Awful Flashbacks.

[emptyinside]

I'm curious to know if anyone else experiences flashbacks. They don't have to be classic flashbacks (of trauma, of death, of happier times). It can be this fuzzy and strange feeling in your head, like you've been through a deja vu moment or time warp.

This happens to me when I encounter things for the first time since the death. For example, I'll hear a song and recall the last time I remember hearing it was with the person I lost. Or I'll read something. Or it might even be a smell or walking into a place.

I just happened to hear this song, and I'm sitting here feeling really unsettled. I'm out of breath (it feels like I'm about to fall). My brain is a little confused because after hearing the song my heart feels like no time has passed since I last saw the person. It's as if the song transported me back to the past when I'd lost no one. But I know he's no longer here and time has passed.

I don't even know what to call this sensation. Is this pain? Is it just confusion? I just feel...discombobulated. Like I'm currently living in the past and present at the same time. Hearing the song filled me with such longing.

[STARKISS]

Hi, I have had flashbacks and I was always wondering why I felt I could not move forward in my grief journey it is because of these flashbacks... I know that the ones I had are awful and I can only tell you that I feel for you and I am sorry you are having them... With myself they were of abuse and sadness so I talked with someone about them and I am not having them as often since I started talking with my therapist... Good luck with the flashbacks and I hope you find some kind of peace and calmness again my friend Shelley

[Babypod]

Same here. Grocery shopping - something I always did with my Grandma - it brings the pain back all over again. This morning when I woke up I swear I could hear her voice. Grandma used to call me every morning to wake me up - this morning I could hear her say on the phone, "Angel, it is 5:30. Time to get up. Do you want me to call you back in five minutes?" Sometimes I can't breathe.

[2sweetgirls]

I am so sorry for the feelings you are currently having.

I can't say that I had flashbacks like having the feeling of my parents not being gone but, I have visions in my head of the past - good, bad and ugly. I can't sleep at night as this movie keeps playing in my head and it seems so real, so clear.

Mostly, I just shake my head in disbelief that this is all happening.

Peace and hugs to you.

2sweetgirls

[mfh]

I call them ambushes...because they catch me off guard and cause me to completely switch gears from perhaps a calmer moment to one that is pain-filled either because the ambush brought back a happy moment that will no longer be or a painful time usually around his death. 13 months into this and they still happen...the tiniest thing can ambush me....an RV passing the house (because he RVd for 2 years), a mug I forgot was in the cabinet, something someone says in a movie, a reference to some small thing that absolutely no one would get....on and on and on they go. We are not crazy. This is part of it...the journey through grief...as far as I know. mfh

[BellaRosa]

Emptyinside, you described perfectly what I haven't been able to put into words. I also experience these "episodes" pretty frequently. Anything can trigger one, or sometimes they just happen for no reason at all. I'll be sitting at my desk at work and all of a sudden I'll have a thought about calling my mom at lunch or after work, and it's like you said: I'm living in the past and the present all at once. It's very unsettling because my mind knows that she's gone, but it's like my heart won't believe it. In that split second when I think of calling her, I feel like she's still alive, but at the same time I experience the crushing sadness of knowing she's not. It's awful.

I also have other flashbacks of her last few days, when she was at her worst. Those have gotten better and don't come as frequently now, but they do pop up every so often.

Erin