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Emotional flashbacks are also accompanied by intense arousals of the fight/flight instinct, along with hyperarousal of the sympathetic nervous system, the half of the nervous system that controls arousal and activation.
When fear is the dominant emotion in a flashback the person feels extremely anxious, panicky or even suicidal. When despair predominates, a sense of profound numbness, paralysis and desperation to hide may occur.
Suicidal ideation is a common phenomenon in Cptsd, particularly during intense or prolonged flashbacks.
Passive suicidality is typically a flashback to early childhood when our abandonment was so profound, that it was natural for us to wish that God or somebody or something would just put an end to it all.
Trauma occurs when attack or abandonment triggers a fight/flight response so intensely that the person cannot turn it off once the threat is over.
He becomes stuck in an adrenalized state. His sympathetic nervous system is locked “on” and he cannot toggle into the relaxation function of the parasympathetic nervous system.
A fight response is triggered when a person suddenly responds aggressively to something threatening. A flight response is triggered when a person responds to a perceived threat by fleeing, or symbolically, by launching into hyperactivity. A freeze response is triggered when a person, realizing resistance is futile, gives up, numbs out into dissociation and/or collapses as if accepting the inevitability of being hurt. A fawn response is triggered when a person responds to threat by trying to be pleasing or helpful in order to appease
Scapegoating is the process by which a bully offloads and externalizes his pain, stress, and frustration by attacking a less powerful person.
It takes time in the present to become de-adrenalized, and considerable time in the future to gradually decrease the intensity, duration and frequency of flashbacks.
