Why do i keep having flashbacks

Flashbacks | RAINN

What is a flashback?

A flashback is when memories of a past trauma feel as if they are taking place in the current moment. That means it’s possible to feel like the experience of sexual violence is happening all over again. During a flashback it can be difficult to connect with reality. It may even feel like the perpetrator is physically present.

Flashbacks may seem random at first. They can be triggered by fairly ordinary experiences connected with the senses, like the smell of someone’s odor or a particular tone of voice. It’s a normal response to this kind of trauma, and there are steps you can take to help manage the stress of a flashback.

What helps during a flashback?

If you realize that you are in the middle of a flashback, consider the following tips:

Tell yourself that you are having a flashback. Remind yourself that the actual event is over and that you survived.
Breathe. Take slow, deep breaths by placing your hand on your stomach and taking deep breaths. You should see your hand move out with the inhalations, and watch it fall in with the exhalations. When we panic, our body begins to take short, shallow breaths, and the decrease in oxygen can make you feel more panicked. Deep breathing is important because it increases the oxygen in your system and helps you move out of anxious state faster.
Return to the present by using the five senses.
- Look around you. Make a list of the items in the room; count the colors or pieces of furniture around you. What do you see?
- Breathe in a comforting scent, or focus on the smells around you. What do you smell?
- Listen to the noises around you, or turn on music. What do you hear?
- Eat or drink something you enjoy. Focus on the flavor. What do you taste?
- Hold something cold, like a piece of ice, or hot, like a mug of tea. What does it feel like?
Recognize what would make you feel safer. Wrap yourself in a blanket, or go into a room by yourself and close the door. Do whatever it takes for you to feel secure.

How do I prevent flashbacks?

You may be able to take steps to prevent future flashbacks by identifying warning signs and triggers:

Be aware of the warning signs.

Flashbacks sometimes feel as though they come out of nowhere, but there are often early physical or emotional warning signs. These signs could include a change in mood, feeling pressure in your chest, or suddenly sweating. Becoming aware of the early signs of flashbacks may help you manage or prevent them.

Identify what experiences trigger your flashbacks.

Flashbacks can be triggered by a sensory feeling, an emotional memory, a reminder of the event, or even an unrelated stressful experience. Identify the experiences that trigger your flashbacks. If possible, make a plan on how to avoid these triggers or how to cope if you encounter the trigger.

Where can I get help?

There is a relief that comes with the end of a flashback, but that doesn’t mean it’s a one-time occurrence. Flashbacks can worsen over time if you don’t address them. They can also be an indicator of PTSD. Managing flashbacks isn’t easy work for anyone. Many survivors have found success working with a professional to identify triggers and develop tools to help them through flashbacks when they do occur.

To speak with someone who is trained to help, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) or chat online at online.rainn.org.

Please note that content on this site does not constitute medical advice and RAINN is not a medical expert. If after reading this information you have further questions, please contact a local healthcare professional or hospital.

Signs, Causes, Triggers, and How to Cope

Emotional flashbacks are intense emotional states activated by past trauma (e.g., fear, shame, or feeling unsafe). We look at effective ways to recognize and cope with them.

Do you experience intense waves of emotion that seem excessive based on the current situation? When this happens, do you feel like you’re reliving a stressful or traumatic event? You might be having emotional flashbacks.

Knowing the signs and symptoms of emotional flashbacks — and learning what to do when they arise — can help you move toward healing.

It’s important to note that while many mental health professionals find it useful to talk about emotional flashbacks in their practice, very little research has looked into whether they are a genuine phenomenon, their causes, and how to best manage them.

Emotional flashbacks describe the experience of being reminded of past trauma and your body responding by replicating the emotions you felt during the trauma.

The symptoms of emotional flashbacks can include the following feelings:

fear
shame
sadness
abandonment
feeling unsafe
feeling like the worst is about to happen

Emotional flashbacks may be hard to recognize. They can happen suddenly and it can be hard to pinpoint what caused them.

