Opinions on are these emotional flashbacks?

[Indigochild]

Hi everyone...
I have just made myself an account after reading through a few of the message boards, and thought this looked like a supportive community in which i could perhaps ask for opinions on something Ive been thinking about for a while...

I know its hard to tell by simply reading about someones experience....but i was just hoping that someone could tell me if they think I'm experiencing emotional flashbacks (cpsd), and also, if there is anyone here who has or has had similar experiences to what I'm experiencing right now in my life.

I have known for a while that i have *red flags* from childhood that I'm trying to deal with and am hoping to be put on the list for psychotherapy. Im not sure if these *red flags* are cptsd.

The list posted on here of symptoms of flashbacks by Hero Member was extremely helpful in identifying how i feel.

I was diagnosed with bpd traits but told i was too young to diagnose at age 19, was put on meds which ive come off for clinical depression, then read up about cptsd.
I avoid a lot of situations that trigger bad feelings as i feel i just cant handle them.

I feel a lot of rage....one being when people leave conversations I'm in, when i feel I'm not listened to or validated, or not agreed with or i feel misunderstood.  Its absolute rage.
I hope its ok if i write two experiences ive had (there are more) but these are the most recent and the second the most scary...

The first is...
Earlier, me and my boyfriend where out and the subject of my visual impairment came up, (he is totally blind) and i was asking him about his ways of getting around...and i know it sounds awful, but there are a lot of wounds there about my past and visual impairment as in my parents unacceptance of it,
I cant ask for help from others and i get filled with rage when the subject is brought up its very triggering. I feel embarrassed at anything to do with blindness and cant stand that my boyfriend uses things to help himself, as as a child, i was left to struggle and not do things that would help me and I'm stuck in this trap in adulthood.
Part of me thinks, if i had and still have to struggle, then so should everyone else. I know its irrational and i wouldnt really want anyone else to struggle.

During and after the conversation I felt sick and nauseated, just didnt feel well, wanted to go home and lie down on my bed, wobbly on my feet / unsteady, loss of appetite- couldn't eat lunch or stand the smell of food,
dry mouth,
VERY adrenalised, heart beating very fast, / racing, restless, butterflies and stomach pains like knives digging into my sides, felt like i needed air, was breathing shallowly, wondered if i was nearing a panic attack (never had one)
felt very hot, (took my coat off and felt very cold, so never felt the right temperature,)
was tense, felt like i could cry, but am always too afraid too go near that emotion and was also in public, so i shut that emotion off (I'm able to sort of swallow it and tuck it away inside my self) and  then felt numb.
Then i felt very tired.  I wonder if this is lack of sleep, but after feeling emotionally crazy i often feel drained.
Then everything around me seemed more fuzzy than usual and has been for the past few days since i had another experience like this.

Emotional reactions were feeling self destructive, like i could run away, rage- seeing red, defensive, deep shame, paranoia- everyones looking at me, I'm a mess, I'm shameful, absent minded during and when calmed down.

The other day there were multiple triggers during the day, which made me feel trapped, small, helpless, i isolated myself away from boyfriend, (freeze response) ...
thought he didnt care about me, even though i realised afterwards that he does and it was all in my head, i couldn't concentrate, very forgetful in conversations, one other person noticed this....
sleepy, self destructive, came out of it a bit when i ate lunch, but still the world felt very weird, not quite real, foggy....a coffee helped wake me up, but got home and the way he left upset me and first thing i thought of was my dad and how he left me at home alone and was neglectful....
i tried to look at the emotion and just eded up crying and cried about all sorts of things but feel sort of numb whilst crying, like i cant cry it all out with the heart felt emotion i should feel about my past...
Later that evening was triggered again by what boyfriend said....simple mistake in the end not that he didnt care or meant to be mean).
i couldn't put the shopping away, was in a daze, tried to have a sleep but couldnt- may have been the caffeen or restless mind?

