Is this an emotional flashback? 'No holds barred' opinions please!

[morph]

A couple of nights ago my wife became annoyed ostensibly because our maid had locked the bedroom door and we didn't have a key to get in.  She became more and more worked up including shouting at me and my eldest daughter, slamming things around. hitting herself (with frustration),  I found it quite unsettling but my daughter said she thought it was quite amusing.  Eventually she went into the younger kids bedroom and continued to rant, therefore waking them up.

At this point I kicked our bedroom door in and felt justified puling my wife physically out of the kids room.  Whilst I was doing this I realised that I wanted to shake some sense into her, punish her maybe and had I been drinking may have physically hit her. I didn't, thank god, although to my chagrin I have done so in the past.  After that we all settled down and went to bed peaceably.

The next morning I spoke to my wife quietly about trying to control her moods when this happens.  She said she can't do anything about it but I asked her again, to just try.   Now 36 hours after the event I still feel strange.  I feel unable to communicate with my wife (maybe for fear that it will end up in another fight).  I'm not really sure what I feel to be honest.  I don't want to go out of the house, although I will later.   I don't have energy, I feel empty and alone.

Everyone else has put this incidence behind them but for me it's still at the forefront of my mind.  I guess I feel wronged and want some justice or something.  Maybe I'm feeling shame for wanting to harm her.

Does this feeling I'm having fall into the category of EF?
I can't easily recall incidences from my childhood that are reminiscent of this.

[schrödinger's cat]

Oooff. Hm. I wish I knew what does and doesn't constitute a "proper" EF. I started a thread on that a while ago. BeHea1thy says she gets these faint EFs too - EFS that "may not have the hallmarks of our routinely intense EF, they have the same qualities, but on a lower scale". She now thinks that, "proper" EFs or no, they're reactions to triggers.

Butterfly calls hers "fuzzy flashbacks", which is an excellent term. It reminds me of something Pete Walker writes about EFs - that they can range from mild to horrendous. So an EF doesn't have to blow up your brain to count as an EF. My own milder flashbacks often feel like there's some kind of dimmer switch that gets slowly turned up.

[morph]

Thanks for the reply Cat.  Not so sure about how to describe its intensity - feels fairly significant to me.  My whole world just took a paradigm shift for 48 hours.  Probably be OK tomorrow. I went out this afternoon, which although quite draining, is the best thing I can do to get things on an even keel again.   Problem is that I am not very gregarious (to put it mildly) when this happens that interferes with my job and relationships.

Maybe you can point me towards an explanation of the hallmarks of EFs.  Thanks.

[schrödinger's cat]

Hm... a good place to start looking would probably be Pete Walker's website. There are several (free) articles there on emotional flashbacks and how to manage them.

Here's my own experience with my own flashbacks. (So yours might differ. Probably will.) Unless something causes VERY massive feelings (like a sudden death in the family causing massive shock and grief), there's usually a feeling of control there. Yes, the world might darken around me, and I might be preoccupied with my feelings and their cause. But there's a feeling that there's still a "me" in there doing all the feeling. I haven't changed. I'm still able (at least sometimes) to get on top of that wave and surf it. I'm still able to think clearly, so I can think about the problem and come up with solutions.

EFs feel more like this:    What's actually happening is, I get pulled back into an old ego-state, an old experience, an old headspace where I'm young, where I lack control, where I don't even understand what's happening, and where I have no escape. Of course, sadly enough, I don't realize that this is happening - i.e., that I'm time-travelling into the emotions of my past self. But the clues are there.

Feeling younger translates into feeling small, insignificant, little, helpless, confused, bewildered, feeling sure I have no escape, no options, no way out. That's how a kid feels who's stuck in a traumatic situation. Adult-me would of course also feel bewildered and maybe helpless, but there'd be a LOT more problem-solving and poise about it.

Getting sucked back into my past trauma translates into... hm, depends, really. Let's use this as an example.

GROWN-UP ME: feels lonely, recognizes: "ah, this is a feeling of loneliness", feels sad, grieves, then is done grieving and moves on, perhaps thinking about how almost every one of us is lonely in their own way, how you can never tell just from looking at people, etc, which sometimes turns into something that's almost enjoyable, in a nicely melancholic kind of way: so it might well end with sitting at the window, watching the rain, listening to a sad song and remembering a very good friend who's passed away a few years ago. So there's a sense of control; of some control at least. It's like standing on the coast when the tide comes in, and it reaches up to your hips, so YES it's cold and clammy, but NO it won't kill you, and most times you can spot which way you'll have to head in order to wade back out. Also, it's easier to realize what's happening ("this is me feeling sad because it's the anniversary of sth traumatic"). And while "normal" trauma (that isn't CTPSD-related) might change the way I see myself and the world, I'll be able to find a balanced, reasonable view: "oh, so some people can sometimes say incredibly hurtful things".

