Happy to help, glad it is informative :)
I think it depends! I'm not sure how it was before I was able to integrate with that part of myself, so I can only speak to what I can actually remember. But for the times I remember, it's very mixed. I'll know that I'm talking to my husband, but I'll be absolutely convinced he's angry at me (which is untrue), that I'm somehow unsafe (also untrue), and that I need to defend myself (never true with him tbh). If I'm aware enough to have the insight that I'm wrong, then I'm also frustrated/confused/angry about not being in control enough to use logic to control my behavior- but I don't always have that insight. So I'd say, usually, I am in the mindset of the past while being aware that I'm not physically in the past.
From what my husband has told me, during the times I have amnesia for, it sounds like I have no idea what's happening but I still know who he is and where I am. But he's said that I don't make any sense, like he will have me try to explain why I'm upset, and I can't really coherently put my thoughts together.
I remember one episode where I had been triggered by several things, and we were standing in the kitchen, and I was saying really awful horrible things to him- like he was trying to upset me on purpose, he was gaslighting me, etc- but he'd say "can you tell me why you think that?" And I couldn't. I don't remember how we had gotten to the kitchen, or what he had said that allegedly upset me. And I KNEW I was wrong, and I really wanted to stop yelling at him, but I felt so out of control. Like somebody else was operating my body, even though obviously I was operating myself lol. So I literally turned around, grabbed the handles of the kitchen cabinet, and yelled for like 15 seconds.
And then my sweet husband was like "yeah! You tell that trauma!" So then I laughed and then had a panic attack. And then we made dinner. An ordinary Thursday, lmfao.
(Part of The Research Game, question by @z-mizcellaneous-z)
We are wondering if anyone who has first-hand experience can share with us what PTSD flashbacks look or feel like to you, as well as what it might look like from the outside perspective (such as witnessed by friends/strangers).
(please only share if you're comfortable. You can also send me an anonymous ask instead!)
Everyone else, reblog this around until we can find someone who has the answer!
(Otherwise, there's a Youtube channel I know of that aims to spread awareness of PTSD and may help you here: https://youtu.be/vdLfrJSzMY8, though it's important to note she has Complex PTSD, which is slightly different and is characterized by prolonged trauma rather than a single event)
Recently I keep thinking about how I wasn't allowed to clean myself properly as a child. My mother was obsessed with ridiculing me for my general hygiene making her look bad, but didn't allow me to condition my hair or moisturize my face or use soap on certain areas of my body. Like why? If you're so obsessed with how I look, why are you trying to make me look bad?
Hey y'all. Healing is possible. It's hard and it takes years. There are things you may not be able to fully heal and there are things you will let go of quickly. It's okay. There is no timeline for healing.
I have this advance reader copy of a book I'm reviewing and the writing is awesome in general, the story is great, but They Be Fucking™ every damn chapter. the sex they're having is mid at best (and dv/sa at worst). I am le tired. Signed up for romantasy and got served borderline erotica instead. 🫠
another thing that people are clearly having a bit of trouble wrapping their heads around is the concept of objecting to the terms in which something is criticised, and how that does not necessarily equate to defending that thing.
some people tend to like to reduce things to "pro" or "anti," and any attempt to delineate a position more nuanced than that will still be immediately assigned by them to one of those two "camps"
here’s an idea: notice toxic trends in your behavior and, idk, change them
Jess Sharp
I'm very lucky that I am privileged enough to access paratransit where I live but hear me out:
It sucks that this bus is 85°F because another rider (older than me by several decades, maybe more than twice my age) asked for the AC to be turned down, and it's triggering a migraine, but it sucks more that I'm too much of a people pleaser to ask if she could put on her sweater so I don't pass tf out.
Just thinking about how, as an under-medicated, severely mentally ill 18 year old, living 800 miles from the only home I knew with no support system other than the fundamentalist cult I was wrapped up in-
I was supposed to sit in a court room and point a finger at the man who hurt me for over a decade, and know how to explain what he did to me, and remember events I was completely dissociated during, and understand that I wasn't lying, I just didn't have access to all of the parts of me that experienced all of the things that happened.
With an undiagnosed dissociative disorder, I was supposed to explain to a jury why my three witnesses knew different details of different events and why I'd only reported one instance.
As a minor, I was supposed to understand that if I told my mandated reporter therapist about one specific situation, I'd be expected to then disclose every instance of abuse, or pretend that it all only happened once.
As a child, I was expected to behave in a way that "makes sense" to the middle aged, rural, conservative jury of my abuser's peers.
This too shall pass but like holy fuck
33. she/her. disabled. did & cptsd. sex trafficking survivor. posts might be triggering.
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