Unlike other forms of trauma-related flashbacks, emotional flashbacks are not typically visual or auditory. This means they can be harder to detect, and you may not know that what you’re experiencing is an emotional flashback. You might blame yourself for these feelings or think that you’re overwhelmed or emotionally dysregulated for another reason.

Emotional flashbacks may be linked with trauma-related mental health conditions, including:

post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD)
borderline personality disorder (BPD)

If you feel certain memories are intrusive and you find yourself avoiding situations because of your symptoms, it may help to talk with a doctor or mental health professional.

Examples of emotional flashbacks

If your parents or caregivers neglected to meet your basic needs as a child, such as providing regular meals, you might experience emotional flashbacks as an adult when you’re running low on money or food. This can result in extreme waves of emotions where you respond mentally as though you were a child again.

Another example is receiving criticism. If a parent, sibling, or another person was overly critical of you as a child, then you might become emotionally overwhelmed when receiving feedback as an adult. It may make you feel unsafe and mistrustful.

The factors that activate an emotional flashback will be different for each person depending on their individual experiences and their past trauma. Anything that reminds you of past trauma — such as abuse, neglect, or an accident — could cause an emotional flashback.

An individual’s trauma triggers could include specific:

sights
smells
people
situations
events

An emotional flashback is not the same as a panic attack. However, both involve sudden, intense emotions — and an emotional flashback could cause a panic attack — and so it may not be possible to tell the difference between the two.

Panic attacks can occur without a history of trauma and they may have no identifiable cause. Emotional flashbacks take you mentally back to trauma or stress from your past.

if you’re not sure whether you are experiencing an emotional flashback or a panic attack, a mental health professional may be able to help you work through the feelings and determine the cause.

Both emotional flashbacks and panic attacks can occur as part of PTSD and CPTSD.

The first step to dealing with an emotional flashback is recognizing that you’re having one. When you have this awareness, you can take steps to overcome it.

1. Listen to yourself and self-soothe

Pete Walker, MFT, a mental health professional who has written extensively about emotional flashbacks, offers several steps to help you through an emotional flashback. The steps include:

Tell yourself, “I am having a flashback.”
Remind yourself that you are safe in the present day and that the danger you’re feeling is based on a situation that is no longer happening. You might consider using a flashback halting protocol to help with this process.
Remember that you can leave your current situation if you want or need to.
Reassure your inner child that you love them and are looking after them.
Take slow, deep breaths to regulate your body.
Find a safe place where you can soothe and comfort yourself. You might wrap yourself in a blanket, take a nap, or have a warm bath.
Be patient with yourself. Healing from trauma can be a lengthy process and it takes time.

Learning to identify emotional flashbacks can help you recognize them and take steps to overcome them. It can be challenging to work out what activates your trauma responses. It’s best to work with a trauma-trained therapist who can help you identify and overcome these states in a safe and supportive way.

You can use Healthline’s Findcare tool to locate a trauma-informed therapist or professional near you. Psych Central’s How to Find Mental Health Support resource can also help.

2. Practice grounding

Grounding exercises are often effective for bringing yourself back to the present moment. These exercises can help you remember that you’re safe in the present moment and that the traumatic events are no longer happening.

Some ways to practice grounding include:

The 5-4-3-2-1 technique. State 5 things you see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can touch, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.
Progressive muscle relaxation. This involves tensing and releasing muscle groups to help you bring awareness to your body and reduce stress and tension.
Movement exercises. Regular yoga, dance, or other physical activity may help you connect with your body.

3. Seek support

Emotional flashbacks are intense and can feel isolating, so being able to lean on a support system can help you cope.

Research from 2017 reported that online self-help support groups could help people with CPTSD to understand, validate, and accept their mental health difficulties.

The participants were able to form meaningful interactions with others who had similar experiences and learn more about coping with symptoms in an informal setting.

It may also be helpful to learn more about emotional flashbacks from a mental health professional trained in treating trauma.

Emotional flashbacks take you back to a time of persistent trauma or stress. They involve intense emotions that may seem to come from nowhere.