I couldn't stop crying and felt afraid to go downstairs and i kept envisaging him as being like my mum- it was as if he *was* my mum that night...
I felt so afraid and scared, small, vulnerable and frustrated, couldn't comfort myself or relax and breathe properly, felt trapped, just lay in bed snuggling up crying and crying....feeling like know one cares and know one would come- that was the most upsetting bit- know one cares and know one would come to my distress. Very childlike feelings i know as i wasnt crying loudly at all like i did as a child, but i thought he must know but doesnt care like my parents didnt.
The tears wouldnt stop.
I felt so distressed that i self injured and started drinking, whilst going downstairs finally for some drink, the world was foggy like in a dream. 
I just wanted to switch off the mantra that know one cares about me, and wanted to stop the racing thoughts so i could sleep.  In the end, upon coming to bed, he noticed i wasnt ok and i told him what was up after trying to shut him out terrified that he'd say things and hurt me as my mum did. I felt if he did do that, that i would literally die or try to kill myself.
He had no idea this was going on...and i felt like i had neglected him all evening like my dad who drinks a lot neglects me if i ever visit him.  My dad has a lot of pain so i see why he drinks.

Has anybody experienced anything like this? Do you think it could be emotional flashbacks?

Thanks so much for reading this long one...

[schrödinger's cat]

Hi Indigochild, and welcome to OOTS. I'm sorry to hear that you're going through all this right now. It sounds overwhelming and very painful.  I hope you'll find something here on OOTS that helps.

As for your question... you see, the thing is, we're none of us experts. We're in no position at all to diagnose people. Your symptoms sound familiar, and they might be part of emotional flashbacks. Or so I think. Everyone's different, and flashbacks seem to come in wildly different shapes and sizes. What I can't tell you (obviously) is whether or not your experiences truly are flashbacks. I mean, a headache might be caused by different ailments, so while you can say "oh yes, a headache is part of a migraine", that doesn't mean that every headache means you've got a migraine. So if you want to, you could stick around and look around OOTS a bit more, just to check if people's experiences resonate with you. Maybe that can tell you more?

There are several (free) articles on emotional flashbacks on this website: http://www.pete-walker.com . It's the homepage of therapist Pete Walker, who has CPTSD and who also specializes in CPTSD. If you look at the little menu on the top left of his page, you'll see that the first two links go to articles about flashbacks. Maybe something there will clarify things more? At the bottom left of that page is Pete's phone number, so maybe it's a possibility to ask him if he does phone consultations? (No idea, but it can't hurt to ask?)

[Indigochild]

Hi, thank you and thank you so much for your reply.
Really appreciate you taking the time to read that and thanks for understanding.

No, i totally understand that none of you can diagnose. I was just interested in what you thought.
I will stick around and read others experiences...been doing a lot of this already...what Pete Walker says on his web page resonates a lot with me. What are OOTS?

Thanks for the link and the information etc...really appreciate it. 
I do think they are flashbacks...but its hard for me to determine weather what I'm feeling is actually about the present or not- sometimes its definatley not about whats happening in the *now* and its more my own thoughts in my head about the situation and i know my feelings that are dramatic for the situation at hand often relate back to the past.

Thanks a lot 

[schrödinger's cat]

OOTS is Out of the Storm, sorry.

I do think they are flashbacks...but its hard for me to determine weather what I'm feeling is actually about the present or not...

Hah, yes, I know that feeling. The hardest part of dealing with flashbacks is realizing that you have a flashback. Or maybe the other parts are hard too, but I didn't get that far yet.

[Indigochild]

Yes yes..totally!
I guess were sort of in the same place (if they are flashbacks.)

Its hard to admit its you with the problem (me and boyfriend split up and i realised i still felt angry at my dad, not at boyfriend...so i think id be angry at whoever it was i was living with.)
Its hard to admit its me with the problem...but i also find relief in that, as then if its me with the problem its not others doing and saying awful things on purpose to hurt me...its sort of like, if it is me with the problem...i can change it (even though i feel powerless in that regard) where as i cant change anyone else's behaviour for them.

Do you mind if i ask? How you figured out they were flashbacks?

[Indigochild]

ps. thanks for clarifying OOTS...just couldn't work it out!

[schrödinger's cat]

Oh, good question. It's not like I catch all of them. A lot of them I notice only after they're already over. Hm, let's see, what helps me notice them...

