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Hi Sunshine,

I can't give any advice because I am trying to work out how to deal with the exact same problem myself. I wanted to thank you for sharing because now I know I am not alone with feeling this way sometimes - and you are not alone either.

Hugs if you want them, 
Morelia

PS: I love your little bird avatar.

Morelia,
I did low fodmap and still had problems.  Turns out eggs are a problem for me and they are in low fodmap! I should always eat better and exercise more... but too much fiber causes me problems as well. 

I honestly think i keep tension in my stomach and that can be a huge problem for me.

I'm sorry it didn't work so well for you. I think I could have issues with certain low-FODMAP foods as well. I'll be asking my dietician about that, and also asking my doctor about a referral to an allergist/immunologist to find out if I'm actually allergic to something. But isn't it a frustrating experience trying to work out what's actually causing the problem!

I completely understand what you mean about keeping tension in your stomach. I'm pretty sure I do the same.

I'm trying the low-FODMAP diet now. It really has helped. It turns out I'm lactose intolerant, but there's at least one other thing in the high-FODMAP group that's causing issues and my dietician and I haven't been able to identify it yet. I'm working on it.

I totally recommend that anyone diagnosed with IBS try it. After years of complaining to doctors and hearing, "Eat more fibre, drink more fluids and exercise regularly, and if that doesn't work, tough, there's nothing else I can do," it's wonderful to find something that actually does provide relief.

Up until recently, the whole thing. I didn't realise I had CPTSD until about a year and a half ago and I'm only just starting to unravel it all. Some of the most hidden:

Emotional flashbacks: When I began to suspect I had CPTSD I kept dismissing it because I thought I didn't get EFs. When I learned to identify them, ho boy - turns out I get EFs all the damned time.

Mysterious gut issues?: I have had what doctors have called irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) since I was a teen. There seems to be no obvious explanation for it. It seems to be partly related to food intolerances but I bet there's a psychological component too. The thing is, they hurt and I'm always hiding it.

Like sanmagic7, I get constant tension, dissociation, foggy brain and difficulty dealing with the smallest amount of stress. Also anxiety. Lots of anxiety.

Speech: I do the word swap thing too!

Difficulties interacting with people: Part of this probably my autism, but the CPTSD doesn't help, especially when people so often trigger my EFs.

Touch: Yep, I hate being touched too. I don't panic, but I don't find it pleasant. I try to avoid handshakes - carrying a lot of stuff can work well here. This could also be autism rather than CPTSD.

I relate to this one so much! In my case I don't know if it's a CPTSD thing or not. All I know is I hate unannounced visitors. If they can't see that I'm home from the door I have been known to hide and keep quiet until they go away. In my country you can get a sign printed by a consumer organisation that tells salespeople not to knock, and if they disobey the law can slap them with big fines - I have one of those too. The other thing I do to protect myself is provide most people with a PO Box. Very few people know my physical address. The people that do have it respect my wish not to come unannounced.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to feel that way. It might be a bit on the odd end for people who thrive on the chaos and spontaneity of random visitors, but to me it's a reasonable boundary.

CPTSD (or as he says developmental trauma) can present with these seemingly unrelated dreams. because the trauma doesn't consist of one concrete incident, the dreams can't replay the experience directly, but often there will be a pattern in the emotional tone of the dreams. for example, consistently feeling lost, helpless, or alone in your dreams. do you remember any of the emotions from your dreams? no need to tell me ofc just thinking this might be a helpful way for you to think about dreams you can't remember.

Hi Miaoue: That's helpful information from your T, thank you. I will try to remember the events and feelings in the dreams as you've suggested and see if there is a pattern. I'm going to try to find a therapist who specialises in CPTSD this year so hopefully I can start working through it with a professional, too.

Hi Rainagain: I've never had the sea on fire that I can remember, but it sounds familiar in the sense that I get stuff that's similarly intense. I also get weird dreams during my rare daytime naps. Nonetheless, napping does help me feel better when I'm really sleep-deprived.

Hi,

For many years I have had stressful dreams. I wake up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding and my stomach churning. (I can't be sure whether the dreams are causing the stomach/digestive discomfort or vice versa.) The dreams themselves usually evaporate soon after I wake up and I very rarely remember the details. It can take me a little while to calm down enough to go back to sleep. Deep breathing and reading helps. The dreams can be tense or uncomfortable, but not necessarily scary. It's very much like being a character in a movie, going through the story as it happens. Sometimes I want to stay in the dream so I can find out what happens. That's fun here and there, but I wish it didn't happen quite so often as it doesn't result in a refreshed Morelia the next morning.

Does or has anyone else experienced this? How did you deal with it? Did it become less frequent after being treated for CPTSD?

Thanks, Ah and Gwyon. I'm both glad and sorry that I'm not alone. It makes it difficult to get close to people when your first response to a new person is that they're dangerous until proven otherwise - and it's a gut feeling so ingrained that you can't simply talk yourself out of it. My experience is that most people don't stick around long enough for me to trust them enough.

