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elevatedsoul
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Default Aug 15, 2019 at 09:20 PM
  #1
Quite frequently i find myself slipping into "memories" and i am wondering if it is dissociation or is it flashbacks and if flashbacks dont have to be of traumatic events but uncomfortable circumstances or even completely random happenings that are not even unpleasant and possibly enjoyable


Example:
Going to a grocery store; in line paying for items having a small conversation with cashier.

Next day, or days later, flashing back to that moment in my mind and feeling as if i am there, even speaking aloud as if i am there only to come back frustrated because i realize I've clearly lost my whole damn mind


I am just trying to figure out what is happening sooo i can learn to control it and stop losing focus on the moment and stay present so i can become ever more successful

Thanks

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Default Aug 16, 2019 at 08:33 AM
  #2
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Originally Posted by elevatedsoul View Post
Quite frequently i find myself slipping into "memories" and i am wondering if it is dissociation or is it flashbacks and if flashbacks dont have to be of traumatic events but uncomfortable circumstances or even completely random happenings that are not even unpleasant and possibly enjoyable


Example:
Going to a grocery store; in line paying for items having a small conversation with cashier.

Next day, or days later, flashing back to that moment in my mind and feeling as if i am there, even speaking aloud as if i am there only to come back frustrated because i realize I've clearly lost my whole damn mind


I am just trying to figure out what is happening sooo i can learn to control it and stop losing focus on the moment and stay present so i can become ever more successful

Thanks
only your own treatment providers can say which is which inside you.

my own treatment provider goes by the new definitions that

dissociation is a normal response to a positive or negative trigger, things like feeling numb, feeling spaced out, feeling like I am moving in slow motion, feeling like everyone one else is moving at a pace that is faster or slower than my own mind is. in other words dissociation is about feelings that contain dissociation symptoms. the likes of what you would find if you googled the diagnostic criteria for dissociative disorders.

flashbacks can also be positive or negatively triggered and is the "reliving" of an event or something...

it can be as simple as remembering what one has had for breakfast in so vivid detail that it feels like a person is right back there having that same breakfast all over again, or it could be as complicated as feeling like a person is right back there re experiencing the trauma in such vivid details that it seems like its happening right now for real all over again. most times this can be so vivid that people confuse the past for right now... example those veteran crimes you see in the news where a vet was going through flashbacks and thought they were still in the wars, or that survivor who suddenly lost it in a crowd of people injuring others because they thought it was the past at the traumatic event that happened in their lives, or natural traumatic events such as sometimes I will wake up during a storm and for a few minutes I will be reliving the hurricane that took my home years ago. I will be running around trying to grab things and stuff them in bags and baggies and packing the car up, because I am reliving that traumatic event with such details its like its happening now.

a memory is anything that I have experienced that sometimes I think about but its not like reliving it in such details as a flashback. sitting here at my computer I can remember that I made coffee this morning.

my suggestion is if this continues to bother you contact a treatment provider who can help you figure out what this is in you and get you treated for it if needed.
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Default Aug 16, 2019 at 02:07 PM
  #3
Is it possible for them to be one in the same for someone?

A dissociative flashback? Or flashbacks just part of dissociating?

Gulf Bend MHMR Center

I guess it doesnt bother me too much because ive always lived with it.. but it is rather embarrassing sometimes...


Yesterday afterwards i just thought of this website and thought i would enquire

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Default Aug 16, 2019 at 05:55 PM
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Originally Posted by elevatedsoul View Post
Is it possible for them to be one in the same for someone?

A dissociative flashback? Or flashbacks just part of dissociating?

Gulf Bend MHMR Center

I guess it doesnt bother me too much because ive always lived with it.. but it is rather embarrassing sometimes...


Yesterday afterwards i just thought of this website and thought i would enquire
ummm just a guess here since there is no date on the actual article that it was wrote before then change over to the new definitions...

reason I say this is because dissociative problems now have a diagnostic criteria that reality remains intact and the article mentions dissociation as loss of reality.

my suggestion is to go according to your own treatment provider who has the updated definitions,

also yes it is possible for someone to have dissociation symptoms at the same time as having PTSD symptoms. the new diagnostics for Trauma and Stress Related Disorders do include a variety of dissociative "symptoms" and criteria for having both PTSD and dissociative symptoms.

my suggestion is again go according to what your own treatment provider has diagnosed you with and not fall back into the trap of researching online and getting yourself all worked up and stressed out your treatment provider can explain to you whether your diagnosed disorders contain dissociative symptoms too.

