1. Pay attention to the internal senses. 2. Identify what's being felt and name it. 3. State clearly to yourself that the flashback is a memory 4. Shifting senses to the external 5. Confirm the date 6. Evaluate whether you are actually in a safe or dangerous situation. 7. Say to yourself "I'm having a flashback and I'm not in danger". 8. If you are not in a safe place seek safety and help Mantra: This is my memory and it's talking to me. It needs help. The memory is from the past, not the now.
So true; if you have very low somatic tolerance, you can't tolerate feeling your bodily sensations. Or you can't sense them at all, because you have separated so fully from them. It is really scary to be unable to feel your heart beating, yet you know your body is alive. I feel like a store mannequin when that happens. If you have DID and don't always do a full switch, parts can be in control of your actions/speech and press their perspective (we are 12, these people are dangerous, this isn't our home, we have been left alone in this dangerous place) while you are essentially in the back seat of the "car", unable to talk or act. That is not a flashback. A flashback is a vivid trauma memory. The only effective method I have found for scary co-consciousness events is better daily internal communication, even when things seem to be going just fine. I always have DID. Even on a great day. It is like being diabetic. Good glucose numbers don't make you NOT diabetic.
Thanks, this is helpful. I'm pretty sure I have OSDD, but I've been unsure at times and wondering if maybe these things are just flashbacks. But what you describe about co-consciousness is much more similar to my experience when I'm unable to ground in the present or unblend from the traumatized part during an episode/flashback. It's like, the child's reality is the reality we're living in, even when I sort of know that's not the case, but I still can't escape it. It's like "flashback" isn't just a memory, it's a person that I became, and that person is still in the trauma and has some big feelings about it. I'm not entirely blended, usually, in that I can see that it's not quite the same me, but I cannot "find myself" - as in, I can't bring the host back to the front. I just am the child, until I start to feel safe again, or some emotion gets processed, or sometimes if I'm just distracted long enough and it helps me regulate (like watching TV for a while).
Thank you for this comment. I've been having those "back seat" moments, I'm in one now, it's good to be able to understand what this is and that other systems experience it too.
Something that we have noticed is that sometimes it takes a few different approaches to make us really understand that it's a flashback and not happening now ...and that the most relif often comes from things that feel "random" For example, once we tried to ground ourselves for like an hour using all sorts of information and suddenly someone inside was like "wait...we are still alive? We survived? 😮" It wouldn't have occurred to me to tell people inside that we're alive, because to me its obvious...but they really didn't know! And now telling ourselves that we actually survived is part of the grounding routine
As someone who has aphantasia, I am lucky to not really have full-on flashbacks, only partial/emotional flashbacks and recurring intrusive thoughts and ruminations about the event and it's interesting to see that I've been using most of these strategies in an intuitive manner. I usually try to get a hold of my flashbacks by thinking "The triggering event might have been X that happened just now but, emotionally, I'm feeling the same way I felt when Y happened when I was a kid" and, if I then start having intrusive thoughts about the traumatic memory that I just identified (basically a list of facts about the event since my mind works in words and not in pictures), I acknowledge it and think "Yes, this is all true, this all happened. But it happened a long time ago. I'm feeling emotionally overwhelmed because event X may have made me feel the same way I felt during event Y but they are not the same. I am no longer a child, I am an adult and I am safe." and, most of the time, that helps.
YES! ME TOO!!! This has been what I found for myself as well, as a person who also has aphantasia. I love how we found exactly what we needed to do for our own healing naturally and discover that is what trauma therapists do as well. I love it!
