I am wondering whether anyone else has experienced what I do. I don't have visual or auditory flashbacks, but think that I have emotional ones. It is so much a part of my life I never gave much thought to it other than I am very aware that it is automatic. Whenever I feel threatened, even verbally, I feel a "wall" go up inside me and I am automatically defensive. There are many things from my childhood which traumatised me. I also have a lot of mini panic attacks at the mention of sexual or physical abuse, like it is a threat to me. This is happening a lot since I started therapy.

Around the age of 8 I was sexually and physically abused but then verbally abused for years. I have mostly buried the sexual abuse, and when I do think of it I float on the ceiling watching what is happening. There are no emotions attached to this, it's like it's not me. The perpetrator was a known pedophile outside the family. When my father found out where I had been going he beat me so much I had welts all over my body, bruising and more. My mother didn't speak to me for three days. I was later sent to boarding school for three years, during which time my sister died.