Mostly it's spotting similarities in how I think/feel/act now and how I thought/felt/acted way back when.  I often thought about my flashbacks afterwards: what was that, what did I do, how did I feel, what was my mindset during the flashback, and most importantly, where does it come from, what caused it, where and when did I have those feelings before. Not that I analyzed it all in depth. Sometimes even a very quick glance at a flashback tells you quite a lot about it. Also, flashbacks upset me and journaling calms me down, so I sometimes write about my flashbacks to soothe myself, with the good side effect that I'm gaining some insight on them.

And the thing is, my flashbacks often follow a pattern, and that pattern repeats itself. I don't get the EXACT same flashback again, but I get flashbacks that follow a similar pattern to one I had before. So if I've already thought about that flashback once, that means I can more easily recognize a similar one next time.

[Indigochild]

Yes...if they are flashbacks, its the same here, unless I'm really angry...but sometimes even then i think its about what someone else said or did.

I never thought of thinking about the flashbacks afterwards, genius idea.

I have often tried to work through stuff whilst its happening...if I'm home alone or something. But its really hard.
The same stuff comes up all the time...i have separate issues and feelings from each subject of what i need to work through come up over and over.
Apparently its the minds way of trying to tell you to look at something- its not resolved and until it is resolved it will keep coming up over and over again.
Its why people repeat patterns in their lives...and patterns with relationships / choosing the wrong partners.

Its hard to identify where the feelings are coming from as i don't remember where they could have come from in my past, therefore I'm not really sure how to go about looking at flashbacks / feelings as no result comes out of them.
Do you have the same problem? I hope you don't mind my asking O:

Journaling is really good, I'm glad your finding it helpful. Its good to look back over as well and see how you change and what you understand more as you go on.

Also...ive read that even if you look at the same memory over and over, you are dealing with different layers of that memory each time even though it just feels exactly the same looking at it each time, so I'm guessing its the same with flashbacks.

[schrödinger's cat]

Ask away, it's fine. I just can't promise that my replies will be helpful.

Where the feelings are coming from... It took a long while before any picture emerged. Lots of little "ah-HAH!" moments about my past, things I read, memories that came up... and over time, I got a better idea of what had happened back then. Also, a better idea of what this probably meant for me. And then it was easier to look at my present-day feelings and go "huh - that's what I must have felt back then, when this-and-that happened.

If I can't see where a feeling came from, then that's okay too. There's no need for pressure. I can still look at the flashback and describe it to myself: how it happened, in which situation, what might have triggered it, how it felt like. And then I can put it aside. Maybe something will occur to me later on.

In a way, the very act of describing or examining a flashback helps me a bit. I used to be fully immersed in my flashbacks. It seemed like this was all real, this was what the world was truly like and I was finally seeing things clearly. Very distressing, that. So examining a flashback means: I'm taking a step back, I'm dis-identifying from it, I'm taking control of my own perception of it.

But this is just me. We're all different, so we all need different coping strategies. Maybe mine will change over time. Maybe it would be better to just go for a long walk instead of living in my head so much, who knows.

[Indigochild]

Hi again and thanks a lot.
Its ok, don't worry about your replies, just hearing of your own experience is helpful.

That was what I was worried about. I have had like one ah ah moment and felt so  relieved and it was as if some of the pain went away in that moment.  I was exhausted emotionally, but felt so high that I had figured d it out.
I guess I just don't want to go through the pain for feeling things, it happens a lot.

Does it make you feel better to know where your feelings come from?
Does it make the feelings lesser? or go away?  Im thinking that in order to feel better about present day things that spark of feelings, you have to release suppressed anger, depression etc. etc. first.

Yes, you do feel like your living in your head, I understand that.
Its great that your trying to figure things out. Taking breaks too is also healthy.

[schrödinger's cat]

I agree, grieving is hugely disagreeable. It's a bit like throwing up: really really uncomfortable, but the alternative is worse, and once it's out, it's out, and you're feeling better. (I hope.)