Ah: Yes! I didn't notice it for so long because it was my normal. In my case I'm not sure if it gives me the power to accurately detect the truly dangerous because I think my spider sense is way too oversensitive. While I'm probably detecting unsafe people I'm probably also catching too many innocent people in my net. Now that I've recognised what's going on, maybe I can hone it - it's certainly a useful skill to have.

Anyway, in the last year or so I've gone from not being able to recognise emotional flashbacks at all to realising I have quite a few of them. I suppose you could call that progress. 

Thanks for your comment and support, Sanmagic7. I have the same thing you do when writing contributions here and on other forums. I've written so many replies that I've deleted and when I am brave enough to hit "post", I can stew in anxiety until I know how it's being received. I'm trying to get braver, while not overdoing it. My philosophy is that it's okay to take it slowly, as long as I am making progress overall. Fortunately we have places like this one, which are pretty safe to test the waters.

Many thanks to you, too, Hope67. Your post makes complete sense. I certainly understand being uncomfortable about being asked "dangerous" questions, as I experience the same thing myself. People asking the "getting to know you" questions are unknowingly walking through a minefield. For example, I am very guarded about revealing my tastes in books, music, TV and movies because I was often criticised for my interests as a child. I try to answer those questions these days but I'm always cringing internally, waiting for the ridicule. And heaven forbid they ask about my family. 

It is exhausting being like this, but you're right: one positive interaction provides courage to face the next one. Reasonable people are quite nice and forgiving of mistakes, and there are quite a few of them out there.

I think I'm having low-level emotional flashbacks nearly every time I interact with other people. The flashbacks are not obvious and therefore hard to describe - and catch! For example, I worry that I'm bothering someone or that I'll be met with a negative response if I express an idea. I fear my needs and wants are not important and if I state them out loud I'll be ridiculed. These little moments are accompanied by a surge of anxiety.

I realised this could be happening when I had an informal meeting with someone, where I suggested that I wanted to try a particular project that's a bit "out there" for me. This someone is a safe person, and I know that intellectually, yet the rest of me was waiting for him to pour scorn on the idea or outright laugh at me. When he said "Yeah, yeah, that's a great idea!" and ran with it I was so surprised it felt like the world lurched sideways for a moment. His response was all positive and I think he was even a bit proud of me. It made me realise how skewed my inbuilt expectations are.

If it's true it would explain why anxiety is pretty much my constant companion, alleviated greatly, but not entirely, when I go home and shut the door behind me. It would also explain why I struggled to cope with flatmates when I had them.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? How did you deal with it?

Hi Morelia 

Just wanted to say that CBT does help a lot, during, after and before an EF. It can help you recognize the triggers and develop better coping skills. It doesn't take away the EFs but helps minimize them.

This has been my experience.

The brain has plasticity, it can learn new ways to work the neurotransmiters, a good CBT therapist works with this.

Best of luck! 

Hi Blackbird,

Thanks. I think CBT is likely to be more helpful know that I understand what's going on. I'm in the process of trying to find a therapist who knows about CPTSD and trauma.

i've only recently discovered that many times my ef's take the form of feeling paralyzed.

Hi Sanmagic7,

Thanks for sharing your examples. When you say you feel paralysed, how exactly does this manifest?

these types of ef's where i feel paralyzed usually are shorter in duration, a day or two.  however, last year i also experienced one that lasted about 8 months.  that was horrible.

Eight months - that sounds like a nightmare. I hope you've developed some coping techniques to halt the EFs in their tracks.

I think by persistence, they mean that no matter what we do to try to avoid EF's, we continue to experience them. EF's are not caused by our beliefs or by the way we think. They are physical reactions within the brain itself - not just the mind - in response to stimuli.

Three Roses, thank you, that makes sense. If I'm having automatic responses to certain stimuli that I can't control, I wonder if that would at least partially explain why CBT hasn't really worked for me? 

I am just starting to figure this out too!  It can be so confusing as I appear to process the EF's in multiple ways.

Hello, Healing Finally. Thank you for sharing your experiences. Even though I wish we didn't have to experience any of this stuff, I am finding a lot of power and relief in starting to figure it out. I hope you are too.

1) I now understand the feelings I get when I've been triggered into an EF; it's when all of a sudden I get paralyzed with that flight/fight feeling, loose all my confidence, feel cornered, misunderstood, invisible, and helpless.  I them deal with lots of internal anguish, confusion, and desire to immediately remove myself completely from the situation.

A lot of this sounds familiar too. I'm sure I've been down that road before. It seems weird to me now that I don't remember many examples. Before I knew about CPTSD I always shrugged them off. I don't know why. Maybe I thought it was typical anxiety or something I couldn't do anything about. Now that I've got a framework to put them in, that seems ridiculous.

2) I now understand the longer term EFs, as these can lurk within me for long periods of time.  If I find my brain defaults to an anguished state when I'm not thinking about something else, then I know I'm dealing with an EF.

