What Does An Emotional Flashback Feel Like?

One of the most common questions I receive about my CPTSD is what an emotional flashback feels like. It’s a question that, even after reading hundreds of people’s descriptions of them, I have yet to come across a good answer. Admittedly, each person’s flashbacks are unique, but I wanted to share my best description of mine so far. It is a description that I texted to my mother while in flashback a few months ago:

My emotional flashbacks feel like an awful combination of a mourning (a mourning so intense that I imagine it is what losing a child or a spouse feels like), a being lost so great that you will never find your way back to sanity or civilization, a terror equivalent to being attacked by a grizzly bear, a paralysis comparable to being hit by a car, an asphyxiation similar to what I imagine drowning feels like – pain in your chest, desperation to return to some unknown and undefined surface, and a self-hatred for feeling it all that is so total that even discussing any of this makes it all even worse.

I realize that the description is baffling but a thought to which I commonly return in conversation is this: CPTSD, and any other neurological abnormality for that matter, exists outside the realm of normal human experience. That is why it is called an abnormality. I’m glad that they do. In the past, I’ve wished my family could experience it all, just for a day, to help them understand. In truth, however, I’m glad they don’t. I’m glad most of you don’t. If you know somebody who struggles with any neurological problem, just remember – you may not be able to understand, but we don’t want you to. Not really. We just want you to be there. That’s enough.