It does make me feel better to know where my feelings are coming from, yes. This is probably because of how I got my CPTSD. Most of it was caused by emotional neglect and emotional abuse. All of it was low-key and long-term. And that means you have SUCH a hard time recognizing it. It's like a slow poison - tasteless, colourless, nigh invisible. You simply end up sick and weak, and you never know why. It colours your perception of everything. It changes you profoundly. But you never know why. And of course, everyone around you gives you the message that this is normal, you're treated well, you should stop being so sensitive. Our abusers honestly believe that this is true. Or so I think. It's all to do with their limited ability to empathize. They honestly CANNOT see what they're doing, they can only see their own side of the story. That's why they abuse you. That's also why they then teach you that everything's fine. It brainwashes you a little bit. And of course, if you do end up feeling depressed, or unmotivated, or fearful, then everyone reacts like it's a character fault of yours.

Looong explanation, no? But that's why it's so wonderful to realize WHAT has happened, HOW it's affected me, and most importantly, that it wasn't my fault. It's nothing I've done to myself - it's simply the effect of a situation I was trapped in. PHEW! I'm not lazy/stupid/weak after all. I'm a good person who grew up in a bad situation. If you've long believed the opposite to be true, that's a rather nifty thing to realize.

In texts about PTSD, I read about "secondary symptoms". So "primary symptoms" of CPTSD would be the true CPTSD stuff, like flashbacks and so on. But the flashbacks then cause more problems, like you can get social anxiety if your family and friends often react to your flashbacks like jerks, or you can get depressed because it's all so hard to bear, or you can feel toxic shame because you think it's all just a character fault of yours. And for me, realizing where my bad feelings come from gets rid of toxic shame. And without this secondary symptom, the primary symptoms are actually a LOT easier to bear.

From what you wrote, it sounds like your parents pretty much left you to deal with your own problems - like you didn't get enough support, like you never had the certainty that you could always ask someone for help if you needed it. Which sounds pretty much like neglect to me, at least at first glance. So maybe all this is familiar to you? Do you think it would help you if you could associate your free-floating anger with the actual traumatic situation that caused it? Or would it make things worse and overwhelm you?

[Indigochild]

Hi, I really hope that what ive written isn't *triggering* for you....i just thought you should bear it in mind just in case.

I just have to say that from your reply- you get everything that is going on with me and you seem to understand!
Can i ask what you mean when you say that the alternative to not grieving is worse?

It is exactly the same for me- Im learning all the time- it was neglect and emotional abuse.
I completely understand that its so hard to know why you feel the way you do...it seems to society that if you wasnt physically abused or something it doesnt matter and its nothing.

I have read that being abandoned is the most scary thing in the world to a child...and psychological abuse (which is neglect and / or emotional abuse) is more damaging and has more pervasive and long term effects.
If you have always been made to feel bad for the way you feel...you would feel bad about the way you feel now if you don't know why you feel it.

My parents did leave me to deal with my own problems.
I read this book called *Running on empty* which is about emotional neglect. 
The book made a whole load of sense to me and it talked about the *fatal flaw*- feeling fatally at the most fundamental level flawed inside. This is how ive always felt but as it was a feeling i was used to i had no words to describe it until reading the book.
Do you relate to this?

Once i read a book and i didnt know i was *triggered* by it, but i felt weird after reading it and it as it helped me identify with my inner feelings that i ignore...the cypher child...the book really had an effect on me.
It was *When you and your mother cant be friends* By Victoria Seconda- such a good book.
It helped me understand my mum....i don't know if you are interested yet in trying to understand your parents....i did this backwards i think ....I looked at my mum for one...as i have huge mum issues....and it helped me understand her. I thought the way to go was being angry etc at your childhood losses...then trying to understand your parents if you so wish.
But i did it backwards...so i felt guilty for looking at my childhood and hating my mum....as i understood it wasnt her fault and i am just like her so I'm at a dead end...its not her fault.

But now I'm looking at it again....and i don't feel like texting her. We began texting again....but i just cant and i don't want to visit my dad again with all these feelings i have= i need to feel safe.

Both my parents were also neglected during their childhoods so its not surprising. They never got any help as i guess they didnt know it existed, whilst i just knew the life they had wasnt the life i wanted. Then i met people who knew something was wrong with me and wanted to help me much as i hated it at the time and still cant let others help.

