When I was brushing my teeth I got one thought which made me feel a lot anxious… “What if that someone wouldn’t knock doors, where I was with him and he tried to rape me?”. After that I started to have very bad flashbacks to the time, when I was with my abusive ex boyfriend.
I’m deeply breathing but I feel like I will explode. It’s already year and half how it happened, but it still sometimes hurt as fuck. I hate PTSD sometimes…
Does anyone know here how to calm down in these flashbacks? Does anyone here have PTSD and similar experiences as me?
I really need help right now and I will be grateful for any tips.
Don’t know if I can be of much help. I’m having a lot of flashbacks myself. Remember you are save now. You might wanna imagine that I’m there with you right now, if that helps you. Breath in and breath out, you’re save now
Hey Nastya
I hope you’re ok.
That’s got to be a horrible feeling to have to go through.
I’ve seen you on the meditation thread. I been doing a lot of Mantras lately. I did that 10 Day Mantra challenge a while back. I can’t believe I chant all the time now. I forced myself to listen to them over and over again. And now I can pull up a few of them when needed. And just start chanting to myself. Before you know it I’m chanting out loud and I’m feeling this strange calmness and peace.
This one and this guy, I love his voice, is my favorite and it’s easy. I even cried the first time I did it.
Im sorry ur experiencing flashbacks. I charged my abusive ex (who was physically amd sexually abusive) over 10 years ago and i still experience body memories and sometimes the odd flashback. It can take time to heal things that are very traumatic.
What i do every time when i get a bad memory or i start feeling anxious or experience thoughts that are uncomfortable is to remind myself that I AM SAFE. I will repeat this while deep breathing. I also bring myself back into the present moment by grounding myself using the 5 senses grounding technique. It always has helped me. It brings my mind to focus on what is currently around me instead of sitting stuck in the past.
To add… i juat saw that the 5 senses grounding technique has been mentioned already in this thread with how to do it. This is the same one i was also talking about hope ur able to manage thru the ptsd flashbacks. Glad ur here talking about it and getting that out.
I’m so sorry you are hurting. I was diagnosed with ptsd in rehab May 2022. Upon my release I quickly started therapy and my therapist used e.m.d.r. to quell my anxiety. It totally freed me in like 6 sessions. This was accomplished virtually btw. For now maybe try binaural beats. I’ll send you a link. Hope this helps.
So sorry you’re going through this! I am having a lot of flashbacks as well recently. Remembering things I was drinking to block out. Try to bring yourself back to the present moment. Grab a blanket or anything and focus on how it feels to the touch. Breathe in the air around you deeply and center yourself back to where you are right at this moment. This is a difficult thing to go through but it can be positive! Allow yourself to bring those memories back up to the surface and handle them so you can dispose of them and their hold over you instead of just pushing them back down and avoiding them. Remember you can drown someone but there will still be a body in the water. Sorry that analogy is a little dark but it’s helped me to understand how important it is to process events in a healthy way in order to move forward.
hope ur able to manage thru the ptsd flashbacks. Glad ur here talking about it and getting that out.