****Trigger Warning**** Are body memories only yours?

**** Trigger Warning****
(Mention of sexual abuse and death)


In the past year I have had roughly 10 flashbacks. They are all very vague. Most of the time I can see what’s happening but I can’t see who is doing it or who it’s happening to because I see them as I’m watching from a distance. Like I said they are too vague to make out any faces. My question is about one in particular. I have a flash of two people in a sexual position. This just happens to be a sexual position me and my ex husband used a lot. I never had a flashback about it before and we’ve been divorced for 10 years. There is no fear that I knew of attached to it. When that flashback comes I can feel the muscles in my body go weak like I am literally dying and I can feel it in my extremities sometimes as well. I know what dying feels like because I’ve been near death. When I get panicked and the flashback stops those sensations go away. Can this happen in your body if you witnessed an event only when you were little or does it mean I was in that sexual position and going through sexual trauma? Someone told me they had body sensations with something they only witnessed that was very traumatic. They said there is something called mirror neurons a.k.a empathy neurons. I read up on it but I’m still confused. I would think that any body sensation encoded in you would have to be directly linked to something you experienced.