What activates an emotional flashback differs between people. Whatever the causes, mental health professionals have identified various ways to cope with them. Recognizing what you’re experiencing and learning your triggers — ideally with the support of a mental health professional — is a good place to start.

If you experience feelings such as guilt, shame, or fear and deal with emotional flashbacks, support is available. You may consider visiting these organizations for additional resources, education, and support:

CPTSD foundation
The National Center for PTSD

Why do nightmare memories haunt us for so long?

Leslie Evans Odgen
BBC Future

6 March 2015

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Are there ways not to revive bad memories, but to hide them away in the pantries of the brain? Correspondent was looking for the answer to this question BBC Future.

This honeymoon was not ordinary. On the evening of August 23, 2001, Margaret McKinnon and her new husband went to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. When Air Transat Flight 236 from Canada crossed the mid-Atlantic, McKinnon went to the bathroom. Nothing worked inside. This seemed strange to Margaret, but she did not think about it.

When the passenger returned to her seat, the flight attendants were serving breakfast. Then there was an announcement that the plane would make an emergency landing. As McKinnon recalls, she thought it was too early to arrive in Lisbon. “At that moment, I didn’t really understand what that meant,” she says. However, the crew then told the passengers to put on life jackets, the lights in the cabin flashed, and finally the lights went out. There was a depressurization of the cabin. Fired oxygen masks.

(Similar articles from the "Journal" section)

After a critical fuel leak, all aircraft systems shut down. “People were screaming that the plane was going to fall into the ocean,” McKinnon recalls.

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Image caption,

Passengers were haunted by memories of a hard landing months later.

Passengers prepared for the worst for half an hour, she said, when someone yelled they were going to land. The plane was approaching the Azores, an archipelago located about 850 miles (1,360 kilometers) off the coast of Portugal. The pilots established contact with the Lajes airport, which is used by civil aviation and serves as the base of the Portuguese Air Force. After a terrifying 360-degree turn and several abrupt maneuvers to reduce altitude, the crew shouted "hold on tight, hold on tight, hold on tight." The pilots made a hard landing. The landing gear of the plane was engulfed in flames.

The shocked passengers and crew left the aircraft on the inflatable escape slides and ran across the airfield towards the armed American soldiers to get to a safe distance. During the evacuation, going down the ladders, two people were seriously injured, 16 escaped with minor bruises and abrasions, but all 293 passengers and 13 crew members survived...

However, for many, the story did not end there. Some passengers, including McKinnon, were haunted by haunting memories of the experience and nightmares for many months.

This experience inspired Margaret McKinnon, now a psychologist, to study how emotional trauma affects the brain, how it changes our memories, and why some people experience PTSD. In recent years, researchers have been trying to understand why frightening memories leave such a deep imprint. If they can figure out the reasons why psychological shock has such a strong and lasting effect, they may be able to find ways to help people cope better with the effects of emotional trauma.

Scary fingerprint

For decades, the connection between fear and memory has intrigued researchers and practitioners. However, the information we have is contradictory. "Some studies have found that when we remember traumatic events, the intensity of these memories increases. They become very vivid, people remember many details, and it seems that it is not difficult for them to remember everything they experienced," McKinnon says.

Other studies have found that memories of traumatic events can be very sparse and fragmentary, "remembering only isolated details that do not form a chain of events," she explains.

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Image caption

The hardest memories to get rid of are the ones you want to get rid of the most

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Some research has examined the functioning of memory while people were experiencing emotional trauma, especially when a group of people were in that state at the same time. McKinnon decided to delve into the memories of other passengers who flew with her on Air Transat Flight 236.

"We wanted to use this opportunity to look at the situation in a well-controlled environment," McKinnon says, barely holding back an awkward laugh at the word "controlled" she used to describe the emergency descent of AT 236. The study involved 15 passengers from that flight. They were asked about three events: about the flight itself, about some emotionally neutral event that occurred in the same year, and about the events of September 11, 2001, which occurred a month after the plane crash. Six out of 15 respondents showed signs of post-traumatic syndrome.

