder, my thoughts rarely sway from food or weight or body image. But especially when I'm trying to sleep and anxiety of all kinds is getting the better of me, I start re-imagining the whole scenario, and things keep changing each time so in this particular memory it either ends where I run away, run away then kill myself, my abuser kill himself, we call the police etc etc, which didn't happen in real life.

Eventually I do get to sleep but if it's circling round and round my head then I find it very hard to and sometimes I just give up completely and force myself to stay awake because I'm too afraid of getting a nightmare anyway.

Problem is I still live with my abuser (he is my dad...) and so even though he's not the same as he was, it really affects our relationship. Just the fact I know he'll be home in 5 minutes is making my blood boil,

it's like i'm back in the moment;

Possible trigger:

i can feel the excruciating pain, smell the room, feel blinded by the sunlight and darkness at the same time, can feel everything happening to me all over again and me being so un-powerful and hot, sick and dizzy

[freespirit37]

I see flashes in my mind. Sometimes the face of the person who is triggering me will morph into the face of a former abuser.

Mostly, I experience the same emotions I experienced when the abuse was happening. I will feel and behave as if it is happening again.

[Parley]

The only one I am absolutely positive about is an emotional flashback and it was like walking thought it but it wasn't visual. It was weird.

I have had one flash but I didn't recognize it. I could have been blind and still would have seen it. That freaked me out. Kinda. I look at it as a glitch. a day or two later, I had one visual situation. I believe it was a hallucination but I was in deep and don't really know what all happened. It was more than I could handle. Thankfully, I was in therapy.

It's been a few years now. Maybe I just need a release from the built up stress. I don't know. I guess I'm lucky because I don't have them often.

[avlady]

i get mental images when i'm having a flashback and also psychological images in my mind. i remember the situations but try to put them out of my mind which doesn't always work. i just don't really know what to do either, i just go through them like its a daydream too. it passes but is very disturbing too.

[aloneinmusic]

Originally Posted by avlady

i get mental images when i'm having a flashback and also psychological images in my mind. i remember the situations but try to put them out of my mind which doesn't always work. i just don't really know what to do either, i just go through them like its a daydream too. it passes but is very disturbing too.

Yours sound really similar to mine. I feel like there is a significant difference between my flashbacks and just my vivid memories. When I get vivid memories, I think about them sometimes, and then forget. But when I get flashbacks, they really distress me, instead of just remembering I actually see the person's eyes as a quick flashing image, feel the same as how I felt back then, sometimes especially at night it extends into a prolonged daydream too, but a very vivid and realistic one. I think about these memories at least every day because they pop up at random moments but the other ones can leave my mind for long periods of time and then not bother me at all when they do pop up.

[(JD)]

They come in all shapes, sizes, colors and sounds ... people are all different...

...but the results are pretty much the same without therapy: they remove you from the present.

[JadeAmethyst]

smells set me off, sounds, loud noise, crowded rooms, tight spaces my heart races and off I go...flashbacks. Sometimes just have to walk it out...that helps a bit and hanging out with my dogs

[Open Eyes]

I would say what you have been discribing sounds like PTSD to me.

I live with my husband and he still triggers me, I get upset inside whenever he comes through the door too. He has been sober for a long time, still has some behavior problems , where he comes in angry and his body language is loud. I can still feel like he isn't going to like what I am watching on TV and will need me to change it, or if he is angry and has to go into the kitchen and fuss and clean until he can calm down. He is totally unaware that he puts on an angry face and makes a frown and his eyebrows are in that angry face. When he cuts me off or talks over me my brain instantly shows me him doing that when he was drinking telling me it was all in my head and I better go see someone and get help. Or when he picked me up from the psych ward and had that angry face all the way home like my breaking was so wrong and I was bad and so inconvenient. I was not even told I had post traumatic stress.

When my older sister is angry and short with me, my brain sends pictures of her sitting across the table from me at the psych ward telling me I better "just get with it and deal and get with the program". I was sitting there shivering with "trauma" shivers being yelled at and feeling like it was all my fault that I was struggling. Oh, I definitely do not recommend treating a trauma patient that way.

I have had full blown flashbacks with visuals of an event, yet I have short ones that "are" of things that traumatized me. I wake up in the morning EVERY morning feeling very sad/depressed/exhausted exactly the way I did when I had to get up and go out and take care of all the damaged/injured ponies and horses from my neighbor's dog.
I have emotional flashbacks too, and all I can do is be patient until they pass.

It took me a long time to figure them out, it isn't like I "consciously" decide they are going to happen, which is something people who don't know about or understand PTSD don't get.

I have the same problems you have a night, I leave the TV on and I put on something that is like a documentary type program that I can listen to and think about until I drift off to sleep. I find I tend to dream about that rather than what I don't want to dream about.

