Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group

I carried forgetting into full amnesia and it did allot more harm than good. I don't try for that one any more. I have come to appreciate the value of memory processing, warts and all.

To keep a flashback from taking over my psyche, I focus on objectivity. I remind myself it is just a memory. I let it do its thing and work on just staying calm and observing whatever it might have to teach me. No easy task, but it seems to be working. Maybe. Prayers ongoing...

Hugs, bibiane. Sometimes a bruise needs to get worse before it can get better. Easy does it. Heal with care.

But I want them gone yesterday! I can't take them anymore. they're ruining my life and my sanity. Prayers don't help. I tried. He does not listen to me. How can I heal? I'm damaged not sick.

I stay the course . . . I'm flooded right now and I know I am not even able to sort through it all and identify the triggers - they're too many right now. I've said before, it's like drowning in three feet of water and after I've just about drowned everyone I can grab onto, they're choking and sputtering - I'm gasping . . do I realize I can stand up. Then when I am on my feet and have steadied, I let the triggers identify themselves. When I'm in that panicked drowning place, there's no identifying them.

I am currently investigating my flashbacks for info into my past so I have to not only let them play out but observe them carefully.......not for those not in treatment with a very skilled therapist!

But even I can't take them at times and have to slow the process without stopping them but this might help to stop them as well.

First, if you have a psychiatrist working with you as well as a therapist, ask about taking a beta blocker drug. The drug Prazosin is known to help stop flashbacks as well as the resulting panic attacks and nightmares. It is a blood pressure drug. If you are on any blood pressure drugs, then ask your primary care doc if you can switch to a beta blocker and it should help your BP and your flashbacks.

But what really helps me is to focus on my body's reaction. I can't stop the brain from discharging these memories but I can watch my body's reaction and try to control it. I slow my breathing down...taking deep slow breathes. I put myself into a comfortable position so that my muscles can relax(for me that means lying down as I have a bad neck). I continue deep breathing and then monitor my pulse and try to tell my heart to slow down. I practice muscle relaxing exercises like tighten a group of muscles like my legs...hold it...then relax and try to feel the muscles relax. I just keep doing this...relaxing, deep slow breathing and watching for signs my heart is slowing down by focusing on my pulse....and sooner or later, I relax. And because I've been focusing on my body instead of the flashback, the flashback tends to go away or diminish.

Controlling flashbacks is all about distracting yourself from the flashback and for me, by focusing on my body's reaction, it helps to stop the panic attack that often follows them....so I kill 2 birds with 1 stone. But you need to distract your brain with something.

But since you are drowning in them right now, my best suggestion is to try the meds that have proven benefit with PTSD nightmares and flashbacks and that is Prazosin(generic for Minipress). Any GP should be able to order it and since it's a generic, it's fairly cheap. That should give you the chance to get a breather and then work on the distraction methods for controlling them later when they return(and they always return).

Hope this helps.............Jenny

I try to get in a quiet place. If it happens at work, I go into a bathroom stall. Then I breathe deeply and as I am breathing I am repeating in my head (breathe in) "this will pass" (breathe out) "you are safe now" and I do that over and over until it really does pass-it can take as long as 20 minutes for me to feel OK again, but usually it is shorter than that. It really does work for me. I hope it helps you.

I agree with 51percent. I always examine mine because I want to know and remember more about myself. I think it's important to make sure you find some way around your home to be grounded. Some tactile way, if necessary, to help you remember you're not in your past, it's now and now you're safe.

Flashbacks are painful but I think they're good as far as healing goes. I think the more we remember, the less toxicity we have stuffed inside.

Thanks Paige... I think you're right. People tell me to try to think about something else and avoid the flashbacks but I can't so I think that if I can get through them as often as they come then I should be able to get past them... Right???

Actually, getting through a flashback may not help you at all.

A flashback is merely that, a single picture of something that happened that makes you trigger into a panic attack. But that does not mean it's true, or real or what you need to deal with.

The following may be triggering:

Example...I wrote about my suicide attempt at age 4(the Children and Suicide thread)....that was a major flashback for me. For years, I saw myself walking into the waves with the intent of drowning myself. Scary and depressing. But only when I worked with my therapist did I finally remember that what preceded that was an episode where my father had hit me in the face and broken my nose and given me black eyes on my 4th birthday. My mother basically cared more about the fact I was bleeding on my clothes than the fact that I was hurt. And then things got really bad and my father tried to rape me.

That was the trauma but the link to that trauma was the flashback of trying to drown myself.

So a flashback can be a link to a trauma or what was going on underneath the flashback and not necessarily what the brain saw as the real trauma. What my brain saw as the real trauma with everything that happened that day was that no one picked me up and comforted me...I was ignored, abandoned.

I find that flashbacks keep happening when you don't address what it's really about.

That has been my personal experience but it has been repeated over and over and over again as I've gotten back the real traumas that were under the flashbacks.

Jenny

Thank you for your replies 51percent. I do think I know what traumas are underneath the flashbacks but that is exactly why I don't want to face them... I do not want to relive everything over and over again. I just wish they would stop altogether. I know it is just a memory but it feels so real Arfie. Sometimes I can let it do its thing but not when my sons are around or if I have company... I need to leave the room and breathe through it or cry through it... Not fun at all! And so not practical...

I like to think that I don't handle them all that well. I just shut up and try to day dream about something else. Cause it seems to pop up a lot more frequently lately. :s