Is it possible to be experiencing more than 1 EF at a time? I feel like I may be experiencing 3 or 4 EF all at once in the last week but im not sure if thats even possible. Can anyone else relate to this?
Makes perfect sense to me.
I doubt it's very tidy and self contained at first. Hopefully later on, when we have more self awareness and we recognize a flashback for what it is. But maybe at first we're just going to jump from flashback to flashback?
What usually happens to me is something triggers me into it, it can be anything really (a thought, a word, anything) and then I just start jumping from flashback to flashback, like a chain reaction in my mind. One ignites the next and it can go on for a long time like this. Before I started reading about trauma I called flashbacks my "waves of shame" or "waves of my mistakes". It wouldn't be just one, each one would bring along its whole extended family. I could be stuck in a wave of shame for months with endless flashbacks all triggering each other and keeping the whole thing going.
At least, that's what it feels like to me. Not sure this helps, but I totally hear you. You're not alone... and I'm so sorry you have to feel this too.
Yes that makes so much sense. Thats how it feels like one flashback brings on the next like a chain as you said. Im sorry you go through this too but thank you for responding it always makes me feel better when i feel understood or not alone.
Yes, if thats what you feel, then yes.
Can't we all experience more than one emotion at a time? I know that I have experienced this.
I've been triggered before - especially in therapy by non-trauma informed therapists - into such a terrible state that I had no idea what was really going on. One memorable occasion in inpatient treatment i never knew what the therapist's point was. I mean, it never ever became clear what he was aiming at. To find some form of closure I modelled the 'topics' that had been triggered by the T. There were between 12 and 15 topics. I still have them in a box, but not going to go and count. I don't know if every single one was an individual EF, but there certainly would have been more than one EF going on there.
Also I imagine if you have more than one inner child (Idk if you do), then more than one EF going on at the same time would make sense.
Also agree with Slim, if that's what you feel, then that's what it probably is, even if nobody else were to feel it that way.