Emotional flashbacks are a rush of intense emotions related to a past traumatic event that occur without any visual memories or images. Coping with emotional flashbacks is a process and will take time, patience, and practice.
Typically, they manifest as intense and confusing episodes of fear, toxic shame, and/or despair, which often beget angry reactions against the self or others. When fear is the dominant emotion in an emotional flashback, the individual feels overwhelmed, panicky or even suicidal.
Emotional flashbacks are different than flashbacks, because they are emotional, not visual, and are often difficult to identify. While flashbacks often have vibrant memories attached to them, emotional flashbacks, which trigger specific physiological, mental, or emotional responses, happen on an emotional level.
Depending on the severity, it can last for minutes, hours, or even days. It's one of the common symptoms of Complex PTSD. Experiencing an emotional flashback is like being transported back in time and reliving the pains from your childhood, as if they were happening in the present moment.
Unlike nightmares, most flashbacks happen while you're awake. Flashbacks and nightmares aren't the same thing, but both commonly show up as symptoms of PTSD. That said, you don't have to have a PTSD diagnosis to have flashbacks (or vivid nightmares) after experiencing a traumatic incident.
A flashback is a vivid experience in which you relive some aspects of a traumatic event or feel as if it is happening right now. This can sometimes be like watching a video of what happened, but flashbacks do not necessarily involve seeing images, or reliving events from start to finish.
While flashbacks are related to trauma, intrusive thoughts are just thoughts. However, once a person associates these thoughts with a certain belief, they might become intrusive and lead to various types of anxiety disorders.
During an emotional flashback, because your ANS is damaged and uncoordinated, the amygdala recognizes what it perceives as danger (trigger) and reacts, triggering the fight/flight/freeze response. This reaction engages the sympathetic nervous system revving up your body and causing a significant amount of distress.
Self-talk during a flashback can be part of your grounding or be used to keep you calm and steady while you employ other techniques. It can be hard to access your grounding skills (or other tools) if you're in a panic and can't remember what's even happening to you or who you are.
Emotional flashbacks in particular may be triggered by implicit memories — memories you aren't consciously aware of. An emotional flashback may leave you feeling oversensitive, “crazy,” or even like something is wrong with you. You may also think self-hating thoughts such as “I am worthless” or “I am flawed and ugly.”
Flashbacks are a common symptom of PTSD. They can make you feel as though you're going through the trauma, or some aspects of it, all over again. Flashbacks are often triggered by anything that reminds you of the traumatic event.
Flashbacks. Flashbacks are like waking nightmares. They are intense, repeated episodes of re-living the traumatic experience while you're fully awake.
Rather than re-experiencing a specific traumatic event, an emotional flashback can last for hours, days, or sometimes weeks.
A flashback interrupts that chronological sequence, the front line action or “present” line of the story, to show readers a scene that unfolded in the past.
More rarely, however, such apparent recollections may be false, in which case the occurrence of a flashback may lead to them being incorrectly labelled as true.
Flashbacks are typical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and their main features are intrusive and vivid images that occur in a waking state.
Flashbacks and dissociation commonly occur with PTSD. While they are not psychotic symptoms, they share some features with psychosis, including: During a flashback, you might temporarily lose connection with your present situation, being transported back in time to a traumatic event in your memory.
These flashbacks can be accompanied by intense emotional reactions, such as fear, anxiety, or anger. They can also cause physical reactions, such as a racing heart, difficulty breathing, or a feeling of detachment from the body.
Overlapping Symptoms of OCD and PTSD
With this disorder comes the presence of recurring symptoms, such as intrusive memories, flashbacks, nightmares, negative changes in thoughts, and persistent avoidance of trauma-related cues.
Varied and disjointed memories are flashbacks where are one repeating thought is more likely to be an intrusive thought and rumination. Intrusive thoughts are often related to compulsions and rumination.
What is a flashback vs memory? While the experience can vary for each individual, for many, it feels like living through the traumatic experience all over again. It's much more than a memory—it also involves feeling the same emotions and sensations that accompanied the trauma itself.