I went back to my dads after a break up (were back together now), but i realised that my dad who i had put on a pedestal as he will cuddle etc when my mum didnt, but it was traumatising going back home and seeing this in him for the first time... i hope you don't think that sounds too dramatic- i felt so alone and was going through a really hard time...and i felt so unsafe being there the entire time with him...i couldn't count on him or express myself at all and i felt so trapped. I felt like he didnt care...he is messed up also.
I also found all these photoes of my childhood etc and it jogged some memories and filled in a few blanks for me...such as why i felt sad when on the kardashians, Khloe had this huge gurraffe and was kissing it and called it Henry...i had one like that as a child that i had forgotten about. Toys make me extremely sad as do kids and i can't go there.
Being visually impaired i had a lot of meetings with my parents and teachers at school to check up on my progress in school and see how they could help and  a lot of my school records *show* that i was neglected.
Its written in stone....and whilst i was relieved to find proof...i felt the hard reality of it was really real and all the memories from that time which i had forgotten about since i moved away came back.

How do you mean when you ask if it would help if i associated my free floating anger with the actual traumatic situation that caused it?
The anger comes up at many things- not just one particular subject in my life if that makes sense?
I don't think it was just one thing that happened back then that makes me angry in the now.
I do think it would help - I'm just having real trouble figuring out where the anger etc. comes from.
With me its all guess work. I don't know if any of the connections i make in my own head are correct, as I'm not a therapist and don't really understand fully my own behaviour.

Once i understood my mum....i realised that perhaps its not me thats faulty and flawed, and that maybe she did love me- she just couldn't show it. There was such relief in that. My childhood started to make sense. I felt so sorry that i couldn't help her.
Now I'm questioning that theory again...as i feel those same bad feelings lurking inside all the time- there part of who i am.

I havent read about secondary symptoms so ill look at that.

I hope this wasnt too rambly...its hard to explain everything writing it...im still reeling from what i found a few weeks ago at my dads.

I hope your doing ok. I really appreciate your support and talking to you.

[schrödinger's cat]

Hi Indigochild! Sorry, I kind of missed this for the past few days and only discovered it again now. I didn't want to leave you hanging.

It sounds like you're in the middle of gaining clarity about your past, and like that's at once helpful and confusing or even painful. A whirlwind of emotions: everything's stirred up and whizzes about. I hope you're okay, and that you're finding a way to interact (or NOT interact) with your parents that gives you enough room and safety so you can regain your inner balance after all that upheaval.

I can relate to wanting to keep some distance from your parents. I've recently come to see a bit more clearly what my mother's choices have meant for me, and I can't face just chatting to her. I'll be able to, sooner or later, but right now? Not so much. I just need some distance.

Can i ask what you mean when you say that the alternative to not grieving is worse?

In my case, the alternative was pushing everything into denial. That numbed me to the point where I had almost no feelings at all - just fear, irritability, frustration, panic, worry, nervousness, anxiety - and even those I felt during flashbacks, rarely outside of them. It's the PITS. There are studies on people whose feelings have been "switched off" by brain injuries, and they show that a lack of emotion doesn't make you Spock, it makes you unmotivated. You have no joy in life. Good things don't feel good. Nothing feels rewarding. Nothing is fun. It's like the whole world has turned into grey, stodgy porridge.

I read this book called *Running on empty* ... it talked about the *fatal flaw*- feeling fatally at the most fundamental level flawed inside. ... Do you relate to this?

Hah, and how. I used to feel like everything about me had this wrongness attached to it. I didn't feel like I had a problem - I felt like I was the problem.

Thanks for the book recommendations, I've put them on my amazon wishlist.

It helped me understand my mum....i did this backwards i think ....I looked at my mum for one....so i felt guilty for looking at my childhood and hating my mum....as i understood it wasnt her fault and i am just like her so I'm at a dead end...its not her fault.

