I am going through a bad time in my life right now where everything I thought I had kind of blew up in my face, and I'm left trying to pick up the pieces. Throughout my life, for as long as I can remember, I have had intense feelings of nostalgia when going through crises. They are sort of like flashbacks, however I am aware of what I am doing at the time, like I could be driving and suddenly I get hit with one and I can continue to drive safely through it, but it does sort of overtake my mind. The flashbacks aren't detailed or of important events or things that I even associate a good or bad meaning to. They will be things like me being 5 years old and cutting a piece of construction paper. It's so weird. But then I'm left with the feeling of it for the rest of the day and it for some reason makes me incredibly depressed. Most of the time the flashbacks are from a young age, probably under 7 yrs old. I may from time to time have a flashback from my teenage years but it's rare. Sometimes they are from my point of view, sometimes from another's point of view.

When my life has little stress or problems, I do not get these. It only happens under stress, and seems to correspond with the amount of stress. If I'm having a bad time at work I may have one a week. Since my life has pretty much been turned upside down lately, I probably have 2-3 a day. Has anyone ever heard of this? It's driving me NUTS. I don't so much mind the memories, but afterwards I get a really heavy and helpless feeling and sometimes I even get physically ill from the depression they bring on. I don't understand it.

Any suggestions?

there is not too much you can do about flashbacks as they are stored in the subconscious. I guess a therapist would say you deal with all past issues the flashbacks would seize. I have them too and they can be a royal pain but I really don't have a clue how to make them stop.

trg247

That happens to me all the time too. Even the happy memories, or flashbacks, tend to make me sad lately--they usually seem to be followed very rapidly by an unhappy memory. When I notice myself thinking about something from the past that upsets me, I try to tell myself to 'stop thinking about that', and try to concentrate on the present. That usually helps.

If you are deeply bothered by them and they just won't stop, then you should probably discuss them with a therapist or counselor.