Not Everyone Can Picture Things In Their Mind

GaD3! said:
For me it is like watching a movie- very graphic, like it is happening in the present, although not quite like a flashback.
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thank you so much for sharing your experience with me. I have not heard from anyone else to go through the same. it would be interesting to know of others that go through this or if there is any information on it in past studies.

can you also always distinguish between both sights which is real?
 
Tableau in Stasis said:
Hmm yeah I don't think what I described applies for non flashback things, except in the case of psychosis and hallucinations in which case the psycho-somatic thing once again can appear.
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in my experiences psychosis, hallucinations and delirium have always overtaken my reality as far as i can remember.

I've looked many times for what seeing two different things at the same time is and maybe I've never worded it right or looking in the right places but best i can describe it is like having nigthmares simultaneous to being awake.
 
.aseity said:
thank you so much for sharing your experience with me. I have not heard from anyone else to go through the same. it would be interesting to know of others that go through this or if there is any information on it in past studies.

can you also always distinguish between both sights which is real?
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Yes, as far as I remember, I can distinguish between them. It is almost like I can be in either place. Say for instance I am washing the dishes, I know I am washing the dishes, but at the same time I can see the abuse taking place. If I am not careful I can slip into the abuse, which is like a flashback, but I can just ignore the abuse "movie" and focus on the present task, although still aware of it. It just happens sometimes, I don't know why. I hope that makes sense.
I have experienced flashbacks, some very intense ones, so definitely different.
 
I get that from my days with Uncle Sam and elsewhere. The flashes hit me so hard they disable me and I curl up in a fetal position. The pain of the moral injury is so intense it is paralyzing. It has slowed down in recent years but when it first hit I had never experienced that core hurt. Being trained to do it amd doing it were not easy to get to the point where I could be stone cold. But it caught up to me in a big way. I never lost my temper before this happened because I knew what I was capable of. I have finally been able to let myself get angry without the threat of sheer violence raising its ugly head in me.
 
I sometimes have sudden memories of what happened and some of them don't bother me but some do. My heart suddenly feels like it will explode and my mind races when I have a flashback that reveals something I wasn't expecting. Then I know instantly that it isn't my imagination or a mind game I'm playing on myself but a distinct memory of what happened. They have recently been happening more often and I frequently over time remember more of what happened. Interestingly I can visualize things that are incidental to the abuse but not necessarily the actual act of abuse. In one instance I could clearly "see" the fabric of the tent I was in and the leaves and dirt on the floor. In the most recent flashback I could "see" the floor lamp with the red lightbulb in detail and I could visualize the course fabric of the daybed/couch I was kneeling on while being sodomized. The rest of what followed I can remember but I can't visualize it. Sometimes my flashback will only reveal something that was said but that can also cause my heart to pound.
 
It is interesting how the mind works and how it deals with trauma. The worst flashback I had was at work early one morning. Fortunately, it was a cold/ windy February morning around 7am and surprisingly no students around. I was a gardener at a university. It hit me in a major pedestrian area. It started on my way to work and kept getting more intense until full blown. For a couple of minutes, I was reliving an incident of the abuse, no longer in the present but there, in the past experiencing it all over again. I was screaming NO! over and over and crying. Fortunately, the practical side, kicked in and said 'you have to get control of yourself, otherwise someone will call the campus police, (I knew them all) and you won't be able to talk to them, they will call your lead, and you will end up in the county mental health for 72 hours- the dog will be home by himself and he won't know where you are." That brought me back to the present. I was very on edge for the rest of the day. No a pleasant experience.
 
Jack1 said:
I sometimes have sudden memories of what happened and some of them don't bother me but some do. My heart suddenly feels like it will explode and my mind races when I have a flashback that reveals something I wasn't expecting. Then I know instantly that it isn't my imagination or a mind game I'm playing on myself but a distinct memory of what happened. They have recently been happening more often and I frequently over time remember more of what happened. Interestingly I can visualize things that are incidental to the abuse but not necessarily the actual act of abuse. In one instance I could clearly "see" the fabric of the tent I was in and the leaves and dirt on the floor. In the most recent flashback I could "see" the floor lamp with the red lightbulb in detail and I could visualize the course fabric of the daybed/couch I was kneeling on while being sodomized. The rest of what followed I can remember but I can't visualize it. Sometimes my flashback will only reveal something that was said but that can also cause my heart to pound.
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Past certain stress and panic thresholds, part of your active narrative memory can shut down and sort of stop recording some senses or incidents completely.
 
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