Oh, I read something about that recently. It's from The Narcissistic Family. The book is written by therapists for therapists, so it doesn't have any self-help advice, but the way the narcissistic family system is described has been hugely eye-opening for me, so I can still recommend it. The authors say that children from narcissistic family systems often feel such guilt as you've described it. I know I feel it. They tell their clients to imagine two boxes. So for us, we'd have Mum's box and our box. In my Mum's box, I'd go pack everything I know about her life. Born to a poor family, her overcontrolling father, the fact that she was parentalized at a startlingly young age, the things she achieved, her gumption, her sense of humour, her integrity, the way she suffered when my father fell ill, her health troubles. All goes in my Mum's box. And I can open that box and look at it and go: "yes, that's my mother. That's my mother's life." And I can see that it's not her fault - she simply passed on to me what she'd received herself.

But I have a box, too. And all that concerns me goes in my box. And I can open my own box, look at my own life, and validate my own suffering. There's a time and a place for that. We don't abandon or betray our mothers if we validate the truth of how their choices have impacted on us. So in my box, there's abandonment by my mother, my mother's overcontrolling ways, her violations of my boundaries, her angry rants, my CPTSD, the fact that I was bullied at school and she pretty much dismissed the problem out of hand, down to the fact that for the past thirty years she's been again and again pressuring me to drink her favourite kind of herbal tea (a kind I hate, have always hated, will always hate). My box has my coping strategies, my resilience, my creativity, all the things I taught myself and did for myself without my mother's help. It's my box. It's okay for those things to be in there.

I went back to my dads after a break up (were back together now), but i realised that my dad who i had put on a pedestal as he will cuddle etc when my mum didnt, but it was traumatising going back home and seeing this in him for the first time... i hope you don't think that sounds too dramatic- i felt so alone and was going through a really hard time...and i felt so unsafe being there the entire time with him...i couldn't count on him or express myself at all and i felt so trapped. I felt like he didnt care...he is messed up also.

I had a similar experienced with my mother. Things are fine if I'm fine. But if I'm in trouble, the gaps in our relationship REALLY show.

How do you mean when you ask if it would help if i associated my free floating anger with the actual traumatic situation that caused it?
The anger comes up at many things- not just one particular subject in my life if that makes sense?
I don't think it was just one thing that happened back then that makes me angry in the now.
I do think it would help - I'm just having real trouble figuring out where the anger etc. comes from.

Sorry, I might have judged from myself to others there. I never acknowledged to myself how my mother's actions traumatized me. I was trying so hard to be supportive to her that I somehow took on her point of view and neglected my own. So I never allowed myself to feel rejected, or angry, or hurt when she did something weird. All the anger and hurt was still there, but kind of cut off from the things that had caused it. So I got angry at the weirdest things - for example cyclists that use the sidewalk. Or I felt fear of heights - I couldn't cross a bridge without feeling certain it would collapse. Now that I've started to sift through my childhood and teenage years, I'm a lot better able to tell what I felt then. And I can feel those feelings now, too. Grief, or healthy and appropriate anger, or sadness, or shock. And as a nice side-effect of that, the free-floating feelings don't earth themselves in silly things quite as often.

I hope I didn't make it all sound easy. Whenever I sum up my own experiences, it's safe to assume that it was all after much trial and error. MUCH error. In my country, we have this children's birthday party game called pot-hitting: you hide a few sweets under an upturned pot, and one child gets blindfolded and then crawls about the room with a wooden spoon, hitting at things until they finally hit the pot. That's mostly what it feels like: creeping about in the semi-dark hitting at things until something finally, blessedly goes CLONK. It's slow going, but things move.

[Indigochild]

Hey...no worries! 
It was a long post...i was worried it was just too long so i understand if replying seems like a handful.

I hope your alright.
I am so glad that you have selected the books on amazon! I hope you'll find them helpful. 

I do think that you need to take as much time as you need for yourself, before you get back in touch with your parents.
The book i mentioned - when you and your mother cant be friends...talks about parents with Narsastic personality disorder- just thought id mention that as that might be helpful to you. 
Such an amaizing book, and the author is very understanding towards adult children of mothers like this.

Thanks for explaining the alternative to grieving that you meant.
I couldn't believe that in one sentence, you managed to explain the way i have been feeling today and for the past week. Unmotivated and your description of the world being like grey stodgy porridge is totally accurate!!  The outside world is hard but days where nothing is happening...i feel so flat.

