C-PTSD/Emotional flashbacks which I don't understand.

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Content Warning: Pretty much all of them but as I say later, I try not to go into too much detail.

It is about childhood.

Through laziness and exhaustion, I'm going to paste what I wrote in a more general advice area. I was writing for a specific forum so I'm not sure if that comes through.

I may have explained C-PTSD incorrectly or maybe it is more that I explained it as myself...

Following is the paste:

[Content warning: pretty much will tick all of the boxes but I will try to avoid going into detail]

I'm not sure how to phrase most of this.

Basically most of my childhood and a lot of my adolescence is a blank. I've become an expert at blocking out even the smallest upset so that even now in adulthood something huge can pop out of left field from a year or so ago. Those I experience in a "standard" post-traumatic stress disorder flashback. Visuals and body sensations mostly with the words remembered but not always heard. Physically I either go into panic or I shutdown and dissociate. Usually the latter.

I remember a lot of physical, emotional, and mental abuse in childhood and those along with sexual abuse in adolescence and then "easing off" as I went through my early twenties. I'm mostly safe now although having said that, this year has been remarkably tough.

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My point is that I seem to get "emotion/sensation" flashbacks which I can't place to a memory or an occurrence but which stretch back to childhood. C-PTSD can involve a lot of these... weirder flashbacks, the ones which appear to have no context.

Two I know have happened since I was a pre-teen are the bodily sensations and fear I have surrounding an uncle and a cousin.

I'm worried my mind might be making false connections. I do recall feeling like this cousin who was probably close to a decade my elder seeming to... leer at me when I was about ten. His room was filled with porn mag pull-outs and I saw all of them when I was younger than that. Still not sure why I was allowed in his room with all that around.

With the uncle, I can't explain it. He's self-diagnosed bipolar but I know and have known many with bipolar and he's not the only uncle I have. He's the only one I get these feelings from, however.

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They are like my skin is crawling inside and out. It can be that there's a sensation of being maybe held? Around the upper arms? Sometimes I feel sick and often I start to dissociate when it kicks in. Sometimes it feels like somebody might be on me but not crushing me. I remember being frightened of the attic in my first childhood house that I remember but not why. Only that the uncle slept there when he needed to stay with the family for a while.

Then there's this indescribable "certainty" that somebody babysitting me in that house showed me or wound up letting me accidentally see porn, back when I was about five. I remember blonde women. Except the part of the house the memory tries to place that in doesn't make sense so I can't trust it.

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I was about to launch into a bunch of other fragments and points which might add up to suspicious circumstances. I realised that was pointlessly upsetting for others and tiring for myself.

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What I want to ask is if people agree when a doctor says "It's better that you don't remember,"?

For me, I'm not sure. I am constantly guilty about my friends who remember for a fact about sexual child abuse. I feel my emotion-sensation flashbacks and thoughts are... completely selfish and disrespectful, even though I tend not to talk to them about it. Even their being in my head makes me feel horrible and cruel because I can't be sure. Like I'm always competing with others in there.

I hate that. It's hard to ignore as I wind up ruminating a lot and I'm too ill to work. I try hard to focus on other things but some days are worse than others.

I bought a DBT book with about 225 worksheets and asked my carer to print me out a distress tolerance booklet. I see a psychologist, will be receiving help from autistic spectrum related support workers, and have my first drop in visit with the city's resource centre for people with AS and HFA (diagnosed Asperger's recently). So there's all that.

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Again, I'm not sure whether or not it is better to not know when I keep getting all these flashbacks. Maybe I should simply stick with learning to ride them out. I guess that's what the doctors who have said this mean?

Has anybody been in a similar situation? What did you do? What's your opinion? Have you tried DBT? Are there any resources you'd suggest?

Thanks.

End of paste. Same questions to you folk, I suppose. I feel really queasy and so I might be coming off as curt. I don't mean to be.

Hello.

I think it is better to know for sure rather than to have to wonder. If you have any sort of obsessive/perseverative tendencies (hello ASD/OCD ) then the ambiguity of your memories, and the uncertainty are going to be your constant companions. It will consume you.

I have heard that hypnosis has been helpful in these situations. I know it sounds crazy and questionable in terms of legitimacy but it might be something to look into. I have always been afraid of it myself and also question its legitimacy myself. It seems "hokey" but people do it.

This idea that "it's better you don't remember" is probably better reserved for things you truly don't remember than for things you half-remember or have suppressed. Just know you may have a severe grieving process to go through if you ever do find out for sure.

I too can suppress memories or forget things and then suddenly remember them and all the emotions and feelings that went with it. It is painful and frustrating. It makes the past not stay in the past and makes the past feel present.

Yeah, I was just on a walk thinking about some extensive blanks of my own - I think sometimes this effect inverts and I end up remembering the really difficult bits and occluding memories that could relate it all to my life now. Maybe that explains how *some* people have any recollection(s) of traumatic memories. With me everything's usually a blank unless I'm missing some context.

Seems to me at times maybe it's wise to make peace with the blanks...

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

I don't think it's better or worse to remember, it just is. I find it best not to be thinking too much about bad things, though, including details of things that were frightening. You can get really lost.

You've mentioned you have some people around to help you identify your surroundings so I agree with Waterfalls' neutral policy if you will, at least that's more or less what I do. As controversial as I know it's gonna be in this context, I defer to medical marijuana when these problems crop up with me. Sometimes it intensifies all my thoughts but I trust nothing more to bring the negativity under control. The way I see it, I can use and enjoy my memory to the fullest in the immediate sense; 24 hours in a day and it's all to easy to spend 15 preoccupied with work. In the meantime, I prefer reinterpreting what I'm thinking about as opposed to biting off more than my head can chew.

I'm arguably not exactly the same guy I'm remembering 15+ years ago. I try to keep my subconscious under control so I can enjoy my time with nice people as opposed to fixating on the less peaceful bits of my mind.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos