What can I share about Emotional Flashbacks?

[sigiriuk]

Dear All
1. Before I started to get professional help, I did not know that EFs were a thing. (Like the cliche about the fish who doesn't know what water is).

2. Attributed all my panics, mood swings, to being a bad person, who needed to do better.

3. Started to read about EFs.

4. 6 months later, started to consider that what I was feeling, during a moment of crisis, could be an EF.

5. Started to become a bit more confident at recognising them - including self harming as a consequence.

6. Fast forward to the present day, EFs are getting more frequent and severe...either I am relapsing or i am getting better at recognising them.?

7. Also now considering that I have been getting EFs since childhood, and they have always been there at least three times a day.

In other words, they appear to have gotten much worse, but it is, in fact, my improved ability to recognise them.

Slim

[woodsgnome]

Pretty good stuff, the recognition part. Still it seems cruel to have to always hit bottom before being able to grasp at something. It's kind of like a trade-off but I guess it's still a positive step to have reached however hard or tortuous it is to attain healing.

I've gotten 'better' at recognizing these as well, over a long span of time. Still not sure if that means the glass if half full or empty; I lean towards empty but that may just be my habitual inner critic's pattern. Wouldn't it be cool to reach a point where the knowledge doesn't also bring up how truly awful things were?

 

[sigiriuk]

Wouldn't it be cool to reach a point where the knowledge doesn't also bring up how truly awful things were?

Dear Woodsgnome
You have nailed it! Thats how I have been living.......knowing what went on, but not feeling it...thats how we survived the abuse.
Slim