[Treasur]

I think your main post has been misfiled under Stories….perhaps one of the moderators can retrieve it and link it with this one?

I read your main post though which described your experience overall of the last couple of years and where you are now, which was helpful. I am very sorry that this has happened to you and I am very sorry that your observations suggest it is happening again.

I’m not sure I would call what you describe a flashback - which in my experience are something where past and present feels more entangled than you describe, a bit more out of body if that makes sense and more single frame than a series of movie frames. But it doesn’t really matter what one calls it…..it sounds as if something about it felt unsettling or confusing to you. Do you know why? What do you think is happening or causing it?

I was diagnosed with PTSD a couple of years post BD. I’m not alone here in that. So, yes, I have seen my brain do some strange stuff as it tried to make sense of things that made no sense to me. Bc of that I have learned to have respect for some of the ways our brains try to shuffle our mental cards, communicate basics and try to make us feel a bit better than we do in the moment. I learned with time to see it as a kind of neurological hiccup….what mattered was less the experience itself than what it told me about where my unconscious nervous system felt I was. It’s as if our system can feel things while we are busily trying to think the opposite….I suspect it is a kind of basic almost primeval alert system of red, yellow and green, the same bit of our hind brain that raises our metaphorical hackles with a feeling of unease about someone or brings nightmares that half make sense and half don’t.

So what do you think your own system is trying to communicate?

[UrsaMajor]

I pulled your original thread out of the Archives (how it got there is a mystery) and merged it with the "Flashback" thread so now all posts here under this thread....

[Nas]

There is something called involuntary autobiographical memories. I don’t know much about it but remember stumbling over the term.. Here is an article with some basic information that might be useful to you:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/days-gone/202205/involuntary-memories-and-depression?amp

If you don’t have a therapist yet, might be a good idea to start working with one to sort through all of this. I was sad to see your use of the word “panic” in your thread title. That is no way to live, and you don’t have to live that way, even if you are trying to save your marriage.

Edit: I have flashbacks from diagnosed CPTSD (not caused by BD). It’s very very different than a memory. my body literally feels like it is back in the moment with all the same sensations, as if the past is happening right now. And I don’t necessarily see mental images of the past event - sometimes I cannot even connect the exact past event that is causing the flashback. I just feel the same terror, fear, panic, being trapped etc.