flashbacks v disassociation - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Message Board

isitme · 06-13-2007, 09:09 AM

Another persons post has got me thinking, (again)!

Is there a difference between the two?
If so, can someone explain how each differ because I find it quite confusing?

Thanks in advance.

ICC · 06-13-2007, 09:15 AM

Hi isitme....nice to see you. Flashbacks are flashes of the trauma itself. Remembering, seeing it all over again.

Dissociation is actually the mind leaving the body because the mind cannot handle the pain of an event. It's a coping mechanism for some. I can only explain this from my point. Death, viewings, funerals , loss of loved ones will make me dissociate because of my daughter's death. One of my major traumas. I dissociated the night she died and have ever since in certain situations.

Did I make sense?

ICC

isitme · 06-14-2007, 02:20 AM

Thanks icc. The flashbacks. There is no 1 defining moment of trauma!!!!!!!!!!! so with a trigger, (or even without, I think), allsorts of past events run though my mind. It's 1 big jumbled mess at times. Disassociation - I'm still not too sure on that 1!

You've said, the event caused the disassociation the first time. Since then triggers have caused it. Maybe I should never have asked or I've not asked the question right! I'll be back when I can think straight!

stick2013 · 06-14-2007, 03:41 AM

isitme,

Flashbacks......Something will trigger it, and it brings you right back in time. It's your mind going back. It's like you are there again and it's happening all over again. You can smell the same smells, feel the same feelings, feel the pain even, the fear, everything is back again.

There can also be the ones that drive me batty. I only see what I call Clips of movies, or pictures of just 1 thing of the trauma. It will play in my head over and over and over.

disassociation.. Harder to explain....For me.....Time stops.....I usually disassociate when I am driving. ((((((NOT GOOD))))) I don't remember driving from point a. to point b. But I remember what I was thinking about. Usually the trauma. Something has triggered me to do it too. Usually a thought about the trauma. A thought about one of my triggers. If I am in a bad way emotionally, it happens.

Ok so I really didn't explain it very good. I am sorry....

Hugs,

Sid

dustoffkid · 06-14-2007, 05:16 AM

I know that I get flashbacks (one of my strongest symptoms, along with insomnia-one can trigger the other, and vice versa), but I don't dissociate. It's amazing what the human organism does to protect itself.