Flashback

How do you handle a flashback? My reaction will vary, as I suppose everyone's does. The type of flashback also makes a difference.

At this point in the journey I have pretty much recovered every detail I am going to get. I can see what happened and have written all I know about the abuse. Most of it returned at once and it was horrifying. Lately I have discovered the emotional flashbacks are probably harder to get through. 

A couple of days ago I had an emotional flashback. Honestly, I think this kind of flashback is worse. I was watching a movie with my husband and there was a scene where the main character was hiding under her sheets, not wanting to see the thing terrifying her. The movie was suspenseful and normally I would enjoy it. This particular scene terrified me and I was done with the movie at that point. It was a scene that was all too familiar. 

When I was a senior in high school I wrote an essay about hiding from my abuser in a similar fashion. I really wish I could find that essay now. I do remember the gist of it. 

I was 4 and had a problem wetting my bed. My father put me to bed and said he was going to get my some Lifesavers as a reward for not wetting the bed. I knew that meant he was going to leave the apartment. I guess my mother was not there because I knew "that man" was in the house with me alone. I pulled my covers over my head and used my little arms to hold them down. I cannot tell you how long I stayed like that, listening for him, and hoping he did not come in. I started to feel a tug at the covers and immediately started to panic. I held them down just as hard as I could while kicking at the body that had sat down at the end of my bed. I imagine the struggle did not last long but I remember fighting so hard to keep the covers over me. Eventually the covers were pulled off; however, instead of it being my abuser, it was my father. He had returned with the Lifesavers. I remember the look on my dad's face. He had a puzzled look on his face. I felt an enormous sense of relief. He placed the Lifesavers on my bookshelf and turned off the light on his way out of the room. I still wet my bed that night but climbed up the bookshelf and got the Lifesavers, as any 4-year-old would. 

Watching the woman in the movie place the covers over her head to avoid something terrifying tossed me back into the above moment. I have known the details for years and years. I had written it at least twice, once in high school and another in college. This time I felt the memory. My stomach started to churn, my chest felt tight, and I had my husband stop the movie. I grabbed my favorite stuffed animal and tried to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night I started screaming and woke up my husband. I could not tell him what caused the scream. 

If the screaming in the middle of the night was a new thing, I could have easily blamed it on the movie. Unfortunately I have been doing this at least twice a week since I was discharged from the hospital. I originally thought it had something to do with the medication withdrawal but it has continued. 

I have to face the fact that a majority of the cause is probably emotional flashbacks. How many times did I want to scream and just could not? Even when awake, I am feeling the sense of helplessness, being overwhelmed, and terrified out of my mind. I am experiencing it on 3 levels. I am remembering the emotions as a little girl, as the high-school senior who wrote the original essay, and as the adult now having to go back through it again. 

I was waiting to post this. I wanted a way to sum it up and write about how I got through it. The truth is, while it is not completely occupying my mind and has faded into the background a little, I have not moved all the way past it. This only proves recovery will never be wrapped up tightly with a bow. It is a process. Our job is to continue the process.