"Positive" Flashbacks?

[Dante]

I experience my share of negative emotional flashbacks.  Sometimes my spouse's moods (who is another survivor) really kick them off in me and then we spiral around each other until we can find a way to break the cycle.  Other things trigger me as well, and I'm learning to recognize when I'm in an EF and to be gentle with myself until it passes.  Much of this past year between lockdown and a toxic work environment has had me locked in a continual flashback (and is what I think caused this perpetual choking sensation I have).  Ironically, I understand those enough now that my question isn't about that.

Does anyone experience "positive flashbacks"?  What I mean by that is that I get the same level of intensity as a negative flashback, but I sometimes flashback to something positive that's happened in my life.  It's like I'm reliving it.  (Some of my compulsiveness has been to try to trigger a "positive" flashback, by doing something that was soothing at the time - in fact, I spend long periods of time obsessively trying to recreate a positive feeling I've had in the past).  The feeling I'm usually left with after it's over is a sense of loss and emptiness, like something was good once, but no longer is.  Or something's missing that once was there.  So they're not really "positive" flashbacks after all, because they feelings they leave behind aren't positive, but they aren't the typical I'm-feeling-like-my-soul's-being-sucked-out-and-eaten-as-this-person-screams-at-me-and-tells-me-what-a-loser-I-am EFs either.

I haven't read anything about this in anything I've seen so far, so I'm curious about others' experiences.  Thanks for any thoughts you might have.

[rainydiary]

Dante, I have not thought about things this way before but what you write resonates with me. 

I notice that a lot of my past positive experiences are imbued with sadness and loss because they were so fleeting and I didn't/don't feel I deserve them. 

A lot of my work of late has been allowing myself to feel good/positive.  When I start to relax or feel good, my brain tends to kick into EFs or anxiety. 

I am also trying to appreciate feeling all range of emotions/feelings because we feel each thing so that we can compare/contrast it with others. 

[Hope67]

Hi Dante,
I experienced what I thought was a positive flashback today - it was whilst I was walking, and I felt as if a younger and enthusiastic part of me was there too, enjoying the experience.  I really felt good that she was there with me.  I also experienced a similar thing once whilst I was showering, and heard part of myself giggle at the joy of the soap suds.  It was very intense and fleeting but it was really nice at the same time.
Hope 

[Bach]

I've had these.  I too struggle with being triggered by feeling good, and am working on learning how to make it safe for all my little girls to relax and enjoy what there is to enjoy.  It's a tricky balance between that and being too persistent in encouraging them to relax.  That backfires.

[bluepalm]

Dante, I have had one strong positive emotional flashback in my life, the memory of which I still treasure. My father used to take my brother out with him when he went places and I was always left at home with my mother. I ached to be taken out too. Well one day it happened. It was the only time my father ever took me anywhere with him in my entire childhood.

We drove to a spot on a river and he and my brother fished in the river.  I had nothing to do but run around on the bank of the river by myself but the feeling I experienced while doing that, because my father had taken me out with him, was absolutely out of this world happiness. It was amazing to me. It was like a glimpse into a world I had not previously known existed.

And it was the only time in my life I have ever felt that feeling except that, for perhaps 25 years after that, each time I drove past that river, along a stretch of road perhaps 50 metres long, an echo of that out of this world happiness returned to me for that instant. Slowly it faded over the years and now it's a memory and I can no longer conjure up the feeling. I'm sure that was a 'positive flashback' and I'm truly glad I experienced it on and off as I passed that spot for so many years.

[Dante]

Thank you all for sharing.  I'm still learning and trying to figure out what's "normal" about this beast.  I get these strong flashbacks of some past time where something was good, but then I get sad.  Two things that rainydiary wrote really resonated for me:

"I notice that a lot of my past positive experiences are imbued with sadness and loss because they were so fleeting and I didn't/don't feel I deserve them." - Exactly, or because I miss them.  I felt good once and I want to feel good again, but I only remember the feeling good and then miss that I don't. 

A lot of my work of late has been allowing myself to feel good/positive.  When I start to relax or feel good, my brain tends to kick into EFs or anxiety.   - Oh my gosh, yes.  I started noticing a few years back that hope was the biggest trigger of all for me.  Whenever I started to feel hopeful, I would have an absolute panic attack and deliberately sabotage just to get past that awful hope...

..and no offense to you Hope67, and thank you for sharing.  Your experience of feeling a younger, enthusiastic part of you I think describes it well.  It's almost like I'm in a time machine and I actually feel years younger, like an alternative reality me.

bluepalm, I'm glad that you found some joy in your positive flashback.  I've never found any in mine, they're disruptive even though the memory is about something positive.

Thank you Bach, that's it exactly.  Relax is not something I've learned how to do yet.

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.

