My first EMDR counselor never told me about emotional flashbacks. I found about these during my own research into C-PTSD. Just learning about their existence was freeing for me.

What are emotional flashbacks?

According to Pete Walker, “Emotional flashbacks are a complex mixture of intense and confusing reliving of past trauma from childhood. It is like living a nightmare while you are awake, with overwhelming sorrow, toxic shame, and a sense of inadequacy.”

Emotional flashbacks are insidious things. You are not aware of them and probably never ever heard about them. They have been apart of you for so long, you think they are normal. They are not. Emotional flashbacks turn minor things into huge, unmanageable situations. Something as simple as not being invited out to lunch – to simply be forgotten about becomes a day altering event. A person not suffering from C-PTSD would easily shrug this off. For me, it is crushing to the point of debilitating emotionally. This was just normal. I couldn’t understand why other people could not see how hurtful this was. I would feel completely worthless. These feelings could last for days. At the time, I didn’t know I was riding an emotional flashback.

The emotional flashback brought in all the shame, abandonment, and pain of childhood trauma into the event. These acted like a magnifying class for all my emotions. I would go into flight mode. I simply wanted to leave work and never return. I never understood these incredibly intense emotions.

Just learning of the concept of emotional flashbacks became incredibly freeing. I now had an understanding that these feelings were not normal. With just the awareness of the concept, I was slowly able to recognize the flashbacks. I started to be able to take a step back from the situation and examine it. Yes, I was still flooded with these emotions, but I could now take control back from the flashback. Even when recognizing the flashback, it is difficult to manage but manage I could. I found I also won’t immediately recognize a flashback when it first occurs. I also didn’t initially realize a person could suffer a flashback for days. I figured this out when I once recognized I was in a flashback after having been in it for a couple of days. Upon the realization, I was able to step off the flashback wave.

The other part of these flashback is my inner critic. Damn her. Paul Walker talks about the role of the inner critic in one of his early articles:

“Managing the Inner Critic
In guiding clients to develop their ability to manage emotional flashbacks, my most
common intervention involves helping them to deconstruct the alarmist tendencies of
the inner critic. This is essential, as Donald Kalshed explains in The Inner World of
Trauma, because the inner critic grows rampantly in traumatized children, and because
the inner critic not only exacerbates flashbacks, but eventually grows into a psychic
agency that initiates them. Continuous abuse and neglect force the child’s inner critic
(superego) to overdevelop perfectionism and hypervigilance. The perfectionism of
Complex PTSD puts the child’s every thought, word or action on trial and judges her as
fatally flawed if any of them are not one hundred percent faultless. Perfectionism then
devolves into the child’s obsessive attempt to root out real or imagined defects and to
achieve unsurpassable excellence in an effort to win a modicum of safety and
comforting attachment”

All of this plays into the attachment styles I talked about earlier. With C-PTSD, there is so much that is intertwined together. This is one of the reason that recovery requires years of effort and work. But the positive part of C-PTSD is that there is no one stronger than us. We have what it takes to survive. We have what it takes to heal.

Paul Walker provided the following resource for managing flashbacks. Please check out his site for the full list. The following points from his resource have been particularly helpful for me where as some have not yet been internalized by me:

Managing Emotional Flashbacks

1. Say to yourself: “I am having a flashback”. Flashbacks take us into a timeless part of the psyche that feels as helpless, hopeless and surrounded by danger as we were in childhood. The feelings and sensations you are experiencing are past memories that cannot hurt you now.

For me, just the mere fact that I can now recognize what a flashback is has allowed me to get off the “wave” of a flashback. Before I knew what one was, it was like I was in the ocean riding a big wave. Once I realize I am on the wave of a flashback, I can step off it and just watch it go by. Some of these flashbacks are easier to recognize than others. Some I might still ride for days before I realize them. But each time I find my self one, I get better about being able to recognize the wave and step off.

2. Remind yourself: “I feel afraid but I am not in danger! I am safe now, here in the present.” Remember you are now in the safety of the present, far from the danger of the past.

The first time I read this one, I thought is was silly. Off course I know I am in not in danger! I am no longer in that situation. Yes, part of my brain knows that, but I realized there are parts of my brain that hasn’t fully grasped that fact. Saying that aloud, is actually helpful. It helps to remind the parts of my mind still stuck in the past that is need not be in the past any longer.

3. Own your right/need to have boundaries. Remind yourself that you do not have to allow anyone to mistreat you; you are free to leave dangerous situations and protest unfair behavior.

Walk away when you can. No one has a right to be in your life – family or not. If the person is toxic, it is time to walk away. I understand that is not always possible. Sometimes even protesting the unfair behavior isn’t possible or will make matters worse. As a teenager, I made the decision to remove myself from the situation and left home. Not everyone will be able to do that. When you cannot find that path out, it is time to reach out to other resources. In the UK you can call 0808 2000 247. There is also the Bright Sky mobile app and website for anyone experiencing domestic abuse, or who is worried about someone else. If you live in the United States, you can reach out to National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788.

Learning to set appropriate boundaries is another complete topic in and of itself. However, it is a key to freeing yourself. For many of us who are in this situation, we are comfortable in living in the environment. We may have not have known anything different and we have the tools to survive in the environment. But it doesn’t mean we need to continue in the environment. There is better out there – even as scary as it is to seek out that unknown.

4. Speak reassuringly to the Inner Child. The child needs to know that you love her unconditionally- that she can come to you for comfort and protection when she feels lost and scared.

