Flashback

Preface this to say, I’m not feeling any kind of way tonight. I’m a-ok, b-ok, etc. I’ve just been meaning to get this thought down for awhile now.

So, one of the wonders of PTSD is flashbacks. Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with those. Or…so I always thought.

Like most people, I always assumed flashbacks were uncontrollable memories of the events. Like a soldier back from war will SEE visions of what he left behind.

That was when I thought all PTSD was the same, regardless of mine having a C in front of it.

I was wrong on both counts.

For many, flashbacks and nightmares aren’t memories of the actual event(s). They are being flooded with the same FEELINGS that you were flooded with during the event(s). Fear, loss of control, anger…all of it.

I only recently understood this about flashbacks. (I already knew it about dreams.)

And since learning this, I keep coming back to one particular memory that always left even me saying, “WTF?!?!?”

It was about 4.5 years ago. I was meeting some friends for a race. I was rather…meh…about going for a couple of reasons. 1. I had just found out that my mother had moved. Still somewhere close, but I didn’t kmow where yet. And that is a terrifying thing to me. 2. I knew someone I REALLY didn’t like…like she triggered me in a way only my mother can…was going to be there. But, so were my friends…so I went.

When we got there, I started to walk to the area everyone was in. But…as I walked up…I saw that woman…and I started to cry my eyes out…I was wandering in circles trying to convince myself not to flee…I was both frozen and ready to take flight. Someone I was friends with could tell I was upset…although neither of us could say why…so we just stuck together for the race and then went to get breakfast.

What I knew, even in that moment. I looked like a crazy woman. A crazy woman who wouldn’t even stop to talk to her friends, but just wandered around crying.

What I now understand, I was having a flashback.

I was already triggered by the move of my mother. Then…as I walk to my people…my life that I’d built for me…there was this woman…this blonde embodiment of my mother (to this day, I swear in EVERY way)…holding court in the center of my friends…my friends that I had already felt slipping alway…as they steadily slipped forward towards her.

In that moment, I was 10 years old again and I was losing everything. In that moment, I was 18 again and my job was on the line because she’d shown up and talked to my coworkers. I was 22 again and she was telling me she didn’t need a daughter, thus taking my little brother away. I was 24 and she was calling my fiance to tell him not to marry me.

In that moment, I was somewhere between that park and my childhood home.

In that moment, I was losing everything all over again.

In that moment, I was again a child who could only stumble around and search for a way out.

Understanding that…and applying it to other memories that suddenly make more sense…has made a huge difference for me. I no longer feel like I’m too emotional and dramatic.

I understand the strength it takes every time I stay and “finish the race.”

What used to be a point of shame is now a point of pride.

And if THAT’S not healing I don’t know what is.

/ blog

*Jazz hands*