Flashbacks, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the Brain

Shirley J. Davis
10 min readApr 14, 2020
Photo by brut carniollus on Unsplash

Everyone experiences flashbacks. Most of the time flashbacks are benign

when they experience a trigger, such as the smell of fresh-baked bread and it reminds them of their grandmother.

However, flashbacks are a nightmare for those who have experienced extreme trauma in childhood or as an adult. This piece will concentrate on flashbacks that are part of the lives of those who live in the shadow of complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

What Are Flashbacks?

Flashbacks, in PTSD, are where one relives a traumatic event while awake. Flashbacks are devastating to those who experience them, as they are suddenly and uncontrollably reliving something that happened in their past.

Flashbacks are akin to vomiting when having a stomach virus.

You cannot choose when or where it will happen.

Yet, flashbacks are not like a nightmare, where the person wakes to realize it was only a dream. People experiencing flashbacks become transported back to the traumatic event, reliving it with all its sights, sounds, and fears as if it were happening in the present.

The Differences Between Flashbacks from PTSD and CPTSD

--

--

Shirley J. Davis
Shirley J. Davis

Written by Shirley J. Davis

I am an author/speaker/grant writer in the U.S. My passion is authoring information about mental health disorders, especially dissociative identity disorder..

No responses yet