Hi Sasha, I found your post fascinating, and I profited from reading it. Something similar occurred to me this week. The thing is, I haven't had any memories of my childhood day-to-day life. I knew the facts, but I had only a scant handful of actual memories. (Ironically, I have quite a few memories of when I was very little.)
I had an emotional flashback today, and it scared me. Then I thought: "Wait - this is what it was like. This is what I felt like back then. Finally, some information on what life was like." Looking at it like this brought the distress down. It made it feel less like "ARGH LIFE IS HORRIBLE AND SO AM I" and more like "this is what I'm grieving about." It still felt like real, actual grief - as if somebody had died. But it was doable. Perhaps the mere shift into seeing this as accurate information about the past and not the present helped.
I had an emotional flashback today, and it scared me. Then I thought: "Wait - this is what it was like. This is what I felt like back then. Finally, some information on what life was like." Looking at it like this brought the distress down. It made it feel less like "ARGH LIFE IS HORRIBLE AND SO AM I" and more like "this is what I'm grieving about." It still felt like real, actual grief - as if somebody had died. But it was doable. Perhaps the mere shift into seeing this as accurate information about the past and not the present helped.