“First, the good news about C-PTSD: It is a learned set of responses, and a failure to complete numerous important developmental tasks. This means that it is environmentally, not genetically, caused. In other words, unlike most of the diagnoses it is confused with, it is neither inborn nor characterlogical. As such, it is learned. It is not inscribed in your DNA. It is a disorder caused by nurture (or rather the lack of it), not nature.” By Pete Walker

One of the symptoms of C-PTSD (Complex post traumatic stress disorder) that have a huge impact on me are the emotional flashbacks. Old feelings come to me in the moment when something triggers my emotions. Not always but most times when they are negative. Most times I don’t know the exact origin of these emotions most times and I don’t always know my emotions are boosted by my emotional flashbacks. That makes things complicated and my reaction often not in comparison to the actual situation. They are tricky to identify, because unlike a specific flashback with specific images, you experience very strong feelings of self-hatred, shame, abandonment, invisibility, or rage. And they’re not linked to any one specific memory, since the emotional flashbacks appears in the moment you link them to the current moment first. Identifying the intensity of your feelings as an emotional flashback is an important piece to healing and of course of dealing with the moment.

I have experienced that relationship with someone who has compassion and insight helps a lot, especially if the inner critic or feelings of shame keep taking over your thoughts and feelings, despite your best efforts.

I find it difficult to explain so I have googled a few articles that word it as how I experience it.

“In an explicit flashback. the person is involuntarily transported back in time. To the person, it does not seem so. What they experience is being experienced as if it were happening in the present. An explicit flashback involves feelings and facts.

Flashbacks from early childhood are different. They do not include factual information. Until about five years of age, factual – or explicit – memory is immature. But implicit memory, the memory of an emotional state, may go back to birth. When the memory of a strong emotional state is activated, the person is exposed to an involuntarily replay of what was felt at perhaps age one or two. Since facts are not replayed, the emotions seem to belong to what is going on in the present.

Implicit flashbacks from early childhood can be powerful. They can overtake a person, and dominate his or her emotional state. Even so, the person may have no idea that what they are feeling is memory. How could they? If they cannot remember a past event that caused these feelings, the feelings naturally seem to belong to the present.”

Tom Bunn L.C.S.W.  Link to article

“Emotional flashbacks strand clients in the cognitions and feelings of danger, helplessness and hopelessness that characterized their original abandonment, when there was no safe parental figure to go to for comfort and support. Hence, Complex PTSD is now accurately being identified by some traumatologists as an attachment disorder. Emotional flashback management, therefore, needs to be taught in the context of a safe relationship. Clients need to feel safe enough with the therapist to describe their humiliation and overwhelm, and the therapist needs to feel comfortable enough to provide the empathy and calm support that was missing in the client’s early experience.”

by Pete Walker

Pete Walker provides a convincing argument for the recognition and proper treatment of emotional flashbacks and complex PTSD, which result from childhood neglect and emotional abuse. Link to article.

I believe this will provide you with  lot of information that explains it. Now a little more about myself. I am able more and more to recognize the emotions that don’t belong in the moment. But its almost impossible yet at this point for me to recognize how much of that emotion belongs in the past and what part of the emotion is accurate to the current moment. This makes arguments where emotions get fired up and confrontations extremely difficult and intense for me. I like to avoid them for the simple reason that handling my emotions is complex. Dealing however with these things I can not completely avoid and that would not be healthy either conflicts take a lot of time for me to solve when they triggered emotional flashbacks. Rationally I can tell sometimes immediately that my emotional reaction is too strong for the situation, often it takes longer, which makes conflicts very draining and emotional for me. That  also leads me to the fact that I am unsure of what strength is healthy for the situation I am then dealing with at that moment.  I try to find where my emotions origin from and I try then rationally to define how “bad” the current situation really is. Next I try to find rationally, the correct amount of emotional response to the situation. There is a lot more I can say about this but it is simply put very complex and not just for you. Most happens under the surface and stays invisible for most. Even the people closest to us.

Heres my fav page on c-ptsd

Thank you for reading yet another article on my blog.

