What does a flashback feel like?

[katie23]

I just wanted to know x

[nomorepanic]

I have never been diagnosed with PTSD but I had a traumatic time when I was ill back in 2008/2009 and I spent 9.5 months off work. I did have counselling afterwards but it never helped to be honest.

Anyway, sometimes I can be sat watching TV and a programme's intro music will come on or even just an advert and I have a flash back to laying in bed when I was very ill and didn't do much more than watch TV all day.

So basically it just a memory that reminds you of the traumatic even that happened and you can almost see yourself back in that position again.

[onceagain]

you said that so well, I get these on a regular basis and I can be so immensely happy and bam it hits .. it takes me right back to the feelings of fear, weakness, my stomach knots.. once I'm there I get mind visions, I actually see the events replaying in my mind, I can remember not only the series of events but words said and all the same feelings hit me.

Because of this I go on a roller coaster ride, worse than that though those round me haven't a clue how awful it is and therefore actually get angry with me, which makes it ten times worse. You will know if you have them... it can be a smell, place, word anything can strike a flash back... x

[nomorepanic]

I agree Sharon about the smell, place, word etc. When I go back to the same hospital I was in now I walk in and it can hit me like wham and it all comes back to me again!

It took me while to get over things but it does pass in time.

I guess you just have to move on from the event and remember it but not dwell on it

[Wolfie]

I had a flashback a couple of months ago and it was like, it came on really suddenly, out of the blue, not aware of any triggers to be honest. But, it was as if I was there again, the smell, the feel, the sound, the emotions - absolute terror and fear, it was like, I was aware that my body was here...but my mind was in that a moment of time.

It was sort of like being there and having it having all over again, except, I was watching it happen - yet feeling what was going on - sort of like an out of body experience type thing. This is hard to explain and I'm waffling, lol.

Anyways, I come back here in an instant, left with all the emotions I had experienced in that snapshot of time. it was horrible and traumatic. It felt very out of sync of things - definately a strange moment!

[Anxious_gal]

sometimes a flash back can be a certain emotion, feeling, phantom pain.
sometimes it can take years before you realize why sometimes you get that "strange" feeling.

[Lima]

For me, a flashback plants me back in time. It's like one second I am in the present and the next I am back in time and awful things are happening (like they are actually happening all over again). I see, hear, smell and feel everything exactly as it was originally. Then as quickly as it began, I am dumped back in the present - not knowing what is real and what isn't, where I am, who I am, it's very confusing.