FLASHBACK ME: feels frozen, despairs, has a horrifying, cold, dark, bleak sense of being left outside to freeze in the cold. It's like being washed away by a flood. Or like in those horror movies, when a mist seeps in under a doorway, a greenish kind of mist that has some nasty horror-movie effect on people. A zombiefying mist. It's VERY hard to realize what's happening. It's like the whole world has BECOME your trauma, like there won't be any recourse no matter where you turn. And contrary to a non-flashbacky "bad feeling", it's hard to tell what on earth is going on. I can't tell WHY I'm feeling this way and what caused it. It seems like this either comes out of nowhere, or that I'm overreacting to something. Lastly, it makes me think harshly of myself, of my place in the world, of the world in general, and of other people. So my Inner Critic and Outer Critic become very active. I'll beat myself up with feelings of shame and guilt, for example, and the world around me will suddenly seem a boring, harsh, horrifying place, and everyone I meet will seem like they're just simply more abuse waiting to happen. EVERYONE will sooner or later say hurtful things - it's just a question of WHEN they'll say it, not IF they'll say it. (Coincidentally, that's how my past self saw the world - that's how kids think, all or nothing, night or day. Even teenagers are a lot less nuanced and balanced than adults, IMO.)

That's mainly applicable to myself, judging from what I know of myself and what I've read in books. So a) I might have come to wrong conclusions, and b) your mileage may vary.

[morph]

Just realising that I've had some episode, that can now be isolated and studied, is a relief in itself. Whether it is dissociation, EF or general madness it needn't be at the core of my being. Peeling back the layers of an onion is so descriptive and I feel I make progress each time something new is revealed.   I'm having trouble relating this to a childhood event but I feel that I'm on the right lines.   Great empathy bHeart, thanks.

Pete Walker,  Pete Walker, Pete, Pete, Pete!!  Having trouble getting his book here in Asia so I will compromise (something I don't like to do!) and download the e-version to read on my computer.   Seems like it's almost mandatory reading if you want to take this class!   Looking forward to starting it.  Cat's "Flashback me" ticks most of the boxes - only concerned that I might be making another type of 'episode' (psychotic, manic, paranoid or something) fit into a convenient box of the CPTSD self diagnosis.

Thanks for being here.

[Kizzie]

Morph you mentioned that you are not gregarious and I wondered how you handle emotions usually? It sounds like this situation with your wife tapped into some really strong emotions that perhaps you repress normally?  And if that's the case that's what may have shaken you to your foundation - suddenly feeling intense anger.

I have had that happen to me - it's like something that was frozen inside melts too fast and the sudden rush of feelings turns things sideways for a bit.  I don't know if it's an EF per se, but its certainly a sense that my internal landscape has undergone a major shift of some kind.

[morph]

 'Not gregarious' is a bit tongue in cheek but I didn't want to talk to anyone.   Not quite mute but a great effort to even pass niceties of the day.  Not very good for my job when I'm trying to negotiate a deal.

Getting to know my emotions is something I'm going to have to work on.   I have very few joys even though I have many things to be thankful for.  I can't pinpoint what my emotions are other than a prevailing sense of unease.   If someone asks me "How do you feel?" my gut response  is "What do you mean?".   

I remembered something this morning and it seems to be another piece of the jigsaw puzzle I'm trying to put together.   I remember about 15 years ago a work colleague (he'd probably had a bad day) ridiculing me and asking me in front of my peers why I always had a fixed smile on my face.   I had no answer and rather than be humiliated again I stopped it (with difficulty) there and then.  I was in my late 30's at the time but now I have the answer.  I was conditioned to always put on a good face in public by my M.  This of course entailed smiling all the time to show the world what a happy family with a superb matriarch looked like!   Its not much but it makes sense to me.

The "sudden intense anger" stemmed from not being heard, I think.   Being insignificant, being ignored, something like that.   Thanks for your ideas Kizzie.

[morph]

Downloaded The Bible book yesterday and reading it chronologically.   Seems like he knows what he's talking about - just hope I don't let him down.