Intrusive Memories

[PrinceOfDarkness]

I remember horrible things without meaning to. Bad things that happened in the past, especially my young childhood. I don't think it's a flashback, because I know that it's something from the past and not currently happening, but the memories are so distressing. I don't remember those things on purpose. Usually I'll see or hear something and it'll trigger the memory and I'll see the memory playing in my mind and how I felt when it happened.

This is really difficult for me. My therapist has tried to get me to do a couple of things when this happens as a way to come back to the present, but it doesn't really work. The memory also comes and goes too quickly to really do anything about it...

[mourningdove]

Only you can say for sure what it is, but it does sound like a flashback to me. I could be wrong, but I don't think that you'd have to be 100% lost in the intrusive memory for it to count as a flashback.

So sorry you get these, whatever they are.

[Three Roses]

Yes, it sounds like an emotional flashback to me, too. As mourningdove said, only you can say for sure.

See if this seems to fit, from https://www.psychotherapy.net/article/complex-ptsd

"I have come to call these reactions, typical of David and of many other clients over the years, emotional flashbacks—sudden and often prolonged regressions ("amygdala hijackings") to the frightening and abandoned feeling-states of childhood. They are accompanied by inappropriate and intense arousal of the fight/flight instinct and the sympathetic nervous system. Typically, they manifest as intense and confusing episodes of fear, toxic shame, and/or despair, which often beget angry reactions against the self or others. When fear is the dominant emotion in an emotional flashback, the individual feels overwhelmed, panicky or even suicidal. When despair predominates, it creates a sense of profound numbness, paralysis, and an urgent need to hide. Feeling small, young, fragile, powerless and helpless is also common in emotional flashbacks. Such experiences are typically overlaid with toxic shame, which, as described in John Bradshaw's Healing The Shame That Binds, obliterates an individual's self-esteem with an overpowering sense that she is as worthless, stupid, contemptible or fatally flawed, as she was viewed by her original caregivers. Toxic shame inhibits the individual from seeking comfort...."

[Three Roses]

More on this,  from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/conquer-fear-flying/201408/is-what-you-are-feeling-flashback

"Flashbacks from early childhood are different. They do not include factual information. Until about five years of age, factual - or explicit - memory is immature. But implicit memory, the memory of an emotional state, may go back to birth. When the memory of a strong emotional state is activated, the person is exposed to an involuntarily replay of what was felt at perhaps age one or two. Since facts are not replayed, the emotions seem to belong to what is going on in the present.

Implicit flashbacks from early childhood can be powerful. They can overtake a person, and dominate his or her emotional state. Even so, the person may have no idea that what they are feeling is memory. How could they? If they cannot remember a past event that caused these feelings, the feelings naturally seem to belong to the present."

[T3b+]

Hi,
I'm struggling with similiar challenges as well. It can be VERY challenging to process these situations. Just please know you're not alone in experiencing such... Take care and much love...

[Dee]

Mine come at night when I am starting to drift to sleep.  I've learned that is when the brain tries to process things, but sometimes my brain needs to take a break.  I know have an audio of visualization and relaxation exercises.  I also invested in one of those things that makes the sound of a creek, ocean, rain....   They seem to help me get past that point sometimes.  At least until my medications start to work.  Sometimes nothing helps and I have to deal with it.

[Cf]

This too is a challenge for me. In the past 30 days I've awoken in the morning 4 times peacefully. All others nights and mornings are spent battling memories. I'm a zombie all day from it. I'm beyond tired. One thing I've found helpful is to be mindful and intentionally have a distracting memory to insert. Healthy? * I have no idea, but on those occasions when it works I'm very pleased. I insert scenes from a recent movie, or a joke or story.