dissociation, flashback, emotional flashback - I'm confused

[Dee]

Here is how I see it:

Dissociation - Is when I zone out.  Sometimes someone will be talking to me and I just go away.  My sister pokes me to get me to come back.  I hate that, but she still does it.

Flashback - Is when I can hear my dad talking to me and I can see the trauma occurring.  Sometimes everything around me fades into the background and sometimes I'm completely gone.

Emotional Flashback - Is when I am super uneasy and I get a feeling that I once experienced.  Sometimes I just cannot calm down and sometimes it's just dread.

However, I had a flashback the other day and was told I dissociated.  I have also heard that flashbacks are emotional flashback due to the feelings.  I've read some, but I'm still confused.  It doesn't really matter much because it all sucks, but I would like to know what is happening to me.

[arpy1]

don't know if this helps, but for me, flashbacks, tho not often visual, (more often come out of nightmares, or triggers like certain music, etc.) cause me to dissociate. not intentionally, but it's kind of a reflex like quickly drawing my hand away if i burn it or something.

i relate to the hearing your dad's voice, tho, i hear the cult leader's at times, not literally, but in my head.  these are all mixed up for me... but they all cause emotional flashback in one way or another, no matter how they started.

when i am in flashback my first instinct is to dissociate to get away from the awful feelings that take me over.  so maybe the dissociation is a coping strategy, albeit a maladaptive one, that we use to try and get rid of the feelings evoked when in flashback.

[woodsgnome]

Dee, when you write  "I've read some, but I'm still confused," I think that speaks for many who've tried to get a grip on understanding this. Perhaps it affects people differently depending on circumstances, as arpy1 indicated.

For me, it seems they can easily blend together and I might react differently to certain sorts of triggers, too. Or one can lead to the other. I pause at the mention of 'emotions', since I'm very good at hiding or masking them. On the outside, that is; inside I can be roiling, which might indeed result in dissociation to escape into my familiar freeze pattern. But the whole sequence might have  started due to a flashback. This has happened a lot during therapy recently, but at least there I have someone who knows what's going on.

I've come to regard a lot of the definitions as guidelines, or pointers, en route to the search for healing. They're very helpful aids for understanding; like a map they lay out the potential route but then we take the steps on our own.

[Contessa]

I'm still trying to figure this one out too Dee. Thanks for the explanation.

I'm worried about thinking too much about things too and inadvertently triggering myself, hence taking the research very slowly.

[SweetFreedom]

I think it's circular. One can lead to another. I tend to think of the mind as circular and systemic rather than linear.

For me, it's often as the others say: They can blend together, and often the dissociation is in response to some trigger. But in my case, sometimes the triggering event is not clear. I usually recognize it by my response-- I know I'm triggered because I'm suddenly wanting to tune out and distract myself or dissociate. Maybe I suddenly feel panicky or emotional and my throat closes up in sadness. It can be a thought that crept through my mind at a low level, and I don't even realize it happened until I'm feeling upset for 'no reason'. Same can happen with a quick mental image or even a dream. I wake up in an Emotional Flashback a lot lately.

But it can go the other way-- the dissociation can also bring up guilt and shame. And this can cause me to become triggered.

I think it's also important to remember Pete Walker's point that dissociation is probably the body's way of giving you a little burst of internal opiates to ease the pain. That zoned out feeling becomes an addictive state to be in.

[Three Roses]

Welcome, sweet freedom! Good to have you here

[SweetFreedom]

Thanks! 

[Danaus plexippus]

My dissociations hit me unawares and I'm gone, real gone. When I come back I have no idea how long I was gone, what caused it or what happened around me while I was gone. Bizarre as this may sound I was abused by a sadistic hypnotist aunt from age 3 till I ran away from home as a teenager. This abuse has left me highly suggestible. Decades later her poisonous words come out of the mouth of my inner critic. I shout at her "Shut up Loraine and fry in * where you belong!" I've complained about my meds in other threads. I'm beginning to understand that psych meds only make me more vulnerable to dissociation, flashbacks and EF. I'm at a point where I need to be in a med free mind to deal. Neurontin eliminated my anxiety, exaggerated startle response and the pain from my spinal cord injuries, but it severely impeded my cognitive functions. Now that I'm off Neurontin I can more clearly distinguish the intellect deadening effects of the other meds my doctors have on. I want off them all. What will I open my eyes to when I do escape this psych med induced somnambulism?

[Absent]

This is how I see it:
Dissociation - is when something happens but it doesn't bothers you. You are present but not connected emotionally and mentally with the situation. It happens when there are triggers and it makes you numb. (It's probably more complicated and nuanced than that. I don't think I dissociate so this is how I explain it to myself)

Flashback - is when a word, a situation or a sound makes you remember the past. This may just be a disturbing memory or it may cause a panic attack. The way you have described a flashback: "Sometimes everything around me fades into the background and sometimes I'm completely gone." - I would say that is "Dissociation".

Emotional Flashback for me is when your body relieves a past trauma. There might not be a trigger. I think these are probably the most difficult to identify.

And yest a flashback can have emotions with it or not, so it can also be an emotional flashback but I think it is important to distinguish an emotional flashback from a flashback not the other way around. A flashback can just be a memory or an intrusive thought. But an emotional flashback doesn't have to be connected to a a memory or a thought or a trigger. It can just be your body remembering the feeling and reliving it.

Not sure if I made it all more confusing. This is just how I explain it to myself. 

I also think while it's important to remember these are three separate terms for three separate states, but their are all exclusive and inclusive. While maybe one person will only have emotional flashback, that doesn't mean you are not experiencing a range of those or more that one at the same time.

I don't think the three separate terms were created to divide experiences as much as to include a broader range of symptoms into a diagnose and to help us understand some more subtle ways people suffer. I think if cptsd didn't exist as a term (as well as emotional flashbacks) I would not be able to understand what I am going through. I used to mistake emotional flashback for depressions. I also didn't think I have any flashbacks as I thought those are only what I've seen in movies veterans will experience. I see now that is not the case.