That's a good way to describe it. I'll have to look out for something similar. I do have an experience from late last year where I made the mistake of reading an advice column about a toxic mother and found myself completely disagreeing with the advice. It triggered off some frighteningly intense internal anger at my own uPD mother that would regularly flare up for about a month. I don't know if that counts as an EF though.

Good luck with your new discoveries.  It's been tough for me to a) recognize them, b) acknowledge them c) know what to do next.  I so much appreciate all the feedback and knowledge I receive on this forum. 

Good luck yourself. I've only been here a short time, but I totally agree with you about how helpful the forum is. Thank you to those who run the site and all who contribute.

Hi Three Roses,

Thanks for all the info.

Emotional flashbacks, or "amygdala hijacks," seem to be the main hurdle most of us have in dealing with cptsd. They can transport us involuntarily in an instant to a state of being consumed by panic, or anger, or feeling helpless. They can make us feel small and at the mercy of the whims of our fellow humans. They can fill us with rage, make us feel frozen or send us into a codependent "let me help you" reaction. Or, we feel in imminent overpowering danger and find ourselves running from the stimulus, either in our imaginations or in reality.

This is an interesting paragraph. A lot of those feelings sound very familiar, it's just that I haven't flagged them as EFs yet. A couple of possible candidates come to mind. If someone is getting angry I have the frantic urge to placate them. If I have to ask someone for help or assert myself I struggle with a mix of uncomfortable emotions that I haven't ever attempted to describe before. I'll have to pay more attention next time it happens, but I suspect some of the emotions described above will feature.

It's no wonder I feel drained interacting with people. EFs or not, they're energy suckers.

"Those two characteristics - intensity and persistence - are the clues we need to look for, clues that can tell us we are experiencing a flashback."

Does persistence mean "recurring"? For example, if I have the same strong emotional response to the same kinds of triggers, is that what they mean?

I too have had struggles identifying what a flashback is .. my sponsor suggested I keep a notebook with experiences and dates in and this is really helping me to see what I do experience ...

Thank you for describing your personal experiences, Boatsetsailrose. That is a great idea.

I've also learnt some grounding and containing techniques from a body worker and some cognitive things which help e.g. A-z game ( naming things a-z such as boys names helps get back into the rational brain and out of emotional brain ..
I have been able to arrest flashback and that is so good to be able to control getting back into control ...
Saying also to myself 'I am safe, this is happening because of the past but the past is not here now

These are also good ideas. I am trying to find a therapist who deals with CPTSD at the moment so I can get some professional guidance. These things will help in the meantime.

Hi,

I am new to the idea that I might have CPTSD. I've read a bit about emotional flashbacks, including the stuff on Pete Walker's website. With my newfound knowledge I think I've identified one kind of EF I experience. It's always very quick, so quick that I'd previously dismissed it as an overreaction. Last time it happened it was triggered by a loud voice and resulted in a pounding heart, a hot, flushed face and an intense feeling of possibly panic that caused me to freeze. I think it was only a couple of minutes long, five minutes at most before the feeling started fading. Even though it was short, it was a totally disproportionate reaction. The person who owns the voice is a safe person. I like him. He wasn't even yelling, just joking around. There is no reason I should be afraid of him.

So I'm pretty sure that's an EF, although I'd appreciate confirmation (or dissent). But after reading some of the forum posts, I wonder if I get longer EFs as well that I haven't identified yet. Can you please describe how EFs manifest for you?

Thank you.

Hi,

I came to this forum and to CPTSD the long way around. I had a traumatic childhood (in short, I have a parent whose behaviour was highly damaging to me; I lived in a household full of tension due to my parents' toxic marriage; and I experienced bullying/nasty teasing/ostracism at school). I don't remember a lot of it and brushed it aside for many years, unaware of or unwilling to face how much it had affected me. I couldn't even acknowledge that I'd suffered childhood trauma because it sounded (and still sounds, to be honest) so overdramatic to me.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's about six years ago, which rings true and explains a lot about my life (including why I had such a hard time with the social side of school). However, I began to realise it might not be the complete story when I came across CPTSD. A lot of my quirks that I'd been ascribing to autism actually fit the diagnostic criteria for CPTSD. The only thing I wasn't sure about was the emotional flashbacks. I couldn't remember ever having had one.

A couple of weeks ago someone's loud voice triggered a strong response in me: my heart started pounding hard, my face got hot and flushed and I experienced a white hot burst of panic. It only lasted a couple of minutes, but as it began to fade and my rational mind came back I thought, "Well, damn." It fit the bill for an EF. It was totally disproportionate to the situation, as the person who was talking is in no way dangerous, and I'm pretty sure I know what the origin is. What's more, I recognised the sensation. I realised I'd experienced it a lot of times before, only I hadn't been able to name it so I'd shrugged it off as another of those weird quirks.

I'm now pursuing a diagnosis so that I can get the treatment I need to get my life on track. While I do all that I'm going to hang around here. I don't know how much I'll post, but I'll be lurking and learning, at least while I sort this stuff out.