Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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Any information regarding how to deal with, minimize (etc.) flashbacks would be greatly appreciated. Having a lot. It's weird, I don't know much about how our thoughts work. Like I think I have memories all the time, even neutral ones (triggered by random things). I think I have them to a weird degree, maybe because I think too much about the past in general (rather than being in the present and forward-thinking). But with flashbacks (with the traumatic memories coming up suddenly), these particular memories always stop me and cause quite a lull with my brain. Indeed, re-experiencing the trauma to some degree. They are SO much harder to come back from--that is to bring my mind back to what I am doing and the fact that I am safe in the present. Sometimes I have them really often, so it makes focusing and accomplishing a task hard and long. I almost feel like, with the way my mind just freezes when the flashback comes up and is hard to get away from it, that my mind is trying to resolve something. I'm not sure. But maybe questions like, Wait--did that really happen? Wow. Ohh ya. (Dread.) I think our minds are probably trying to evaluate if it's about to happen again (due to the trigger that caused the flashback). I don't know a lot about PTSD and recovery from it, but from what I've heard, I think mentally (and maybe emotionally) "resolving" and coming to terms with the trauma is part of it.
I do live with the fear that traumatic things that have happened to me before may happen again (because they could). When I am having frequent flashbacks, I get increasingly stuck in that fear.
I have also noticed, for a very long time now, that mood and general mode of thinking at a given time SEems to have a big impact on whether or not (or how much) flashbacks occur. Like, if I am feeling terrible and scared, I will have a lot more. Often if I am having fun or feeling great, I will have few or none.
However, I just wonder if there is something I can do to really resolve and come to terms with my past traumas so that they stop (or lessen) haunting me, make it difficult for me to function, and freeze me in fear so that I do not do all I can to be prepared for and prevent future traumas, while focusing on all the positive possibilities in life.
I do live with the fear that traumatic things that have happened to me before may happen again (because they could). When I am having frequent flashbacks, I get increasingly stuck in that fear.
I have also noticed, for a very long time now, that mood and general mode of thinking at a given time SEems to have a big impact on whether or not (or how much) flashbacks occur. Like, if I am feeling terrible and scared, I will have a lot more. Often if I am having fun or feeling great, I will have few or none.
However, I just wonder if there is something I can do to really resolve and come to terms with my past traumas so that they stop (or lessen) haunting me, make it difficult for me to function, and freeze me in fear so that I do not do all I can to be prepared for and prevent future traumas, while focusing on all the positive possibilities in life.
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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First, I hope everyone is doing well, and continuing to fight that good fight! Keep up the great work on yourselves; I'm rooting for all of you!So, I started doing therapy at the beginning of the year, when I was in my most depressed state, but with my therapist, I made big changes and steps in the right direction. But, over a month ago, she couldn't take my insurance anymore, and I had to stop...
Once I achieve the simplicity, I often find I had the solution all along.
As for being to resolve traumas, as you put it, if only we knew how to do that and quickly. It doesn't seem to be easily attained, at least not in my experience, and I've had good years of therapy and medication trying. It's gotten better, but I've come to a personal understanding for me as an individual that flashbacks are with me as much as surviving is.
It doesn't mean I like them or minimize them and that I'm not bothered by them. It just seems that having repressed my fear in the moments of my traumas over years so I could do what I did to survive, the price I pay now is that those fears resurface now in my safe world. It's taught me that emotions go somewhere. They don't just evaporate, no matter how much we may pretend that they do.
So I try and take care of business in my present, since I have a debt to the past I continually pay. Sorry if that's not comforting, but at least you know you're not alone and your eloquence about flashbacks is appreciated by someone who has them.