[Ad Intra]

So I've always struggled with this. I so badly want to tell my therapist what happens but all I can say is "I heard her voice." She thinks it's intrusive thoughts while I disagree. It's like I want to describe what happens but the words can't come out of my mouth.
I'm back there.
I see her. I hear her. She wants to hurt me. It makes my heart race just typing this.

[Open Eyes]

When a flashback happens part of not being able to talk is that our brains store memories in different areas, some of these area do not have language.

If you therapist knows about PTSD she should know what flashbacks are. Maybe you can google it and see if there is a discription that helps you put it into words. YES, when having a flashback the brain/mind is re-experiencing the event as if an individual is experiencing it in the now. Emotional flashbacks are like that too, I experience these myself.

[Semi-depressed]

Originally Posted by Ad Intra

So I've always struggled with this. I so badly want to tell my therapist what happens but all I can say is "I heard her voice." She thinks it's intrusive thoughts while I disagree. It's like I want to describe what happens but the words can't come out of my mouth.
I'm back there.
I see her. I hear her. She wants to hurt me. It makes my heart race just typing this.

I experience Emotional Flashbacks where I can't speak well. For me it is like the English part of the brain is running on overdrive and the logical part shutsdown. I can be mad, but right then I can't tell you that I am, or maybe not even why.

For me, I don't hear a voice, but I feel like I am about to get 'in trouble' and any word or motion to protect myself might set it off.

[Runs with the eagle]

Originally Posted by Ad Intra

So I've always struggled with this. I so badly want to tell my therapist what happens but all I can say is "I heard her voice." She thinks it's intrusive thoughts while I disagree. It's like I want to describe what happens but the words can't come out of my mouth.
I'm back there.
I see her. I hear her. She wants to hurt me. It makes my heart race just typing this.

I agree with you, not only do I have trouble describing situations that happened to me, but I keep them to myself. We have a tendency to hold on to these experiences, I can let them go. Its so hard because it is traumatic. But we have to try and express are feelings and memories and have some sort of catharsis.

[Semi-depressed]

Originally Posted by Semi-depressed

... For me it is like the English part of the brain is running on overdrive and the logical part shutsdown...

I meant Emotional part of my brain, but I think people understood.

Originally Posted by Runs with the eagle

I agree with you, not only do I have trouble describing situations that happened to me, but I keep them to myself. We have a tendency to hold on to these experiences, I can let them go. Its so hard because it is traumatic. But we have to try and express are feelings and memories and have some sort of catharsis.

When you say "keep them to myself" think of how I 'loop' on them and don't let it go. It is like I will be able to find some way to fix or hide it. You are right, talking about it (telling someone how you are feeling) is one quick way to decompress.

[Shaly78]

Visual flashbacks are intrusive also! It is that you are feeling bad about another symptom intrusive thoughts? Yes, it can seem overwhelming to have all of these things wrong with you fear the stigma or thinking your crazy. I guarantee you that your are totally fine. Talk with a peer specialist so that they can also help normalize what your feeling. Can you talk with your intrusive voice and get an answer inside? I'm dissociative identity disorder and PTSD mainly so I truly understand. I didn't learn about a peer specialist until 2015 it would have been a value resource at least with PTSD. I thought I had occasional intrusive thoughts remembering 2010 when my daughter was born. Later on 2012-2013 intrusive thoughts made sense then they got really distinct identities once I understood and meet the rest of us.

[starfruit504]

I know what you mean. My heart rate skyrockets when I'm triggered.

As far as I know, intrusive thoughts refer to uncontrollable thoughts that pop up in an involuntary way. According to some studies, they don't even have to be negative thoughts, they can be neutral and still bothersome. According to Psychcentral, negative intrusive thoughts happen a lot in anxiety disorder and OCD.

What you describe sounds like you're either voluntarily remembering what happened to you or having an involuntary flashback. Personally it's hard for me to distinguish between my remembering and my flashbacks. Trauma and dissociation clouds it up for me.

When I remember things my father used to do, I'm there again too. I'm standing where I stood back then. I'm hearing and feeling everything I felt in that moment - and it's even more painful now because I was so numb and calloused to it back then - and because today I realize how wrong it all was.

