written 5 August 2021
The bewildering experience of emotional flashbacks
Pete Walker talks about a phenomenon that he says people with complex-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder experience called “emotional flashbacks.” I understand them this way: when my brain perceives danger in the present world (which it was conditioned to do almost constantly by years of group indoctrination), my body defaults into the same cascade of emotions and thoughts as I experienced back in childhood – when my reality wasn't safe and there was supposedly danger in everything. This is a reliving of emotions; not a reliving of events.
What is so bewildering about these flashbacks is that there is no memory of a past event to attach them to. There's nothing to clue you into what initially traumatized you.1 Also, there are no sights, sounds, or sensations to let you know you're reenacting a memory, something that happened in the past, and that the danger isn't real now. You just feel disproportionately scared or small or lost in that moment, and you don't get why your emotional cascade is so intense compared to the triggering situation.
The most practical tool to use when I'm in a flashback is ask myself if I might be having a flashback. Sometimes this is easy; sometimes it's hard. I typically default to one of three reactions when faced with danger: I attempt to flee, and as that usually isn't practical or a constructive response to situations, I will then freeze. I become as stone-faced as possible in order to not provoke further reaction by facial expression. I also fawn, which means I want to do whatever possible to make the threat go away or stop or target something or someone else, even at the cost of my own personal feelings and rights in a situation.
Conflict, or the mere threat of it (which I was protected from and taught to avoid in childhood) sends me into this cascade quicker than anything else. I have to do serious self-coaching and compassionate self-parenting to remind myself of the following:
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I am safe now.
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I'm an adult now, not a powerless child.
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I'm with somebody who loves me and whom I love.
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I know even when we are angry with each other, we have always worked it out or resolved it or dealt with it somehow.
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I have resources and choices available to me that I didn't have before.
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I can choose to do what I want where I couldn't before.
Sometimes I have to realize where I am and when I am to “wake up” to what's going on. To do this, I notice the sounds and sensations of my current life – what I'm touching, what I'm hearing that lets me know I'm living differently than I did then.
Whew, this is turning out to be a really intense subject for me. I hope to come back to it later.
Notes:
- This was the most frustrating thing for me when I first started exploring my challenges. I remember doing some EMDR (remember, I didn't believe the Bible regarding GOD's present-day healing power, so I sought out all sorts of alternative help apart from Him) with a counselor, and being asked, "When was the first time you felt that way?" I had no answer. I could attach my feelings to exactly zero significant events. It made me question whether something was actually going on or not. So bewildering! And frustrating.