Unfortunately, the other problem I have, especially when I had to prepare for a Mediation for my lawsuit is I get the PTSD chills at night (like I did in the psych ward), they wake me up several times at night and I found that to help with that I keep a hair dryer next to my bed, I blow the hot air on my feet and legs and into my covers and that helps me calm down so I can go back to sleep. I also sleep with a heating pad, and while I know it is not safe, I have to have it as it also helps keep me relaxed so I can sleep.

When I was in the psych ward not only did I have the PTSD chills, but the heat in my room was not working either, even the other patient's knew OE had the cold room. The skimpy thing I was given they called a blanket did not keep me warm at all. So, I tend to relive that a lot when I sleep at night, hense the heating pad and the hair dryer.

When I go out to my horses and ponies, after I get through the way I wake up, and get out there, I end up feeling like I am running a marathon, as that is how it was extreme stress and hypervigilance, I don't consciously decide to be that way, it just comes over me. Then my arms feel like they are full of cement and hurt so bad.

There is so much out there that triggers me, I live where the trauma happened, that is not something PTSD does well with. Awful that the one thing I loved so very much is the one thing that can also be what the PTSD wants to avoid any reminders of.

Well, that is "some" of what I deal with. Yet, there have been individuals that get angry with me for what I don't do, how I am not the old me out there, they just don't know how hard I try, how much I wish I could be that old me out there.

OE

Originally Posted by ThingWithFeathers

I have different types of flashbacks. I have the visual ones you talk about, I also get physical sensation-response type ones and auditory ones. The ones you describe sound like flashbacks - the key is if you have any control over them. Given your not sleeping because of them, it seems as though you don't.

There are certain scents or smells that transport me. I was traumatized by the religion my parents chose for me, i.e. Catholic -- throughout my childhood I spent terrifying hours in the bricks and mortar building where "the faithful" went to pray and to confess their sins. It was torture, the things my mind did to me as a result of the fear of God and hell and damnation, trying to convince myself I was "safe" only to find in the next minute that I was not.

Today, if I were to walk into that church all these years later, I would be transported back in time, scared, frightened, doomed. So i don't go. I feel "green" just thinking about it.

But the vision I have that most terrifies me now because I cannot choose to go there or not, is this one I see:

Possible trigger:

Lying in my bed at night, I awake to see a silhouette standing in my bedroom doorway. It is the only way out. I know he can't be there for anything good. And he's been standing, watching me in silence. Now that I am awake he makes me walk with him to the kitchen of my house where he selects one of the knives I have in a container on my stove top and his intention is clear. To stab me to death, how many times will that knife he holds pierce my body before I die.

I can see his intent. Both of us know what "the plan" is. I feel sick and scared as I look in his eyes, cold lifeless eyes, the color of steel. My eyes are locked with those of my assassin and futile as I know it is I beseech in my trembling pleading voice: PLEASE, no, don't kill me, please, even while I know it won't help.

His face reflects his contempt for me and his sneering lips the mockery he feels for my pleas. I can see he will not be merciful, this will be a cold brutal death. Nothing can save me, no one will rescue me. He has made certain all the doors are locked - there is no escape - its just us two, my killer and me.

So I rarely sleep in my bed anymore - preferring instead to sleep sitting on my sofa so that at least he will not trap me, I will not wake to his profile in my bedroom door.

NO ONE cares enough for me to save me. How many days will my lifeless cold body lie there before someone comes and finds me?

I don't understand this "trigger" issue. Is something I said left out or what - I don't understand?

[Open Eyes]

Oh, that is done when a moderator thinks something written or talked about may trigger another member. It doesn't mean you are wrong to say something or share, it just means others may be triggered (have a trauma it reminds them of etc.)

Thanks for clearing that up for me - thanks a whole big bunches! One thing I can cross of my list of stuff to figure out.

My flashbacks are often me feeling like I'm back in the moment, kind of like I'm dreaming except I'm awake.
Usually I end up crying and whining. They are usually just visual for me, happening mostly at night when I close my eyes. Sometimes during the day if I close my eyes for an extended period of time. Sometimes happening if I see something, eat something or smell something that subconsciously reminds me of what happened.

[Smellyfinger]

Certain words or situations will trigger me into having a flashback. It's mainly just visual memories and rapid heart rate and breathing.

This happens multiple times a day, since I have many traumatic situations and events that have stuck with me over the years.

I constantly have to change channels when I'm watching tv to try to avoid a trigger because the littlest thing like the right word will set it off.

I had a near death experience in an airplane before. I didn't speak for days after the event. I actually completely forgot about this for a while (repressed it). But it surfaced again about a year ago.
Now every time I see or think of heights or an airplane, I experience a flashback. I actually have many recurring dreams of the event or something similar like this space ship malfunctioning dream I keep having. I wake up sweaty, heart pounding and breathing heavy.

Feels bad. This is actually the first time I've told anyone about it besides my pdoc of course. Anyone else experience a similar thing? It would be nice to know I'm not alone.