Hi

[Shedea49]

Hi there, I have been experiencing CPTSD for many years. Currently have been in an emotional flashback for most of the last 4 days. feeling very alone and hoping joining I can feel less so.
Thanks for taking the time to read. S

[Papa Coco]

Hi Shedea49

Welcome to the forum. I'm sorry to hear that you've been having a rough time, especially these past few days. There is a lot of compassion and care on this forum. I hope you feel comfortable enough to share what you feel okay sharing. The people on this forum will likely be able to relate to much of what you're going through, and it can really feel good to at least find and connect with kindred souls.

Welcome.

[Shedea49]

Thanks Papa Coco

[NarcKiddo]

Hello, and welcome.

I hope you get out of the flashback soon, so you can concentrate on healing.

[blue_sky]

Hi Shedea, welcome to the forum

Everyone here understand how difficult flashbacks can be. We hear you and we are virtually here for you.

We are all ears if you ever want to share anything.

Hope you feel better soon and if it's okay with you, here's a gentle hug

 

[Kizzie]

Hi and a very warm welcome Shedea 

Those emotional flashbacks are rough so I hope it passes soon.  Here's gentle group hug from us if that's OK  It can help to know you're not alone and that we too suffer from EFs. Perhaps talking about why you're in an EF might help if you're up to it.

[Shedea49]

Hi there, 

Thank you so much for your supportive replies - I am very grateful. Thank you also for the hugs,they really help (I felt starved of these growing up).

I have come out of my EF now. I was triggered by a visit from family. I tend to put on a brave face when I see them but afterwards I am so all over the place with EF, it scares me. This recent visit was 4 weeks ago.

The only person I talk to and have told is my OH. He does not  really understand but loves me anyway-  .
So it is a relief to be on this forum and to be amongst people who really get it.

My issues are from childhood. There is one particular EF which is terrifying - I am about 3 or 4 and I can't remember the pictures, though tbh I am not sure I want to  .

Once again, thank you for taking the time to reply to me, it means a whole lot.

 S.

[Papa Coco]

Shedea49

I'm glad you feel welcome here. It's truly a great group of empathetic, and knowledgeable people who are always ready to listen and validate and even help each other out.

I resonate with your fear of the memories from your early childhood. My therapist has always said "I'm a fan of the brain's ability to block things in order to keep us safe."  He believes that the memories are blocked to protect us. That every part of us is on our side. For me, every part of my soul and body is doing what it's doing because it loves me and is protecting me. So the memories that it has blocked are blocked to keep me safe and sane.

As time has gone along, many of my blocked memories have carefully opened up and have allowed me to see them, but always only when I was truly ready to see what they had to show me. Not before I was ready. Seeing the blocked events too soon would have retraumatized me. Waiting until I was ready was a blessed and healing event.

It seems that as we learn and grow, sometimes there comes a day when the blockage realizes that we're ready to see what it's blocking and it begins to let the memories come out and be seen. As for me, I've now remembered enough to be satisfied that bad things happened and they were real. I no longer seek full recollection. In my own healing, full recollection is no longer needed. I believe I've come to understand what the hidden memories did to create a lifetime of EFs, and I believe I know enough to move forward now.

Blockages might one day loosen up. Or they might not. But as we pursue healing from past traumas, our own inner parts will work with us more and more as they begin to trust that we're ready for them to open up. Until then, they keep us safe by helping us hide from things we aren't quite ready for just yet.

For now I'll send a friendly, safe virtual hug: 

[Shedea49]

Thank you Papa Coco for your kind and insightful words. I believe my brain is protecting me too. I am not ready, though I don't know if I ever will be but that feels ok.


I have had been struggling for a long time and have gradually come to do my best to increase my awareness and loving kindness for all that I experience over the years.
Recently, I have some awareness that anything that comes is not who I am and will go again. That my innermost being is not touched by what happened or my FOO and this, though tentative, has started to bring me some peace which is really what I have been looking for all these years.

With my memory, I know what I think happened, I know what it feels like is happening when I am in an EF and I have sensations in my body that seem to tell me also. Some years ago I had a moment of total clarity: I felt like every cell in my body was telling me all at the same time in unison and I knew it to be true instinctively. Still I am not ready.

I think there is also something around feeling like I (would) need to justify to other people my feelings/ pain with picture memories to be believed. My OH says he believes me but also says he is keeping an open mind, which then feels like he doesn't. I think he'd like to think it doesn't happen as it is unimaginable. It does happen though but I understand his feelings as part of me also feels the same. Feels like if it is not a picture memory it can't be true.....  but then maybe that is a helpful thought at the moment.
Not sure if I am rambling now,  I don't know. I feel a bit confused, sorry. I hope what I have written is ok - there is a feeling of doing something wrong. Maybe that is just because of sharing and I am not used to it. Thank you for the space to write, S

[Hope67]

Hi Shedea49,
I'm glad you've felt able to write about how you're feeling, and that you've been able to talk to your OH about it too.  I just wanted to send you a warm welcome - sorry I'm a bit late saying that - just read your posts just now.   

Also wanted to send you a hug 

Hope 

[Papa Coco]

Shedea,

I am of the belief that our memories are telling us what we need to know, and no more than that. I struggle a lot with wondering if what I remember was real, a dream, or a filtered alteration of what happened.

Here's how I see it for my own situation: If my memory is somehow incorrect or incomplete, that's okay with me. No one is getting hurt by how I remember things. I'm not suing anyone, or charging anyone, or even naming them publicly, so I like to let my memory serve me as it feels it needs to. Whether I remember everything or not, or even if I remember it wrong, it doesn't really matter. As long as I'm being treated and helped by the treatments for what I THINK happened, I'm getting ahead, and no one is being hurt by it.

And here on the forum, nobody feels a need to force anyone else to disclose more than we want to. I only want to read what people want to write. I don't want anyone to feel they have to disclose more than they feel comfortable disclosing.

[Shedea49]

Thank you Hope, Hi to you 

Papa Coco, thanks for your thoughts on memories, I struggle with this too.

Having another flashback this evening. Not sure of the trigger ? Cigarette smoke smell ? Tummy pains.
My very best wishes,S

[storyworld]

Hello, Shedea49,

I'm sorry you're in such a tough place. I do hope this group is a support and encouragement for you. I have found great comfort in knowing I'm not alone in some of my behaviors and reactions. I also find it incredibly encouraging when I read about other people's progress in areas I'm currently struggling with as it gives me hope that maybe I'll experience healing as well.

[NarcKiddo]

I'm also sorry you are struggling.

I don't think a picture memory is necessary to "prove" what happened. As others have said, sometimes that is simply too much for the brain to deal with. It may have discarded the information completely. Or you may have been so shut down at the time that you never actually formed a picture memory. I have some very strange gaps in my memories from before age 6. I know humans don't tend to remember much of those times but you would think I would have some picture memories of being with my mother.

I agree with Papa C's view that our brains will only reveal what we need to know or what we are capable of coping with. I sort of alluded to this in a therapy session when I said to my T "I wonder why it took me so very long to start to realise the problem and from there to seek therapy" and she said "I think people don't seek therapy until they are ready to accept it". And I think she is right. Right through to the end of my 30s I would have repudiated entirely any suggestion that my upbringing was cruel and damaging. Someone could have pointed to my memories of what happened and I would still have denied it.

[Shedea49]

Hi, storyworld and NarcKiddo.
I feel sad and exhausted so I don't have much to say but want to thank you for your posts and say that I appreciate them very much. My very best wishes, S