For me, this is part of bringing silence to the inner critic. Maybe some will argue the inner child and the inner critic are two separate people. Right now, they appear to be one in the same. Maybe it is more that the inner critic has so polluted the inner child that they tend to speak with one voice. By reassuring the inner child, I may one day be able to silence my inner critic.

6. Remind yourself that you are in an adult body with allies, skills and resources to protect you that you never had as a child. (Feeling small and little is a sure sign of a flashback)

With C-PTSD, it is not so much about the physical trauma. It is more about the emotional trauma. I don’t care how big you are – you might be the biggest SAS solider on the battle field, but all that physical prowess doesn’t protect your mind. For many of us, we have to cultivate resources we never learned as a child. Recognizing the flashback is that first step.

For me, many of my flashbacks come out of other people’s behavior. Sometimes that behavior is self absorbed, neglectful, or just rude. I have had to re-frame my view of others. I have to remind myself that we are all imperfect humans. We all fail in one way or the other. Yes, there are true evil people out there. The people who set out to inflict pain on others for the sake of their own enjoyment. Those people I side step. I realize they may have had their own battles that made them into what they are. There actions are not my fault nor are they my responsibility. The majority of people’s bad actions don’t necessarily originate out of spite. I now try to live a life of extending grace to others. “Be kind. Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”

7. Ease back into your body. Fear launches us into ‘heady’ worrying, or numbing and spacing out.
  [a] Gently ask your body to Relax: feel each of your major muscle groups and softly encourage them to relax. (Tightened musculature sends unnecessary danger signals to the brain)
  [b] Breathe deeply and slowly. (Holding the breath also signals danger).
  [c] Slow down: rushing presses the psyche’s panic button.
  [d] Find a safe place to unwind and soothe yourself: wrap yourself in a blanket, hold a stuffed animal, lie down in a closet or a bath, take a nap.
  [e] Feel the fear in your body without reacting to it. Fear is just an energy in your body that cannot hurt you if you do not run from it or react self-destructively to it.

I resisted any and all mindful practices for a long time. Don’t do what I did. I am still not that good at it but when things get really bad, I have found it does help me – most times. If I find it is making things worse, I stop. You need to understand your body and mind. You may just need to go on a long run instead.

8. Resist the Inner Critic’s Drasticizing and Catastrophizing:
  [a] Use thought-stopping to halt its endless exaggeration of danger and constant planning to control the uncontrollable. Refuse to shame, hate or abandon yourself. Channel the anger of self-attack into saying NO to unfair self-criticism.
  [b] Use thought-substitution to replace negative thinking with a memorized list of your qualities and accomplishments

I will talk more about this one in a later post. I have found those of use with C-PTSD border on Imposter Syndrome. This one is hard. Very hard.

10. Cultivate safe relationships and seek support. Take time alone when you need it, but don’t let shame isolate you. Feeling shame doesn’t mean you are shameful. Educate your intimates about flashbacks and ask them to help you talk and feel your way through them.

In this one, I find a minefield. Much easier said than done. “Assume everyone will betray you and you will never be disappointed.” I have never seen the movie this quote came from but it has become my mantra. Betrayal is my hardest struggle. Everyone is human. Everyone will betray you on some level. So finding that safe relationship is hard. It is impossible if you define a safe relationship to be completely free of betrayal. I understand people are imperfect and will fail me. It is my choice what I do with that failure. I can’t let it put me into a flashback. I go into every relationship knowing betrayal is always possible. I will not be blindsided again. But I do trust. You must trust. You can’t have a healthy relationship without trust.

I do, however, demand a relationship free of abuse. That is not an unreasonable expectation demand.

An important part of my recovery has been my spouse. My spouse attended several of my counseling sessions. That has allowed a level of understanding my spouse would not have had otherwise. It also keeps them from unintentionally getting hurt when I find myself on an emotional flashback. I simply let them know I am on a flashback. They will ask if there is anything they can do – normally my answer is “nothing.” They know to give me time and space. They know to watch me and keep me safe.

11. Learn to identify the types of triggers that lead to flashbacks. Avoid unsafe people, places, activities and triggering mental processes. Practice preventive maintenance with these steps when triggering situations are unavoidable.

“What? You are no longer in my life? Hmmm. There must have been a reason. Oh? Because you are family you think you have a right to me or my life? Tell me another joke.” I don’t care who you are – if you are toxic or abusive. You are gone. I “owe” you nothing. I will eventually forgive, but that forgiveness does not mean you are welcome back in my life. Oh, and that forgiveness is for myself, not you. If you have truly changed, we may work on rebuilding something – but don’t think for an instant that trust will be back where it once was. Yes, this has been the most important point I have learned. Remove. Avoid. Heal.

13. Be patient with a slow recovery process: it takes time in the present to become un-adrenalized, and considerable time in the future to gradually decrease the intensity, duration and frequency of flashbacks. Real recovery is a gradually progressive process (often two steps forward, one step back), not an attained salvation fantasy. Don’t beat yourself up for having a flashback.

For me, and everyone is different, this has been a slow process of years. Each year it was bit by bit. Sometimes I could not see the change myself. I tend to have a blind spot when it comes to myself. However, others started to notice a change. As I have continued in my journey, things have progressed a bit faster and I have started to notice a difference. I am not done by any stretch – but I am leaps and bounds beyond what I once was.