Researchers directed people's memories in the direction they needed: "Tell me everything you can remember about this event. " They kept pulling out more details, helping the respondent with clues like, "What did you think, what did you feel, what was the interior lighting like?" Detailed memories were compared with the known sequence of events, as well as with the accounts of members of the control group, whose memories were less traumatic.

They found that all passengers - whether or not they continued to develop PTSD - retained vivid and strong memories of the incident. Thus, the assumption was confirmed that fear changes the algorithm of the mechanism by which the brain stores memories.

People who subsequently developed PTSD "demonstrated memories of many extraneous details relating not only to the event that traumatized them, but also to the events of 9/11, as well as neutral memories relating to the same time period," says McKinnon. This suggests that such people find it difficult to "edit" their own memories or make their content less distinct.

McKinnon acknowledges that her study is based on only a small sample of such cases. She is careful with conclusions and generalizations, but still finds the results very intriguing. "It's clear that people are reluctant to participate in the experiment," McKinnon says. "And we are very, very grateful to those who did agree to participate, because talking about such things can be very difficult."

So, if traumatic memories are more vivid, what happens in our heads when they are "created"?

Department of Special Memories

The brain has different memory systems. We have muscle or physical memory, which allows us to learn how to ride a bicycle, for example. We have an auditory memory for singing songs. And we have a more specific "declarative" memory, the mechanism of which is closely related to the hippocampus - that part of the brain that is responsible for short-term storage of information. The hippocampus, which has been compared to a computer's RAM, stores information like where you parked your car and that two plus two equals four.

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Image caption

Where is the part of the brain responsible for our disturbing memories?

But the feeling of fear activates another memory system. This is our body's emergency control center, known as the amygdala. It consists of two almond-shaped regions to the right and left of the medial or temporal lobe, one in each hemisphere of the brain. The amygdala is responsible for the accumulation of emotionally charged memories such as fear, as well as such pleasant sensations associated with food, sex and drug use.

When experiences are particularly striking and unexpected, they activate this memory system. Perhaps this is why sensory cues are able to bring us back to emotional memories: the smell of certain perfumes or colognes is reminiscent of the first kiss.

In the case of terrible memories, our sense of self-preservation comes into play, and the so-called memory of a single test may be imprinted in the memory.

"If you've ever run away from a lion or seen a lion devour someone, you'll know to watch out for lions," explains Kerry Ressler, professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. This is significantly different from the perception of what you read in a book or from the perception of those events that did not cause an emotional outburst.

"Perhaps memory gives different meanings to the experiences, because we want to prioritize the very things that really matter," continues Ressler.

When we experience fear, a surge of adrenaline sets in motion a chain of reactions that supposedly allows us to better remember the events that just happened. "The sense of fear has evolved to keep us alive," explains Karim Nader, professor of psychology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Flashbacks

Experienced fears, however, do not necessarily leave behind deep memories. Elizabeth Phelps, professor of psychology and neuroscience at New York University, was interested in the so-called "flashbacks" people have of the events of 9/11.

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Image caption,

The amygdala stores memories of emotional events

This is not about people with post-traumatic stress disorder, "but about ordinary 9/11 survivors, that is, almost all of us" , says Phelps. She suddenly discovered that, despite the apparent vividness, these memories are not as strong as is commonly believed. They could change.

Phelps' laboratory at New York University was located near the site of this disaster. In a large-scale, detailed study that took place a few weeks after 9/11, one year, two years, and ten years later, the scientists found that "people were absolutely confident that all the details were accurately stored in their memory." The details are not in the sense of how it really happened, but in the sense of where and with whom the people were, how they found out about what happened, and what they did afterwards. However, individual memories of related details actually changed frequently over time.

This suggests that "flashbacks" differ from memories of neutral events not in that their details are better preserved, but in that we think of them that way. "In the case of traumatic events, it seems to us that they are incredibly accurately deposited in the memory," she says. In fact, many details that seem accurate to us are not. "Emotions focus your attention on a few details to the detriment of many others," Phelps explains.