Thanks for this Dr Mike. Maybe part 3 could be how can we adapt the skills/language for v young dissociated self states (alters/parts). Most of our flashbacks happen with littles. I try and catch it before we switch but often they are so overwhelming especially body memories/ pre verbal
This is so helpful Dr Mike! I have many emotional flashbacks without the specific memory of what caused it, I am working with my therapist on trauma and now this protocol for flashback I am sure it is going to help me a lot. Thank you
Thank you again for such a helpful video. Question: could you do a video/videos about attachment issues? Where you end up wanting/needing someone (therapists, support person) too much and use them as a reason to keep going? We never needed anyone. A counsellor opened things up - we connected - things ended badly - now the same attachment issues and either an activation or trigger happens (watched your other video) keeps playing out the same and we are left hurt, feeling like we will physically die, and distraught for hours. No amount of self talk helps. And personal stuff gets in the way of self-comforting. I know you can’t do specific peoples problems - but if there’s some info you have about attachment issues and trauma responses? I don’t know what you’d call it. Thank you again.
This is seriously good advice. We so often have to orientate to the here and now to help with all this. We find that body memory flashbacks are the worst and struggle desperately with them. Thank you.
I still don't understand reminding onesself of the date, but maybe this just doesn't apply to me. It feels like I logically know where and 'when' I am, and it doesn't help. You're also right that there's no one size fits all solution -- that one really knocked me on my butt this summer when I realized one set of alters needed a COMPLETELY different approach than another for the memories that were surfacing!
it is really common for some internal parts not to know what day/year it is (i.e. stuck in trauma time), but for flashbacks in general, they can be really disorientating, and where reliving takes place, it can be important to establish the present quickly.
@thectadclinic Reading this, I wonder if I'm just being an oblivious host lol. I just assumed when we're blending that if I know the date, so do they. I never really thought to ask. 🤔
It also often helps us to bring in the distance to some events... Like it's 2023 and that means that the last time x abuse happened is already 20 years ago. We're living in our own flat with a safe partner for 3 years. It often shocks us, how long ago things happened 😮
6:59 holy moly!!! This is something i find myself doing constantly, writing the daynand time in mutliple journals to remind myself its not the 1990s anymore. I made the mistake of rereading old trauma from a diary that iccured july 3, 2003. I cant belive its been 20 years, and ive retriggered myself. A lot of bad things happened to the body that me myself and i live in to this day. The body keeps the score. A lot of my past behavior and amesiac episodes are explained. I have intoduced myself to the same person many times, as tho each time it is the first. The craziest was in july/August when i was having a psychotic episode, but i was also some how aware of it, and was able to tell myself to stop... i was able to reach my wise mind for a moment, but then the compulsion took over and the self destrucive behavior occurrd. When i am trigged into anger, i passively watch myself, unable to control my behavior I try to always wear as many colors as once, to help ground myself by going my eyes something to focus on. Its like we all recognize sounds, shapes, colors, smells. I realize there are many different people because my handwiritng is nearly never consistent. Our alters speak different languages. My personality in spanish, russian, and American Sign Language, are all more assertive and direct than i am. Better to express themselves. It helps me get out of flashbacks, all of my traumatic memories happen in english, yiddish, hebrew, and Patosis. I feel better after I let myself use color to express my feelings on or write the words to get them out of my head. To let the wise mind take over and analysis the message.
Thank you for the 8th step, too. At least for now I am not able to distuingish between safety and non-safety, as in when having a flashback I don't know if the thing is true or not without help of others. I can't say to myself that I'm safe because I can't trust that I am. // Although with 'others' I mean also the defender part in my own self. Just today it told the panicky child in me (at first) that "you're safe because actually you know what you don't need anyone" - which is obviously not true and not really a good thing to say, but it helped to calm the child a bit. But what was great was that I noticed the defender part has grown, he was responsible enough to speak aloud and take actual care of the child by taking an important step at trying to solve the situation. The situation is still not solved and I'm pretty sure the child won't feel safe before it is, but help is on the way and I've done the best I can. Even though I don't know if I'm safe in the world, in time, or in relation to other people, I'm able to have some safety within my self. And apparently a bit more than I've had in the past, since he (the defender) is growing. (Or 'I' am growing.) Which is cool. TL;DR: So anyway, for me really the most important thing is to learn to seek help instead of trying to reassure myself. Empty reassurance has partly led to development of trauma in the first place, so I need some actual proof. [Thanks for giving the space to talk this through, and in case someone's still reading this, thanks for you too. (Including myself.)]