Hugs Danielle

Part of the healing from complex trauma requires healthy connections, healthy attachment. The skills that traumatized people are missing are missing because things went terribly wrong in early relationships. That especially includes relationships with parents, and family etc when they where very young, thus a different kind of relationship is required to master them now. The neglect, abuse, betrayal and just plain ineffective environment of your earliest relationships have caused you to develop C-PTSD although one might not be as vulnerable for it as much as the other. It is in the context of a different kind of relationship that you can identify, understand and ultimately heal the impact of your early experiences. Its all in the thought of how we are perceiving things and that simply differs from person to person.

Healing from complex trauma requires the development of skills and capacities such as affect-regulation, staying present with feelings instead of dissociating, self-soothing, and the ability to love oneself. Linehan or DBT does teaches those skills.

Today I am reflecting on trust and in particular my own trust. Its something I have been working on in my healing path in the last few months. I am someone who always tries to give someone a fair chance when it comes to trust however I do that very carefully, because of the traumas from my past it takes time for me to give you that full trust if I decide to give it to you at all. My heart became pretty battered because I am very forgiving and caring for other people which leads to being lied to and being betrayed many times. I understand what makes people tell lies and that’s why I maybe give so many chances.

People fail to see how much a lie can hurt someone no matter how small or about what. The less important the reason to lie was the more it may even hurt, because who knows what else you are being lied to about? You don’t, because your  trust is broken. You can’t believe that person 100% anymore at this point, no matter how badly you want to. That trust needs to be rebuild first. And that takes time. How much time? That’s hard to say. I think the action in the given time and the actions in the past matters more then the time it actually costs. Somethings can change everything in a day, and that’s not just for lies but also for positive things.

I look at it in a way most people may not understand but when I take time to trust you, being a broken and damaged person by traumas, it should mean a lot to you. because I don’t trust people. If you break this trust I can maybe excuse u once or twice, But if the lies continue, you have not only kept the truth from me. You also took the time from me that it took me to build up trust with you and the energy I put in that. If you lie you also have taken from me and every other person after you, that I will give them the same chances I gave you. You have hurt me in ways you may never understand. And you have hurt yourself in ways you may never come to understand.

If you lie to me you don’t seem to care about me or find me worthy enough to tell the truth. This will make me feel bad about myself, as though I were not important or mattered to you.  I would feel dumb because I trusted someone who obviously thought they could get away with lies and that it was okay to lie to me. It will make me feel lonely and sad because that friend I thought I had is not a true friend who values me like I value them. Now ask yourself, is it possible to value them the same way again anymore? I truly don’t know if that actually exists, for the people who betrayed my trust in the kept breaking it, up to a point beyond repair. I have forgiven them but I wont allow myself to trust them anymore.

And last but not least, a long time ago I posted about lies before on my blog when it came up in a conversation. That post is located right here. And I wrote a post about truths that’s located right here.

Take care all!

2016 Was a year full of changes, a year of moving forward, a year of not looking back. A year of healing, a beautiful year full of personal growth. A year of goodbye old ways and welcome to new ways. A year where I learned a lot. Full of tears, out of pain but also happy tears. A year full of battles and victories. Of course my divorce but also finding my soul mate where huge things. Then my healing journey that continued after a short break in February and March and that continued again in April. The water protecting with the water ceremonies and the protests at the ING bank. A year I have been grateful for. And to end this year respectfully I have used this last day to do something that’s totally me. I have been baking and giving away the treats I made to friends but also brought a dish to the homeless. The best gift to receive is the gift of giving where you don’t receive anything but the pleasure of giving. Something I love to do.  So with melancholy but also joy I like to say farewell to 2016 and thank you for all your lessons and everything you have brought me.

The ending of 2016 is not just an ending, its also a start of a fresh new year. So be welcome 2017. A year where I will continue my healing journey and personal growth. A year where I will leave even more of my past behind that still haunts me. A year full of new chances and possibilities where everything is possible again. A year that I look forward to but without a doubt will be another year of many battles and victories. A year I don’t fear to walk into, for my courage has grown by leaving a lot of fear behind thanks to my healing in 2016. A year that I wish to bring you all  lots of luck and good fortune, but foremost good health. Happy 2017 everyone.