[woodsgnome]

I've been re-reading this thoughtful thread and it keeps churning around in my current state of mind.

That state has been long in forming, but it involves injecting a cross-pattern, or alternative twist I'm learning to put on the flashbacks. To begin, I simply rarely have any 'positive' flashbacks per se; and if I do, a negative one can easily sidle in and rob me of any chance at just savouring the positive moment. To me, this sort of reaction falls entirely into the realm of the internal critic, stemming also from the natural cptsd symptom of hyper-vigilance.

Well, okay, I accept that. But whatever the direct cause (therapy, reading, etc.) I've sensed at least one simple change -- yes, the negatives float up to the top, but at some point I'm more often seeing the positives in the negatives.

One example -- I was subjected to awful stuff in a religious school I attended. I even 'excused' some of it as being my fault, as I didn't fully know yet the right way to be, and they did (they even said they did!   ). Now I know better, but now I can begin to realize that their awfulness set me on the path to find what was wrong with them (lots!) and their outlook, not mine.

Plus I began to hear, despite the negativity, what my heart had to say, not their charade. Their actions were just too abysmal to accept as being valid or honourable to what they said they were about.

I've been able to shift perspective on many aspects of what happened then. It definitely made me more discerning to the point where I live a very spiritual existence (which they thought they had exclusive dibs on), in spite of them. What I'm calling spiritual experience, though, admittedly came about at least partially due to what horrid examples they were. The negative, seen in that light, doesn't excuse anything, neither does it forgive; it just adjusts to a more comfortable result now.

Humour helped then, and helps now -- I began to see them as being part of a freak show, and somehow I'd gotten on the wrong bus for the ride with them. I still haven't managed to turn the negative towards positive with regard to my m, but at least I'm able to realize that her world was desperately abusive and she never fully escaped from it (she stayed on the bus).

Okay, that's some examples of how this negative/positive cycle has worked in my life. I used to think that no, a negative is a negative, but not anymore. At least per my heart, always my best teacher. Gotta run, though -- my inner critic is snorting and I need to send him away before he starts in on the "but ... if ... your own fault" routine again.

[Dante]

Thanks for sharing that insight woodsgnome.  That makes sense.  I posted this thought in my journal today, but it occurred to me this morning (and I've been thinking about this for well over a year, so, yeah, slow learner) that what I thought were positive flashbacks (which I thought were flashbacks because they were intrusive), are actually memories that I replayed so many times that the tape is sort of stuck on rewind.  So they keep coming up over and over, and even though the memory that surfaces isn't necessarily bad (though it's usually right before something bad happened, and eventually the 'good' memory turns sad), it's still disruptive because the same things keep coming up over and over and over.  I want to let the past go, and I want these stupid memories to stop.  All the things I can't remember, but I've got this small set that I wish would go away.

[woodsgnome]

One thing I've found (slow learner #2) is that all I've been able to ever 'let go' has been the notion that I can truly be rid of them. But the real discovery is more along the lines of finding that the mind is indeed flexible. But the negatives were applied with such strong force that of course they're hard to ever fully dislodge.

While the negatives never truly turn positive, they can bend one's discernment a little, or a lot, towards considering some things in a different light.

In a sense, maybe the terms themselves -- negative/positive -- get in the way of themselves. Certain labels like these can begin to stick like super-glue. But even super-glue has a shelf life and might loosen a little.

The only known is that it's hard to consciously pull these terms apart. Proof of that is how I awake (or can't get to sleep period) at the thoughts of all that old stuff still rumbling around in my head. But maybe, somehow, it can be shifted? I guess that's what I mean by being open to flexibility; sounds great, but it also still hurts.

I think it was Pete Walker's book on cptsd that references the notion that though there may not always be a full cure to the suffering that cptsd has caused, there are ways in which  healing is possible -- healing and cure are not the same thing, if I understand that right.

Wishing you well.   

[Dante]

That makes sense.  I'm starting to recognize now when the tape's rewound and starting over, so I can gently put those memories to the side.  I can't do anything about them resurfacing, but I can choose not to let them become conscious anymore.  I think the reason I held on to them and kept replaying them was kind of a "proof of life" to me.  See, there is a past, there was a me, and some of it was good at least for a little while (or maybe at least in make believe).

The one thing I still haven't wrapped my head around is it's not like they're really memories in the sense of memories.  I don't remember sights or sounds or smells (except for one that is very strongly associated and when I smell it its an instant trigger), but I remember how I felt (or maybe how I imagine I felt).  That's why I correlated it with an emotional flashback.  And now thinking about it a little more, they really aren't positive after all.  They're feelings of loss and sadness for something that was positive, and something I'm having a hard time letting go of.  So, OK, maybe they're just straight up EFs.  (Dang this is a twisted beast).

Thanks, and well wishes to you as well.