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Originally Posted by winter light
Thanks for talking about emotional flashbacks. I've had them my whole life but I've never seen them mentioned anywhere before. I've also tried many modalities to sort out my emotional distress. I'll try to talk about what worked for me.
The book Body Keeps the Score was also a big help for me to realize that I was dealing with PTSD. Then interesting thing I realized recently is that the content of the emotional flashbacks may not be directly related to the original cause. But how it would express is that I would recall some minor error in judgement or awkward moment I had with another person where I felt shame and it would consume me. Then it would cascade from another to another. Just hearing a song on the radio or seeing a sign on the road would trigger the first one and then once it started it would go off and on for hours.
I still get the emotional flashbacks but I only get a couple an hour now and they dissapate relatively quickly. Which for me is a lot of progress. Currently doing a combination of EMDR and Neurofeedback. The EMDR helps to raise and clear issues and the Neuro reprograms the brain to settle into more peaceful states in general. I also notice times when I can be suprisingly clear and decisive and I know that the Neuro is helping with that.
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Congratulations on doing EMDR and Neurofeedback! I've heard of people getting very good results with that combination. I can't afford NF right now but I do a type of yoga that adusts the brain to become more normal and have notice quite a bit of change from doing it after a year or so now. I do EMDR with a therapist and it does seem to process trauma effectively. I've made alot of progress since I started it only about 4 or 5 months ago. I'm so glad I started getting help from a professional trauma therapist. It wasn't feasable for me but I was so motivated to get better that I found a way. I think it's important to find a licensed therapist that has lots of experience in treating trauma and uses the newer methods like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, IFS, etc.
That's awesome that you also found the Body Keeps the Score. I'm impressed with how they're finding effective treatments for trauma now. I consider these methods miracles in our modern time. My therapist tells me there are more being researched now as well, so it's going to keep getting better and better. Also I hear these trauma treatments are not just for individuals, there's research being done now that show they can't be applied to whole societies. I'd like to be a part of that research some day.
One sign of progress I've noticed, and it's huge, is that the emotional flashbacks have diminshed significantly. I'm the same, I would have them almost constantly, a memory and overwhelmind shame. But now I seem to be able to have self-compassion when they're triggered, remembering that I've been abused and traumatized, and there's no reason to feel ashamed for any of the past errors in judgement or awkward moments. Shame and guilt are common results of childhood trauma, so I think that's being addressed now. I realize there's a lot more to do but I'm just so glad to finally be getting relief.