My flashbacks take a couple of days to "develop." They come in piece by piece until a whole picture is formed. One started yesterday while I was talking to my T. I didn't mention it at the time. It was like it was happening in the background. I am now very scared what the final picture will be. I have no control over what will happen.

Green

Green,

I seem to get memories back in a piecemeal fashion like that. My flashbacks are sudden dislocations. I feel like I'm in two (or more) experiences at once, the thing really happening at the time, and the thing from hell. Only one has been so vivid that I lost any contact with what was "really happening." I hope I never have another like that.

The pictures are scary, because the things we flash back to are so frightful. Is it something you could write about? Maybe not here, but in a journal for yourself? I think that writing seems to make things smaller and less real to me. I can see the page, or the screen, and I can control it.

I hope things settle down for you. Like Mikey says, the road is bumpy.

Joe

Hello. I do not have the 'pieces' of flashbacks as you describe. But, I never forgot of any of the sexual abuse, I just put it to back of my mind, and tried tell myself that is was not of importance. The memories, they always were there. The only thing I ever actual forget of was the death of my brother, which happens almost 20 years ago. But I still get the flashbacks. Sometimes, I feel them come on, I start feel some edgy, or shakey, and start feel of panic, and I know it is probable to come up at me. Sometimes, though, it is what i call the 'whoosh'. Something just happens in my body, like it is slammed up at my head by someone. I hear of other people say that actual 'flashbacks', they are indicating of things we need to remember of. But that does not make sense at me, as I always remember of all it, and I still get them, and body memories as well.

I think it is good idea, to keep journal of what you get, the memories and flashbacks of them, to share with your therapist. Mine ask me to keep one of this week, because I have been losing of time some, to see if we can find pattern of it. I hope that you discover more of yourself, to be able to better heal of it. I wish you well.

Leosha

I am half asleep and I find my body in the position of the abuse, my whole body lunges
forward to get away from the pain. That is what mine are like. I phyiscally relive it then I start to cry but stop myself.

I get different kinds of flashbacks.

Sometimes I get a panic attack and a flashback at the same time, I suppose one triggers the other. Usually I feel like I am in two places at once, I am both in the 'now' and in the flashback, it's very scary and confusing...

Other times I will get a flashback, and be completely engrossed in it. I believe that I am really there, and really however old I was when it happened. I can still usually communicate to people on the 'outside' though... but they rarely understand what is going on..

And then I get my nightmares, which are basically just flashbacks in dream form. I wake up in physical pain a lot, I feel that I have just been raped, and I hurt like that. Sometimes it takes a while for the smells and tastes and sounds to leave me after I wake up. A lot of times I wake up crying and don't know where I am for a while.

Hi sp I have to be alone to have a flashback, it is difficult to do this infront of others.

Mine just come whenever they want to, especially when I hit a trigger.

It is no fun to have them in front of anyone. They think you are crazy.

Guys:

Flashbacks via dreams are the most horrible thing for me because a part of me wants it again and again and again.

Last week I had a reawakening of something that I never knew had happened and it has totally infected my whole thought process. I wonder if I am ever going to be whole or even if I want to be. It is such a scary place.

I spoke with my T about the flashback that I had in her office the week before. I told her that it started somewhere in my stomach and worked its way to my head. She told me that many abuse victims describe the process akin to throwing up.

Green

I don't think I really have an actual flashback as I have sudden realizations from time to time in regards to what happened and I just have an overwhelming feeling of guilt and worthlessness come over me. Like I'm some sort of deviant or something.