I'm currently experiencing a lot of somatic flashback- like a convulsion in my body and I feel sickness- I was recently triggered but I've noticed I've also gone back into stress breathing and finding it hard to breathe back into my belly. I've gone back to smoking as I'm dissociating in and out. I'm finding if people just keep me talking I eventually come back into ventral- but I'm still time jumping in and out at the moment. I think I experienced shock trauma as child and my stomach shakes uncontrollably and I can't get a full breathe in. Im trying to be compassionate with myself after all the work I've done- I'm allowing myself to move through it, T..R.E is helping.
Thank you, from both these videos about flashbacks, I specifically take with me the lesson that they want to tell us something. And if I can view the Flashback more of a story/memory that is told, than a reoccurring event, and have such a distance to it, I would gain a lot. At least inner energy.
You know how using cinematography tricks, you can take a simple scene, and depending on the camera angles and background music and such, you can either make the scene look calm and serene, or you can make it look like a horror movie? Like, it could just be a playground, and in one context it seems harmless and lighthearted, and in another, it feels like someone is about to jump out from behind a bush and attack you? Even though in both cases, you're just looking at an ordinary swing set. I feel like a flashback is when the horror movie feel creeps in, and a situation that would otherwise be innocuous just *feels* threatening and unsafe. It's really hard to ground in the face of that, because it's not like I'm not seeing or experiencing what's happening in the present. It's just got this dark spin on it. It's a feeling more than anything that creates a layer of distortion and danger. And I don't really know how to disconnect from that feeling very easily. Grounding exercises can help some, but often they don't. Because it's like, grounding only tells you you're at the playground. Simply reminding yourself of that reality doesn't tell your body that you're in a comedy rather than a horror movie. Does that make sense?
Love that you suggest to work on these things when your NOT having a flashback. The 8 steps are extremely helpful and I will put them into my phone 📱 where I can easily pull them up to ground myself. Thanks for part 2 Mike!! ❤
Thank you. The part of paying attention to the internal internal senses is really difficult. I keep having a flashback. Where I see my five year old self walking a few steps ahead of me down some steep steps from a camping arra to the beach. Maybe this flashbacks is telling me, that I never really got back into my body . Even this fladh is something happening in 1967. I want to go back to the physical place. But I keep avoiding doing it. Before arriving to this spot. Some of the worst and most determing traumas had happened.
I have competent support and a long demanding and rewarding road of therapy behind me. Reconnecting more closely with the alter who has carried most of the traumas may well be reconnecting with the body. This alter, I named Shadow because she stayed almost invisible. When we first met she was too heavy from traumas for me to even "touch". Today she feels like a central part of us.
Very helpful Dr. Mike! Youve prepared our system to handle something that has not yet occurred in our system, but most likely will. As usual, thank you ((💕))
this is not as much about flashbacks but a question that puzzles us. when are we not being dissociative at all? This is a confusing question for us and our try to answer it and ask others for their answers is a try to reflect on the inner recovery process.? Dissociation comes in various forms and degrees. And some of the signs of dissociation have become easier to recognize at least aft er a short period. I.E. feeling behind walls of glass, numb, out of contact with the world, short period of amnesia, changes in sizes and colours. We spent most of our life behind safe bars of dissociation. The reason is written at the bottom after the Trigger warning. Only our host came out. Her ways of dissociating was mind/intellect fronting and body, feeling and senses were pushed away. Together with all memories of extreme abuse. During years of therapy we -all the alters - have become acquainted with each other, we like each other. But we do not front. - Only if necessary. We are not dissociating when alone in a safe spot and when the host is not stressed out and has left the body. We are not dissociating when all of us can be calm and present on the inside. We can listen to each other and make room for feelings, senses and wishes. If one of us is missing we are to some degree dissociating. And yet, the peaceful withdraval of alters are signs of internal integration? Does this make sense? Trigger warning: The humans and their world being an extremely dangerous place for us, who were brought up to believe we were an evil non human specie.
What resources would you recommend and what advice would you give to a partner of someone with DID? Thank you for your videos, they are very valuable. I wish you all the best!