Last edited by bluekoi; Aug 16, 2019 at 11:45 PM.. Reason: Administrative edit.
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Default Aug 21, 2019 at 07:24 PM
  #5
So what about 'emotional flashbacks'? They're dissociative in nature; that IS the flashback. I do think there is a relevant difference between PTSD-based flashbacks and childhood traumatic flashbacks / emotional flashbacks. However, I've never heard of flashbacks stemming from neutral or positive events in life. I think most people would call that a memory. To me, that's the problem. Dissociative flashbacks are pathological in nature; memories aren't. If this is true, then isn't it likely that dissociation is the difference between a memory and a flashback?

I differ from Amandalouise - I use my own research as part of the therapy. Sometimes it affects me, sometimes not. But that's just all grist for the mill....Everyone follows their own muse.

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Default Aug 21, 2019 at 10:56 PM
  #6
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So what about 'emotional flashbacks'? They're dissociative in nature; that IS the flashback. I do think there is a relevant difference between PTSD-based flashbacks and childhood traumatic flashbacks / emotional flashbacks. However, I've never heard of flashbacks stemming from neutral or positive events in life. I think most people would call that a memory. To me, that's the problem. Dissociative flashbacks are pathological in nature; memories aren't. If this is true, then isn't it likely that dissociation is the difference between a memory and a flashback?

I differ from Amandalouise - I use my own research as part of the therapy. Sometimes it affects me, sometimes not. But that's just all grist for the mill....Everyone follows their own muse.
a positive flashback is more than a memory.

a memory is when someone is remembering something but they are not reliving it as if its happening right now.

a flashback is reliving a past situation, event as if its happening right now.

here is an example of a memory... I can sit here tonight and remember what I did today.

here is an example of a positive flashback....

my wife and I got married shortly after New York passed the same sex marriage law clearing the way for my wife and I become married. it was a wonderful experience, we traveled around to our relatives and invited them to come along to niagra falls where my wife and I got married and had our honeymoon. nothing traumatic happened, we all had a great time.

today I and my wife attended the same sex marriage of a very close friend. during the wedding I was having flashbacks where I was literally reliving parts of my marriage ceremony to my wife. at one point she had to get my attention because I was literally holding my hand up for her to put the ring on my finger during the wedding like she had done so many years ago. we both smiled at each other knowing our wedding was such a wonderful time for me and her that there I was at a friends wedding having positive flashbacks about our own wedding. if it was just a memory I would not have been literally holding my hand up for my wife to place the ring on my finger. I would have been sitting there calmly listening to the ceremony of our friends and calmly remembering our wedding but not acting it out physically as if it was happening today. that's what a positive flash back is... when someone has something positive happening and they literally relive in every detain that positive event as if its happening right now at this moment. I have had many times when I have had flashbacks because of positive things...where nothing traumatic happened and my body and brain literally relived the past positive events in my life.

heres another one of my positive flashbacks. a couple summers ago my wife and I went upstate hiking. it was a wonderful day. a week later we were watching a tv show and there was the mountain we hiked up, it instantly made me flash back to literally reliving doing so, it was more vivid that memory and I literally got up off the sofa and started making climbing motions to get around this one boulder. again nothing traumatic happ0ened on that hike, we all had a great time hiking up, having a picnic at the summit and then hiking back down. it was just that this fantastically made documentary about the mountains triggered my brain and body to literally relive that wonderful hike and time spent with friends.
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Default Aug 22, 2019 at 06:42 PM
  #7
I often have "flashbacks" of non-traumatic memories. We have a whole series of years that were previously unaccessible to us because they were experienced mostly by two alters, and recently we have been having "flashbacks" of that time... the places we lived, the people we knew etc. The memory flashes are not of traumatic stuff, but more sensory impressions of daily life. They definitely have a dissociative component, because they were previously not remembered at all and I am becoming aware of them for the first time. But they are not like traumatic memories, because they lack any emotional trauma (because none was associated with them). I guess for me this is simply the process of integration.... memories that were previously held by other alters are now becoming my own.
I find it curious because they are "triggered" in much the same as way as flashbacks of traumatic memory are triggered - by some sensory element - a smell, a particular visual, a relational encounter etc. But unlike traumatic flashbacks these simply arouse my curiosity as I am able to learn more about my largely blank past.
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