hallucination or flashback?

I was trying to explain to someone my flashbacks (PTSD)
but when I googled information on flashbacks, it said somethign like,


when I have flashbacks I can't tell it's a flashback until it's over. I can feel all of those things, I can hear my rapist's voice, I can see his face and I can feel his hands but I can't tell its not real until its over and I am back to real life

Also sometimes I hear him sayin things he has never said to me ever
are these not really flashbacks, but actually hallucinations?

There seems to be some debate about how this is classified. I know that a person with no known disorders or illness except for PTSD can have psychosis as a result of PTSD. Depending on the school of thought believed by the diagnostician the visual, tactile, an auditory representations of the previous traumatic event, or representations bearing a resemblance to the situation may or may not be classed that way.

I found this article on the subject to be very interesting as it deals directly with this question among others of interest to those like us.

https://www.madinamerica.com/2014/08...-dissociation/

my psychosis*** is from PTSD. ive had flashbacks but have known they were not real, even though the experience is still scary and vivid. my voices seem to be related to my trauma

I don't think its either/or. I mean, a psychiatrist would probably (based on the shrinks I've dealt with, anyway...) pick one. There's a good bit of research that shows a high rate of trauma amongst those with "severe mental illness," especially in the "Schizophrenia" category.

From a treatment perspective...well, for me, a depression drug (Wellbutrin) at a high dose did the trick. Its not an SSRI, SNRI, or TCA. The adverse effect profile is different. Less apathy, usually no sexual side effects.

The neuroleptics/tranquilizers/antipsychotics only take you so far. Increasing the dose beyond a certain point may or may not help...it definitely increases adverse effects for a lot of people.

Sedatives--benzodiazepines, gabapentin, the new super neurontin (Lyrica), even hydroxyzine--can help with some of the problems resulting from trauma. I personally wouldn't take a benzodiazepine long term, but...that's from personal experience.

Talking treatments can help, if you can find a good counselor or therapist or psychologist. Writing has helped me, and its free, more or less. The visual arts have proven beneficial for a lot of people.

Exercise, if you can. Proper nutrition goes a long way, too. I take supplements (Orthomolecular), and those have reduced the adverse effects from my prescribed drugs (including a high dose of Abilify) down to more or less 0. I also think I get more mileage out of the drugs, and I'm calmer.

Prayer helps me. I don't consider it "therapeutic," because I believe in Jesus, and I think He really does help people.

Sorry this is happening. My personal advice would be to try to avoid self-diagnosis and categorization, if you can. The DSM and ICD are there mostly for billing purposes and also to guide treatment, which these days ((for most of us)) is focused on drugs, sometimes shock treatments, rarely operations. I find that the less I think of myself as "Bipolar I" (my current, official label) or "Schizophrenic" (the other label, from years past...), the better able I am to just...live.

I hope things get better for you.

I think I have something I call ''traumatic schizophrenia, dissociative schizophrenia, schizophrenic C-PTSD'', my dissociation mix with my psychosis and in the end it's a flashback with a psychosis component.

That brings up another question I have, nocter

Can schizophrenia be caused by trauma?

I think so. I read on the Mad In America site that back in the day, when some psychiatrists tried talking treatments with those labeled "Schizophrenic," they (mostly psychoanalysts, I think...) found a strong element of prolonged terror contributing to the psychosis.

If you look at it...well, "Schizophrenia" isn't exactly the highest quality diagnosis. You can be Schizophrenic if you're agitated and over-emotional, or un(der)-emotional and underactive. Schizophrenia "overlaps" with some forms of Bipolar I (my current, official diagnosis) because Schizophrenia is a very broad diagnosis. I think this is why there are so many different outcomes in "Schizophrenia"; we're not all dealing with the same problem(s), but we have the same label, more or less.

But, yeah...low status, oppression, stigma, and high pressure and terror definitely played a big roll in my own descent into madness. So, I vote "yes" for life causing Schizophrenia, in some people.

Of course.

Your blunted affect, asociality, and negative symptoms in general is from neglect and emotional abuse.
Your paranoia and delusion from knowing you will be abused at any time, so you have to be hypervigilant to avoid it, abuse can be so unpredictable, incoherent -I beat you because I ran out of coffee- so you can get bizzarre delusions, or paranoid resemble the abuser -the police is following me and is going to hurt me-.
Your hallucination from fear of the abuser -insults, threats, ...- or from self-comfort imaginary friends that at some point becomes real because of all the stress.

The stress 'deform' all of this experiences so you react also with situation that are not directly related with abuse. People with C-PTSD and PTSD only react to situation that are directly related to abuse because they brain didn't 'blow up' from the abuse to the point of breaking with reality. While other people get DID to avoid breaking conntact with reality.