How do I get flashbacks? Serious question. Almost all of my progress has resulted from dealing with a flashback/ intrusive memory, vivid dream. I'm not overwhelmed. I'm underwhelmed. But I feel broken, incompleted, disconnected from humanity. Ok. Not quite true. I had one somatic flashback. Someone / something was squeezing my wrist. I could feel the bones grinding on each eachother. I could hear and feel myself screaming. How do you work with overregulated truama victims?
What if you can’t see him?or remember when or where? I can’t see him. Don’t know who did this. All I know is I wasn’t allowed to scream. It goes on every night half or most of the night. Choked and right now he is squeezing my right shoulder because I’m telling My body is very small compared to his . Physically painful.
Times that I’ve tried to get my wife to smell something during a flashback it just confused her because then she started smelling that smell in her flashback. Also one time she saw the shirt I was wearing with flamingoes on it in her flashback and that really confused her too.
I would say a Flashback is a memory, that suddenly intrudes you. It can be an emotion or sound, or something you remember having seen long time ago. I suppose that it can find place in your dreams as well as when you are awake. In dreams, anything can happen..
Kia Ora could you please help me find expert help D I D On new zealand thank you so much you are amazing and I wish I could have you I'm so struggling going incircles someone to help me get well please thank you wish could have you
1. Pay attention to the internal senses.
2. Identify what's being felt and name it.
3. State clearly to yourself that the flashback is a memory
4. Shifting senses to the external
5. Confirm the date
6. Evaluate whether you are actually in a safe or dangerous situation.
7. Say to yourself "I'm having a flashback and I'm not in danger".
8. If you are not in a safe place seek safety and help
Mantra: This is my memory and it's talking to me. It needs help. The memory is from the past, not the now.
So true; if you have very low somatic tolerance, you can't tolerate feeling your bodily sensations. Or you can't sense them at all, because you have separated so fully from them. It is really scary to be unable to feel your heart beating, yet you know your body is alive. I feel like a store mannequin when that happens. If you have DID and don't always do a full switch, parts can be in control of your actions/speech and press their perspective (we are 12, these people are dangerous, this isn't our home, we have been left alone in this dangerous place) while you are essentially in the back seat of the "car", unable to talk or act. That is not a flashback. A flashback is a vivid trauma memory. The only effective method I have found for scary co-consciousness events is better daily internal communication, even when things seem to be going just fine. I always have DID. Even on a great day. It is like being diabetic. Good glucose numbers don't make you NOT diabetic.
Thanks, this is helpful. I'm pretty sure I have OSDD, but I've been unsure at times and wondering if maybe these things are just flashbacks. But what you describe about co-consciousness is much more similar to my experience when I'm unable to ground in the present or unblend from the traumatized part during an episode/flashback. It's like, the child's reality is the reality we're living in, even when I sort of know that's not the case, but I still can't escape it. It's like "flashback" isn't just a memory, it's a person that I became, and that person is still in the trauma and has some big feelings about it. I'm not entirely blended, usually, in that I can see that it's not quite the same me, but I cannot "find myself" - as in, I can't bring the host back to the front. I just am the child, until I start to feel safe again, or some emotion gets processed, or sometimes if I'm just distracted long enough and it helps me regulate (like watching TV for a while).
Thank you for this comment. I've been having those "back seat" moments, I'm in one now, it's good to be able to understand what this is and that other systems experience it too.
Something that we have noticed is that sometimes it takes a few different approaches to make us really understand that it's a flashback and not happening now ...and that the most relif often comes from things that feel "random"
For example, once we tried to ground ourselves for like an hour using all sorts of information and suddenly someone inside was like "wait...we are still alive? We survived? 😮"
It wouldn't have occurred to me to tell people inside that we're alive, because to me its obvious...but they really didn't know! And now telling ourselves that we actually survived is part of the grounding routine
Thank you for sharing this specific inside message & how you listen to what comes up.❤
As someone who has aphantasia, I am lucky to not really have full-on flashbacks, only partial/emotional flashbacks and recurring intrusive thoughts and ruminations about the event and it's interesting to see that I've been using most of these strategies in an intuitive manner. I usually try to get a hold of my flashbacks by thinking "The triggering event might have been X that happened just now but, emotionally, I'm feeling the same way I felt when Y happened when I was a kid" and, if I then start having intrusive thoughts about the traumatic memory that I just identified (basically a list of facts about the event since my mind works in words and not in pictures), I acknowledge it and think "Yes, this is all true, this all happened. But it happened a long time ago. I'm feeling emotionally overwhelmed because event X may have made me feel the same way I felt during event Y but they are not the same. I am no longer a child, I am an adult and I am safe." and, most of the time, that helps.