And wow. Im sorry that you felt like you were the problem. I completely understand that and about how everything to do with you seems to have a wrongness attached to it.

What book was it that you read that was from the narcissistic family?
Im not sure my mum was narsasistic...but perhaps my dad...but not in the most obvious way...so I'm not sure.
I just felt guilty as my mum called at christmas wanting to see me...and after reading the book and realising that she was just like me and that she must have been in such pain all these years with know one to help her, i felt bad looking at childhood stuff as it made me not like her again.
I also felt gutted and guilty that as a child and adolescent, i didnt realise why she was the way she was...i didnt understand her at all or what she was going through. if only someone had told me or if i had read that book back then...but of course that might not have worked as you cant find out stuff like that and keep living under the same roof as your parents.

The two boxes thing is really helpful! Ive never thought of it that way before.
Its good to look at the list of your mums, and then yours and see what youve gotten as a result of your mums parenting. I hope that makes sense.

To me...if my own mum deserves empathy and understanding etc...and I'm just like her as ive discovered, then it would make sense for me to open a new box for myself, as not treating myself with compassion will not help to break the cycle. I just cant do it as yet. I realised from reading what you wrote that my box is very empty...empty of the qualities i have separate from my mum. I don't even know hers.
So that must be the same for you too.
Your own box is valid!
We will hopefully give to ourselves what our mothers never had, therefore they weren't able to heal.
Im sorry that she did nothing about the bullying. I know how that hurts.

About the free floating anger thing- you don't need to be sorry.   
I was just wondering what you meant and how to do it.
That makes total sense about the anger and all other feelings you feel being cut off from the original source.
Did you remember what happened to you? I think you said you had to work out little pieces over time and that you still are trying to figure things out...
Its placing the anger felt in the present, with the past that I'm struggling with. 

No, I'm sure its not easy at all. I find it really hard.
Its great that youve stuck with it.

There was this person who introduced me to the idea of *red flags* from childhood, having worked through her own.  She is a lot older but we used to email a lot.
Sounds as if she means flashbacks. 
Its a long story....but she has distanced herself...and I don't think we can ever be close and talk about anything we used to, because she doesnt want to anymore.
Its very hard to keep on with this at the moment (i think I'm red flagging it / emotional flash backing)...as i cant help neglecting / rejecting myself, now that it seems she has gone. Thankfefully we are still talking, but i feel like the emotional connection we had has gone.
The only thing i can think is of my mum and the whole abandonment thing...but i feel abandoned by this woman and deeply hurt. 
I know that I'm neglecting myself...but i don't remember doing it in childhood....only all the books said that if parents abandon you...the child does it sub contously and blames themselves for it.
Im not sure what will get me out of this funk.  Perhaps this is something i could be working on but i have no idea where to start, as when it comes to my mum and my own childhood...apart from anger, i feel nothing else.

Im probably writing way too much here.  I don't know whats appropriate to write and whats not and you are only one person...who probably cant handle all this.
I don't know.

Thanks for reading anyway and for the advice.

[schrödinger's cat]

Don't worry, Indigo. It's not like you're asking me to fix you. But it's perfectly valid to ask someone else questions about what things are like for them. I've always done that when I was learning new stuff. You ask around, and then you have several people's points of view and their experiences and things that worked for them - and it just helps in making one's own decisions. At the very least, no idea is so bad that it can't serve as a warning of what not to do.

Im not sure what will get me out of this funk.  Perhaps this is something i could be working on but i have no idea where to start, as when it comes to my mum and my own childhood...apart from anger, i feel nothing else.

Hm... there are a few things that have helped me personally. In case you want to have a look at these, here they are.

http://www.pete-walker.com/pdf/GrievingAndComplexPTSD.pdf  -- a text from therapist Pete Walker (who specializes in CPTSD). It explains how grieving can help us in our recovery, and it says that angering is actually a part of this grieving process.

Last summer, I started looking for ways to fix my emotional numbness, so I researched ways to fix Alexithymia. Not that I have it, but emotional numbness is a part of Alexithymia, so any treatment or self-help idea that addresses this particular part of Alexithymia could be interesting for people like us, too. They recommend journaling. So one thing you could do is keep a Feelings Journal. The idea is simple - three times a day, write down precisely what you feel. It's slow going at first, but with me personally, things started moving after a few days and weeks, and it really did help me feel more emotions.

