Sounds like a mix of Hypervigilance, Amygdala Hijacking, & the Outer Critic in a lovely little cascade of state-crashing. Super familiar to me.
Basically, for people who are traumatized, we often experience a low-level 'refrigerator hum' of anxiety in the background. Our amygdala (which recognizes threat in the world) is kind of stuck in the "on" position all the time.
This then becomes manifest as a sort of "hyper-vigilance", where we are constantly scanning our surroundings, or our lives in general, thinking about what possible threats exist around us; we'll even see threats where there are none. We'll misinterpret people as being threats when they're not. A 'threat' in this case doesn't have to be physical; it could be a social threat, or a psychological threat too. Anyone who seems to be 'not right' or 'irritating', etc. We focus on what we don't like, don't trust, and allow it to take up way too much space in our attention.
From there, it quickly escalates to letting our 'Outer Critic' get carried away with nit-picking, judging, character assasinating, etc., as a way to protect ourselves. Usually all this is a pre-emptive way for your brain to know if it needs to use your 4F strategy.
Or it devolves into inner-critic worrying and catastrophizing, dramatizing, and exaggerating issues out of proportion.
As you guys have said above, this is a normal brain function-- the internal narrator-- gone on Over-drive. Super normal for traumatized people. The important thing to notice here is that this
is a reaction to a map in your head, not to reality. Everybody has a map of reality in our heads. Our interpretations of the world. And that map is never, ever 100% accurate.
Dysfunction lives by our reacting to the map instead of responding to what's actually happening. The moment we begin to accurately track whats happening and use that as a basis to respond to, we "come back down to earth". The problem you're describing is a problem of the map. Which means that you could use some updating of your map, and to keep making sure your map is accurate before you go responding to it
And if you unpack this even deeper, you may find that this is your brain's way of keeping you distracted from what *really* matters, and what real pain may be buried underneath all this. It can be an active form of self-distraction.
This can absolutely turn into a spiral of escalating anxiety and nerves. While not necessarily the end of the world, it's not exactly fun either!
Personally, I find mindfulness meditation to be an absolute MUST to help with this. It may not stop the arguing in your head right away, but it WILL help you with not getting caught up in it, and taking a kind of impartial stance toward it when it happens. Over time, mindfulness is great for helping the amygdala to regulate better and stop doing into overdrive too. For mindfulness, I really like the "headspace" app for iOS & Android. It's free, only takes 10 minutes a day, and is done really well.
It's probably worth reading about Emotional Flashbacks as Pete Walker describes them::
http://pete-walker.com/flashbackManagement.htmhttp://www.pete-walker.com/13StepsManageFlashbacks.htmAlthough it's not said explicitly, it's been my experience that Emotional Flashbacks often happen more when I'm stressed and you can probably consider them, and the 4F response that follows, a form of Stress Response.