Same same
YES! ME TOO!!! This has been what I found for myself as well, as a person who also has aphantasia. I love how we found exactly what we needed to do for our own healing naturally and discover that is what trauma therapists do as well. I love it!
Thanks for this Dr Mike. Maybe part 3 could be how can we adapt the skills/language for v young dissociated self states (alters/parts). Most of our flashbacks happen with littles. I try and catch it before we switch but often they are so overwhelming especially body memories/ pre verbal
no plans for a part 3!!
@@thectadclinic we value your content so much you see ☺️always asking for more 💕😉
This is so helpful Dr Mike! I have many emotional flashbacks without the specific memory of what caused it, I am working with my therapist on trauma and now this protocol for flashback I am sure it is going to help me a lot. Thank you
Thank you again for such a helpful video.
Question: could you do a video/videos about attachment issues? Where you end up wanting/needing someone (therapists, support person) too much and use them as a reason to keep going?
We never needed anyone. A counsellor opened things up - we connected - things ended badly - now the same attachment issues and either an activation or trigger happens (watched your other video) keeps playing out the same and we are left hurt, feeling like we will physically die, and distraught for hours.
No amount of self talk helps. And personal stuff gets in the way of self-comforting.
I know you can’t do specific peoples problems - but if there’s some info you have about attachment issues and trauma responses? I don’t know what you’d call it.
Thank you again.
This is seriously good advice. We so often have to orientate to the here and now to help with all this. We find that body memory flashbacks are the worst and struggle desperately with them. Thank you.
I very much hope this video helps you!
I still don't understand reminding onesself of the date, but maybe this just doesn't apply to me. It feels like I logically know where and 'when' I am, and it doesn't help. You're also right that there's no one size fits all solution -- that one really knocked me on my butt this summer when I realized one set of alters needed a COMPLETELY different approach than another for the memories that were surfacing!
it is really common for some internal parts not to know what day/year it is (i.e. stuck in trauma time), but for flashbacks in general, they can be really disorientating, and where reliving takes place, it can be important to establish the present quickly.
@thectadclinic Reading this, I wonder if I'm just being an oblivious host lol. I just assumed when we're blending that if I know the date, so do they. I never really thought to ask. 🤔
It also often helps us to bring in the distance to some events...
Like it's 2023 and that means that the last time x abuse happened is already 20 years ago.
We're living in our own flat with a safe partner for 3 years.
It often shocks us, how long ago things happened 😮
@incanthatus8182 Wow. I actually tried this with a persecutor who woke up from a nightmare and it really works. Thank you!!
@@sad_doggo2504 Yay, happy it worked! 😄
6:59 holy moly!!! This is something i find myself doing constantly, writing the daynand time in mutliple journals to remind myself its not the 1990s anymore.
I made the mistake of rereading old trauma from a diary that iccured july 3, 2003. I cant belive its been 20 years, and ive retriggered myself.
A lot of bad things happened to the body that me myself and i live in to this day.
The body keeps the score. A lot of my past behavior and amesiac episodes are explained.
I have intoduced myself to the same person many times, as tho each time it is the first.
The craziest was in july/August when i was having a psychotic episode, but i was also some how aware of it, and was able to tell myself to stop... i was able to reach my wise mind for a moment, but then the compulsion took over and the self destrucive behavior occurrd.
When i am trigged into anger, i passively watch myself, unable to control my behavior
I try to always wear as many colors as once, to help ground myself by going my eyes something to focus on.