Total Recall

So does this mean that traumatic memories can be altered or even erased from memory? Now we have a much better understanding of the system for storing and reproducing the contents of memory, which means that we have a unique opportunity to change or erase scary memories. The time interval during which it remains possible to slow down the process of deep deposition of events in memory is approximately six hours. Thus, attempts to attenuate memories by pharmacological means must be made within this short period of time.

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Image caption,

Even bad memories disappear like footprints in the sand over time . "Now this technique is used in the Israeli army," - says Nader. But new research suggests that memories can be retrieved, refreshed, or silenced, even outside of the length of time they remain on the hard drive in our brains.

In experiments on rats, Nader reminded the rodents of the horror he had experienced using sounds that had previously been heard during electric shocks, and then gave the animals beta-blockers. Even after the beta-blockers were cleared from the blood of the rodents, their numbing response to the traumatic memory disappeared. Examining the same approach with a small group of people, Nader and colleagues found that despite the fact that the subjects suffered an average of 11 years of bad memories, "even after the removal of beta-blockers from the blood, the psychological trauma was below the level that implies post-traumatic mental disorder.

This method is at a very early stage of development and research into its effectiveness is ongoing. Yet it seems that a subtle method of memory reprogramming is quite achievable. "We're not changing what you know about what happened. We're just changing the associations you have with the stress of fighting or fear of flying," says Phelps. nothing more than science fiction."

Reference points

As for McKinnon, she believes that despite her vivid traumatic memories, there are many details she cannot remember.

"We were over the highest point of the island when the plane suddenly turned sharply towards the ocean, and it was incredibly scary. We then thought: well, that's it," McKinnon says, recalling the moment when the plane was landing at the airport Lajesh. She remembers how she saw the roofs of houses and was afraid that they would collapse on them, and other people would die because of this. But if you asked her if it was dark during that terrible descent, McKinnon would not be able to answer you. Similarly, she cannot remember whether she was sitting at the window or in the aisle.

When it comes to horrifying memories, our brains may be selective about which details to keep. The more we learn how and why this happens, the closer we get to reducing the effects of emotional trauma.

This destined honeymoon flight was a bright start to family life. "Yeah, it was just the beginning," McKinnon laughs. "An unexpected start."

As it turned out, this year turned her whole life upside down in many ways. She realized that she should do science, and she also came to understand that people with post-traumatic stress disorder need care and treatment, says Margaret. "I decided that this is exactly the direction in which I want to build my career."

What McKinnon experienced that day was the beginning of a professional and personal journey that was hard to foresee.

Read the original of this article in English is available on the website BBC Future .

Six Oddities of Our Memory: Still More Amazing Than You Thought

David Robson
BBC Future

29 December 2018

Image copyright, Getty Images

Our memory's propensity to make mistakes has long been known, and not only to psychologists, yet many of us repeatedly underestimate its ability to fail and deceive. Reviewer BBC Future has put together a roundup list of her weirdest quirks for you.

1) It is impossible to remember your first years of life, but many are sure that they remember into the world and passes in the womb, - wrote Salvador Dali in his memoirs. - But I - yes, I remember this period as if it were yesterday. "

The artist hoped that his own memories of that "divine paradise" would help others to return to those moments of life lost in memory before birth.

In fact, Dali's memories were almost certainly the result of his wild imagination.

Today, scientists believe that it is impossible to remember even the very first years of one's life, and even the time before birth is completely erased from memory.

During this period, the brain structures necessary for remembering had not yet developed, making it physiologically impossible to retain personal memories of early childhood.

All "memories" of that time are illusions or "false memories" gathered from the experiences of others, stories from relatives and friends, or knowledge that we gained later.

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Image caption,

Old photographs can give the impression that you really remember the earliest years of your life

2) Your memory depends on your temperature

context. To understand what this means, consider an experiment in which participants are asked to dip their hands in a bucket of ice water (which is not very pleasant), and then they are asked to memorize a list of words.

After a series of tests, scientists found that participants' memory improves when they dip their hands in ice water again.

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This study showed that we remember facts better if we recreate the environment (context) and conditions (physical or psychological) of the moment in which the desired memories were formed - even if it seems to us completely unimportant.