Another thing that helps with Alexithymia (and maybe also with general numbness?) is doing something creative. Music or dancing or art or acting. So much of that is about emotions - recognizing emotions, expressing emotions, or (with music and acting in particular) experiencing emotions that are called up by a certain song or a script. They also say it can be helpful to read novels and other texts that call up emotions within you.

So as you can see, the basic idea behind these methods is that feeling emotions is a skill that can be re-learned - or a muscle that can atrophy and then strengthened again if you just use it (gently) over and over again until it's back in working order. I found that encouraging. It would be really disheartening if emotions were something you switch off and then you can't switch them back on again.

I guess it's another matter if your numbness and the grey, stodgy feeling is a part of a depression. I'm less sure how to fix that, sadly. I'm struggling too, sometimes. In my case, it makes things better if I do all those general run-of-the-mill depression-busting things. You know, things like drinking enough water, eating sensible food, exercizing, journalling, using CBT methods to find unhelpful/depressing patterns of thought and teach myself how to think more realistically.

Or the stodginess can be simply just exhaustion - another part of the grieving process. If I've been through turmoil, then I'm sometimes simply just emotionally drained afterwards. My batteries are empty, and it's harder for me to see the joy and fun in life. The best thing then is to be tolerant towards myself, and to see it as a kind of emotional head cold: not pleasant, but it'll pass one day.

Another idea is from a book I read. Can't remember which. It's this: if you've been stressed out or traumatized for so long, sometimes this somatizes your feelings. So instead of properly "feeling emotions", you feel physical sensations instead. So the author said that this is also a way you can use to reconnect to your true emotions: observe your body, and try to see if you get certain reactions after certain stressors. I haven't tried that out yet, but it looked promising.

What book was it that you read that was from the narcissistic family?

It's this one: http://www.amazon.com/Narcissistic-Family-Diagnosis-Treatment/dp/0787908703/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428320291&sr=8-1&keywords=the+narcissistic+family   Like I said, it's written for therapists, so there's little in there how to fix all those injuries. But the descriptions of what a narcissistic family is like, those are good. Also, I found it really helpful that they think in terms of "narcissistic family systems". Like you, I'm not at all sure that either of my parents are or were narcissists. But our family was definitely narcissistic. My father was gravely ill for most of my life, and his needs came first. Obviously. My brother and I felt we had to make sure our parents would be fine, and we learned to cope with most problems on our own instead of "bothering" our parents. So we learned to never expect closeness or support. We learned to watch our mother's moods closely, and we learned to stay the * out of her way if she was under too much pressure with her impossible workload and my father's care. He died when I was in my early twenties, and it was only after his death that I realized what it had all been like. His illness had taken up so much room, there'd been very little space in my own life for myself.

If you find that book in your library or buy it - the thing is, the description of what it's like to live in a narcissistic family were so spot-on, I found reading all that really really taxing. So it might be a good idea to brace yourself for a shock, and to read the book in small bites and nibbles instead of just swooshing through it all at once.

To me...if my own mum deserves empathy and understanding etc...and I'm just like her as ive discovered, then it would make sense for me to open a new box for myself, as not treating myself with compassion will not help to break the cycle. I just cant do it as yet. I realised from reading what you wrote that my box is very empty...empty of the qualities i have separate from my mum. I don't even know hers.

Yes, same here. It's better now, but at first, it was like I didn't have all that much of an identity of my own. I'd focussed so much on simply just coping. But that lack of things to put in your box - that could be the first thing you can put in your box?    I'm not even just kidding - it's a perfectly valid box item, this sense that we've kind of merged with our mothers, that we've focussed on their needs and their troubles so much that we're not yet able to see our own point of view. -- But generally, I've often found it a good idea to file ideas for later. There's no pressure. Quite often, there's this gut feeling that "this is too early" for one thing and "now would be a good time" for another. You can always do it later. CPTSD recovery is so complex, it's impossible anyway to do everything at once.