I would bring up this issue with your therapist. Let them know how you feel, explain the frustration you told us about. You're the foremost authority on your experience.

[Ad Intra]

Originally Posted by starfruit504

I know what you mean. My heart rate skyrockets when I'm triggered.

As far as I know, intrusive thoughts refer to uncontrollable thoughts that pop up in an involuntary way. According to some studies, they don't even have to be negative thoughts, they can be neutral and still bothersome. According to Psychcentral, negative intrusive thoughts happen a lot in anxiety disorder and OCD.

What you describe sounds like you're either voluntarily remembering what happened to you or having an involuntary flashback. Personally it's hard for me to distinguish between my remembering and my flashbacks. Trauma and dissociation clouds it up for me.

When I remember things my father used to do, I'm there again too. I'm standing where I stood back then. I'm hearing and feeling everything I felt in that moment - and it's even more painful now because I was so numb and calloused to it back then - and because today I realize how wrong it all was.

I would bring up this issue with your therapist. Let them know how you feel, explain the frustration you told us about. You're the foremost authority on your experience.

Frankly I just allow her to believe what ever she wants. It's too painful to correct her and like I've said before there are no words, so I'm stuck.

[Semi-depressed]

Originally Posted by Ad Intra

Frankly I just allow her to believe what ever she wants. It's too painful to correct her and like I've said before there are no words, so I'm stuck.

Honestly, if you have been with your therapist for more than a couple of months, and you can't tell her how you feel about her treatment, then you may need to tell her that you can't be honest with her yet, or just look for another therapist.

Not being able to tell your therapist how you feel (about what she believes) may be indicative of something you have to work on, or a problem with your therapist. Really hard for anyone to be able to know from here. But, it is likely a bit of both.

[LittleLeah]

I struggle with this a lot. I have PTSD for 2 separate traumas. One of them was from when I was a teenager so my memories of that situation are clear and I know when I'm having a flashback for that. And honestly I've found that trauma so much easier to cope with because I remember it. The one that I really struggle with is the severe, chronic abuse that took place when I was 4 and 5. The memories are far less clear and very incomplete. So the flashbacks for those are much harder to explain. They're more emotional and physical. I get an overwhelming sense of feeling extremely vulnerable, confused, and terrified. I also feel small and weak and very much like a child. In fact, my fiancé says I even look like a child when they happen and that I'm unreachable. But sometimes it's straight physical. Like tonight I had shivered and immediately afterwards I whimpered like a little kid. It was completely involuntary and rather shocking. Or I start shaking and my muscles get super tense like I'm being pinned down. The unsettling part is that I have to mental or emotional connection/cause to it so they feel random and hit out of the blue. They're so confusing and I'm learning they are a precursor for a panic attack. When I've tried explaining it to my psychiatrist she just doesn't get it. She keeps asking if when they happen I'm reliving the trauma. I don't know. I think so? I can't remember most of it, I'm just dealing with the aftereffects.

[Fuzzybear]

[ChavInAHat]

Thanks for starting this thread, I am sorry it came from a place of struggling.

This is EXACTLY what I struggle with. I had to write down the incident for my therapist because I couldn't make the words come out. I felt stupid, but it is like there is a block.

I was going to try and discuss this with her, but I already feel less alone and understand more just from reading this thread and the replies.

best wishes

[bddouglas]

Ad Intra,

I completely understand your plight. I never realized I had PTSD because I never had the flashbacks that you see in the movies or that many service members may experience. I experience it all emotionally. It is extremely difficult to explain to anyone, especially since the offending trauma began at a very young age.

I best explain them to my therapist as a deep sadness (a grief for a part of me that had no control or understanding why one person I trusted and loved would reject and hate me and why one person I trusted and loved could hurt me and threaten me) It is an anger, confusion, sadness and yet I know I should heal, forgive, and let judgment befall them in the end. The same with each of my violent ex-husbands.

If your therapist is not helping you move along in your therapy and you feel as though she/he is not understanding how you are trying to express yourself, you should be able to request another therapist.

[TerriLynn]

Trauma is remembered in a separate part of the brain than language, and usually not as a story, but in pieces, flashes, which is why you cannot tell her about them. There is a book I just finished called, The Body Keeps the Score, about trauma, how it is processed and what has to happen for you to be able to process and over come the trauma.