Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

by Pete Walker

Emotional flashbacks are sudden and often prolonged regressions to the overwhelming feeling-states of being an abused/abandoned child. These feeling states can include overwhelming fear, shame, alienation, rage, grief and depression. They also include unnecessary triggering of our fight/flight instincts.

Toxic Shame: The Veneer Of An Emotional Flashback

When you are stranded in a flashback, toxic shame devolves into the intensely painful alienation of the abandonment mélange - a roiling morass of shame, fear and depression.

abandonment mélange is the fear and toxic shame that surrounds and interacts with the abandonment depression.

abandonment depression itself is the deadened feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that af...

If you are stuck viewing yourself as worthless, defective, or despicable, you are probably in an emotional flashback. This is typically also true when you are lost in self-hate and virulent self-criticism.

List Of Common Cptsd Symptoms

Passive suicidality

Cptsd misdiagnosed with various anxiety and depressive disorders. Moreover, many are also unfairly and inaccurately labeled with bipolar, narcissistic, codependent, autistic spectrum and borderline disorders.

Further confusion also arises in the case of ADHD [Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder], as well as obsessive/compulsive disorder, both of which are sometimes more accurately described as fixated flight responses to trauma [see the 4F’s below]. This is also true of ADD [Attention Deficit Disorder] and some depressive and dissociative disorders which similarly can more accurately be described as fixated freeze responses to trauma.

Origins Of Cptsd

The Four F’s: Fight, Flight, Freeze And Fawn

as time passes these four modes become elaborated into entrenched defensive structures that are similar to narcissistic [fight], obsessive/compulsive [flight], dissociative [freeze] or codependent [fawn] defenses.

Scapegoating is the process by which a bully offloads and externalizes his pain, stress, and frustration by attacking a less powerful person.

repetition compulsion or reenactment,

amygdala hijackings are intense reactions in the emotional memory part of the brain that override the rational brain. These reactions occur in the brains of people who have been triggered into a 4F reaction so often, that minor events can now trigger them into a panicky state.

13 Steps for Managing Emotional Flashbacks

A trigger is an external or internal stimulus that activates us into an emotional flashback.

One common sign of being flashed-back is that we feel small, helpless, and hopeless.

In intense flashbacks this magnifies into feeling so ashamed that we are loath to go out or show our face anywhere. Feeling fragile, on edge, delicate and easily crushable is another aspect of this. The survivor may also notice an evaporation of whatever self-esteem he has earned

Another common clue that we are flashing back is an increase in the virulence of the inner or outer critic. This typically looks like increased drasticizing and catastrophizing, as well as intensified self-criticism or judgmentalness of others.

Another clue that we are in a flashback occurs when we notice that our emotional reactions are out of proportion to what has triggered them. Here are two common instances of this: [1] a minor upset feels like an emergency; [2] a minor unfairness feels like a travesty of justice.

When we are not mindful at such times, we can erupt against ourselves in self-disgust and self-hatred, or we can unfairly explode out against the relatively innocent other.

Furthermore, we can harvest recovery out of these unpleasant flashbacks by seeing them as proof that we were traumatized. When we do the latter, we can morph our anger into healthy indignation about the outrageously unfair conditions of our upbringing.

Grieving Resolves Flashback [Step # 9]

Managing The Inner Critic [Step # 8]

ADVANCED FLASHBACK MANAGEMENT

It is almost always a matter of perspective. Am I trigger-searching from a place of being on my side or a place of fault-finding? When it is the latter, it is best to abandon the search and move toward invoking self-acceptance, as there will always be triggerings that are unfathomable.

As novelist, David Mitchell wrote “Good moods are as fragile as eggs… and bad moods as fragile as bricks”.

The inner child often experiences this as you reverting to the pre-recovery adult who had no time for feelings. The child then feels that he is once again trapped in the past where he was so devastatingly abandoned.

HELPING KIDS MANAGE EMOTIONAL FLASHBACKS