Its like we all recognize sounds, shapes, colors, smells.
I realize there are many different people because my handwiritng is nearly never consistent.
Our alters speak different languages. My personality in spanish, russian, and American Sign Language, are all more assertive and direct than i am. Better to express themselves. It helps me get out of flashbacks, all of my traumatic memories happen in english, yiddish, hebrew, and Patosis.
I feel better after I let myself use color to express my feelings on or write the words to get them out of my head. To let the wise mind take over and analysis the message.
Thank you 😊 These are helpful phrases. I really need to tell myself these things more.
Thank you for the 8th step, too. At least for now I am not able to distuingish between safety and non-safety, as in when having a flashback I don't know if the thing is true or not without help of others. I can't say to myself that I'm safe because I can't trust that I am.
//
Although with 'others' I mean also the defender part in my own self. Just today it told the panicky child in me (at first) that "you're safe because actually you know what you don't need anyone" - which is obviously not true and not really a good thing to say, but it helped to calm the child a bit. But what was great was that I noticed the defender part has grown, he was responsible enough to speak aloud and take actual care of the child by taking an important step at trying to solve the situation.
The situation is still not solved and I'm pretty sure the child won't feel safe before it is, but help is on the way and I've done the best I can. Even though I don't know if I'm safe in the world, in time, or in relation to other people, I'm able to have some safety within my self. And apparently a bit more than I've had in the past, since he (the defender) is growing. (Or 'I' am growing.) Which is cool.
TL;DR: So anyway, for me really the most important thing is to learn to seek help instead of trying to reassure myself. Empty reassurance has partly led to development of trauma in the first place, so I need some actual proof.
[Thanks for giving the space to talk this through, and in case someone's still reading this, thanks for you too. (Including myself.)]
14:40 holy holy thats another thing ive already done. Each bad memory is just a card i pull up and read what happened without reliving it.
I'm currently experiencing a lot of somatic flashback- like a convulsion in my body and I feel sickness- I was recently triggered but I've noticed I've also gone back into stress breathing and finding it hard to breathe back into my belly. I've gone back to smoking as I'm dissociating in and out. I'm finding if people just keep me talking I eventually come back into ventral- but I'm still time jumping in and out at the moment. I think I experienced shock trauma as child and my stomach shakes uncontrollably and I can't get a full breathe in. Im trying to be compassionate with myself after all the work I've done- I'm allowing myself to move through it, T..R.E is helping.
Thank you, from both these videos about flashbacks, I specifically take with me the lesson that they want to tell us something. And if I can view the Flashback more of a story/memory that is told, than a reoccurring event, and have such a distance to it, I would gain a lot. At least inner energy.
You're very welcome!
Thanks Dr. Mike
Wow, I'm going to use this. sounds like it could work 🙏
You know how using cinematography tricks, you can take a simple scene, and depending on the camera angles and background music and such, you can either make the scene look calm and serene, or you can make it look like a horror movie? Like, it could just be a playground, and in one context it seems harmless and lighthearted, and in another, it feels like someone is about to jump out from behind a bush and attack you? Even though in both cases, you're just looking at an ordinary swing set.
I feel like a flashback is when the horror movie feel creeps in, and a situation that would otherwise be innocuous just *feels* threatening and unsafe. It's really hard to ground in the face of that, because it's not like I'm not seeing or experiencing what's happening in the present. It's just got this dark spin on it. It's a feeling more than anything that creates a layer of distortion and danger. And I don't really know how to disconnect from that feeling very easily. Grounding exercises can help some, but often they don't. Because it's like, grounding only tells you you're at the playground. Simply reminding yourself of that reality doesn't tell your body that you're in a comedy rather than a horror movie. Does that make sense?
Love that you suggest to work on these things when your NOT having a flashback. The 8 steps are extremely helpful and I will put them into my phone 📱 where I can easily pull them up to ground myself. Thanks for part 2 Mike!! ❤
Thank you. The part of paying attention to the internal internal senses is really difficult. I keep having a flashback. Where I see my five year old self walking a few steps ahead of me down some steep steps from a camping arra to the beach. Maybe this flashbacks is telling me, that I never really got back into my body . Even this fladh is something happening in 1967. I want to go back to the physical place. But I keep avoiding doing it. Before arriving to this spot. Some of the worst and most determing traumas had happened.