By the way, this is one of the reasons why we remember the events of the last party better after we drink beer, and when we are completely sober, this is difficult to do.

And this can be used: for example, if you chewed gum or drank coffee while memorizing something, your memory will return to you if you reproduce that process.

Smells help too: try the same perfume or, if you're a man, the same aftershave that you used in the situation you want to remember.

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Image caption,

The physical state of the body, including body temperature, can influence what and how we remember

3) Time warps your mind

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Test yourself: try to remember in which month and year the following events took place:

(a) Michael Jackson died

(b) Beyoncé released the album Lemonade

(c) There was a famous confusion at the Oscars when the film "La La Land was mistakenly presented with the Best Picture Award

(d) Angela Merkel announced her decision to step down as chancellor in 2021

Unless you are one of those amazing people who keep all the news in mind, your answers will far from the real dates. And in this you can see a certain pattern.

Research has shown that we often underestimate the amount of time that has passed since events in the more distant past (eg the death of Michael Jackson) and exaggerate the amount of time that has passed since recent events (Angela Merkel's decision).

This phenomenon is known as "time shifting" or "telescopeing": your mind warps time and stores events in memory so that they do not follow the real chronology.

(Correct answers: (a) June 2009 (b) April 2016 (c) February 2017 (d) October 2018)

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Image caption,

Some events in history - like the death of Michael Jackson - are so easily remembered that our minds minimize the amount of time that has passed since them

4) Vague memories are good...

Try drawing a portrait of your best friend from memory. Or, without looking at the photo, describe his (or her) appearance in as much detail as possible.

Unless you have a particularly bad memory for faces, you can do it quite well in terms of main features.

But here are some specific features (even such as the exact color of the hair) that can be remembered with great difficulty.

This is just one example of the fact that we tend to remember the essence of things rather than their detailed description. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

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Details of facial features may change over time, but the general impression of a person's appearance (the essence of his appearance) remains the same. This means that you will recognize your friend in any light, with any hairstyle.

(Interestingly, even our memories of our own appearance are not always accurate. We tend to remember our face as more attractive than it actually is. )

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Image caption,

Our memory for faces can not being very detailed is not always a bad thing

5) …however, your overconfidence in the accuracy of your memory can cost you dearly

Suppose you need to draw or describe your own face. You probably think you remember him very well. And you are most likely wrong.

Many studies have shown that most people believe that their memory is much better than the average person. Which, of course, is statistically impossible.

We ignore and then just forget those times when our memory failed us, but we remember those times when it worked perfectly. Because of this, it seems to us that when we need it, our memory (our beautiful memory!) Will not let us down.

Without memory. People lost in time

And this turns into a serious problem if, for example, a policeman is sure in his memory, on whom depends how the investigation of a criminal case will go.

This is also a problem for students who over-optimistically exaggerate what they have learned before an important exam.

We are often overconfident about our "prospective memory" - the ability to remember what needs to be done in the future. And this can already have serious financial consequences.

This is often used by those who offer a free subscription period for something that ends at some point and automatically starts charging you if you forget to unsubscribe due to overconfidence in your prospective memory.

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Image caption,

Overconfidence in your memory can have serious consequences during criminal investigations

6) You may be suffering from digital amnesia

The ubiquity of smartphones has a major impact on what and how we remember.

Just imagine how many events your Facebook or Instagram account stores. This is a whole archive that will help you remember everything that happened in your life.

But social networks can also distort your memories. One reason for this is a phenomenon known as "retrieval-induced forgetting" ( retrieval-induced forgetting, RIF )0151 Note translator ).

It is now well known that memories become labile, unstable and fragile when we pull them into consciousness - and the accompanying memories are also distorted.

As a result, remembering one element of an event can refresh this detail in our memory, but it will lead to the fact that other information about the same event will be completely forgotten.

This is easy to see in social networks. Facebook brings you back from time to time to the events of the past that you once mentioned in your post - some photo, some recorded emotion, thought ...

But in this way, other things that happened that day, other aspects of the event, are forgotten even more strongly.

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