You may well be right about this, I truly hope you get support to work through it and see.
I have competent support and a long demanding and rewarding road of therapy behind me. Reconnecting more closely with the alter who has carried most of the traumas may well be reconnecting with the body. This alter, I named Shadow because she stayed almost invisible. When we first met she was too heavy from traumas for me to even "touch". Today she feels like a central part of us.
Very helpful Dr. Mike! Youve prepared our system to handle something that has not yet occurred in our system, but most likely will. As usual, thank you ((💕))
this is not as much about flashbacks but a question that puzzles us. when are we not being dissociative at all?
This is a confusing question for us and our try to answer it and ask others for their answers is a try to reflect on the inner recovery process.? Dissociation comes in various forms and degrees. And some of the signs of dissociation have become easier to recognize at least aft er a short period. I.E. feeling behind walls of glass, numb, out of contact with the world, short period of amnesia, changes in sizes and colours.
We spent most of our life behind safe bars of dissociation. The reason is written at the bottom after the Trigger warning. Only our host came out. Her ways of dissociating was mind/intellect fronting and body, feeling and senses were pushed away. Together with all memories of extreme abuse.
During years of therapy we -all the alters - have become acquainted with each other, we like each other. But we do not front. - Only if necessary. We are not dissociating when alone in a safe spot and when the host is not stressed out and has left the body. We are not dissociating when all of us can be calm and present on the inside. We can listen to each other and make room for feelings, senses and wishes.
If one of us is missing we are to some degree dissociating. And yet, the peaceful withdraval of alters are signs of internal integration?
Does this make sense?
Trigger warning:
The humans and their world being an extremely dangerous place for us, who were brought up to believe we were an evil non human specie.
What resources would you recommend and what advice would you give to a partner of someone with DID?
Thank you for your videos, they are very valuable. I wish you all the best!
timely - thank you Dr. Lloyd 👍 g
Very welcome
Very helpful idea to try. Thank you! 💜
You are so welcome!
How do I get flashbacks? Serious question. Almost all of my progress has resulted from dealing with a flashback/ intrusive memory, vivid dream.
I'm not overwhelmed. I'm underwhelmed. But I feel broken, incompleted, disconnected from humanity.
Ok. Not quite true. I had one somatic flashback. Someone / something was squeezing my wrist. I could feel the bones grinding on each eachother. I could hear and feel myself screaming.
How do you work with overregulated truama victims?
Naming the symptoms helps lessen the impact of the behavior
What if you can’t see him?or remember when or where?
I can’t see him.
Don’t know who did this.
All I know is I wasn’t allowed to scream.
It goes on every night
half or most of the night.
Choked and right now he is squeezing my right shoulder because I’m telling
My body is very small compared to his .
Physically painful.
Times that I’ve tried to get my wife to smell something during a flashback it just confused her because then she started smelling that smell in her flashback. Also one time she saw the shirt I was wearing with flamingoes on it in her flashback and that really confused her too.
I cant belive how many of these coping skills i already use. No wonder this has gone un noticed so long
Do flashbacks happen in dreams? Or are those memories?
I would say a Flashback is a memory, that suddenly intrudes you. It can be an emotion or sound, or something you remember having seen long time ago. I suppose that it can find place in your dreams as well as when you are awake. In dreams, anything can happen..
I despise how entrapped I can get in a flashback
Sorry to hear it, I hope things improve for you
❤
My memory needs help.❤
thank you :D
You're welcome!
Kia Ora could you please help me find expert help D I D On new zealand thank you so much you are amazing and I wish I could have you I'm so struggling going incircles someone to help me get well please thank you wish could have you
ISSTD has therapist info incl in NZ, a helpful org.
@wren1114 thank you so much I tried get on and it wouldn't let me in without a password or something