What is an emotional flashback?
Emotional flashbacks are feelings in the moment that go back to times in childhood where you felt defective, helpless, abandoned, or despairing.
They can be tricky to identify, because unlike a specific flashback with specific images, you experience very strong feelings of self-hatred, shame, abandonment, invisibility, or rage. And they’re not linked to any one specific memory.
Here’s a video I’ve made on feelings like hopelessness and feeling unlovable and identifying the possibility that you’re having a flashback. Or, if you’re looking for strategies to try right now, scroll further down and find my video that gives you three ways to work with an emotional flashback right now.
Times when you felt despair, shame, rage, futility, a sense of being abandoned or unworthy may signal a powerful feeling memory of what it was like for you when you were small.
Because these flashbacks often seem to be related to the present moment, identifying the intensity of your feelings as an emotional flashback is an important piece to healing.
Experiencing Emotional Flashbacks
Here are some things people tend to feel and do when experiencing emotional flashbacks:
THEY FEEL TOXIC SHAME
You get this sense that you are not okay. Everything about you starts to feel pathetic, or worthless, or simply not good enough.
Shame is a sense that there’s something wrong with you, something wrong with who you are. It makes sense that a sense of being so worthless would propel this next step…
THEY CRITICIZE THEMSELVES, VICIOUSLY!
This part of you, this inner critic, says you’re not worth it, you’re not good enough, that you never should have tried, or that you have no right to your feelings and thoughts.
This critic often echoes the contempt people received in childhood. It demolishes your sense of self-esteem. This leads to the next issue…
THEY ABANDON THEMSELVES, RECREATING EARLY ABANDONMENTS
You give in to your inner critic, and you give up on yourself.
Some folks abandon themselves through “spacing out,” taking care of other people compulsively (without regard for their own needs), getting into destructive or dependent relationships, turning to food or sleep to dull their feelings, or turning to addictions.
Giving up on yourself can be accompanied by suicidal ideation, compulsion/addiction, depression, and giving into the wishes of others to the exclusion of your own needs.
FEAR OF RELATIONSHIPS/SOCIAL SITUATIONS
This fear of interaction with other people makes sense when you never developed the sense that you were okay, that people liked you, and that you were worth people’s time and attention.
Emotional Flashbacks Can be Stopped, and You Can Heal!
Here’s a video I created on ways you can work with an emotional flashback right in the moment you’re experiencing it.
You might want to bookmark this page or favorite the video on YouTube so you can find it at a moment’s notice!
I coach clients from around the world via video, and locally here in Oregon.
Clients suffering from emotional flashbacks express great relief once they understand that they’re not bad or crazy and that their troubled emotions and relationships make sense.
Once you know that you’re NOT crazy or defective, you can start the work of healing.
Healing is Deeply Rewarding
As you learn to let go of toxic shame, to challenge your inner critic, to notice when you’re in an emotional flashback (and find your way out), you get to feel at home with yourself.
Life looks different.
Your anxiety diminishes, your energy increases, and you gain a sense of love, belonging, and safety.
Healing can begin to occur in a safe relationship, often with a good therapist. Read my article about feeling safe in therapy.
People recover from these feelings every day. To recover, you’ll need to develop self-compassion, challenge your inner critic, and learn to care for the child you once were. As you recover, you develop a sense that you’re okay, that you can be safe, and that you’re worth it. You stop abandoning yourself and learn to embrace who you are.
Healing happens one step at a time.
Examples of Emotional Flashbacks
Here are examples of emotional flashbacks I’ve seen:
- Mary comes to a session convinced that I won’t like her, that no one can like her. When we talk about these feelings, it becomes apparent that, even though I and many other people like her, there’s a part of her that keeps remembering the feelings of helplessness and shame and replaying the voices of her parents saying, “No one will ever want to be your friend.”
- Thomas tells me he “freaks out” every time his fiance looks at him a certain way. When he remembers what “that look” reminds him of, he recalls the sense of impending doom he had as a child when his stepfather gave him a certain look before beating him.
- Rose can’t stand for someone on the phone to say it’s time for them to go. It brings her back to a time in her childhood where she felt all alone.
- When Harry hears that his boss wants to talk to him, he immediately panics and believes that he’s going to be reprimanded. When we talk it through, he realizes that he’s flashing back to a time that his mother saying, “Let’s have a talk” could only mean bad things.
Dealing with Emotional Flashbacks
How do you resolve an emotional flashback? First, you recognize the likelihood that it is a flashback.
- Recognizing your emotional flashbacks for what they are can save your sense of sanity. By recognizing these feelings as coming from the past, you can begin to let go of the fear or anguish now, and to be compassionate with yourself as you deal with the feelings from then.
- Recognize that you are safe now. When you were young, these experiences could feel life-threatening. But now, you’re in an adult body with adult resources. You’re safe now. You might check out my flashback halting protocol video for a format for noticing safety in the here and now:
Click Here to Watch the Video - Understand your flashback as a message from a child part of yourself. This part still needs care and attention and validation and didn’t get it when you were young. Now is the time to hear that child’s message. Rather than fixating on the current situation, focus on the feeling and tend to that child within.
- Recognize that this flashback will pass, and life will look different then. When you’re in the midst of one of these flashbacks, they can feel eternal. Worse, a part of you may criticize you or shame you, and these criticisms can feel like utter truth when you feel this way. They’re not truth. I promise! Right now, take care of you.
- Become an expert in emotional flashbacks. The more you know, the more empowered you’ll feel, and having the words to put to what’s going on will to keep you from getting stuck in a feeling. You can find stuff on my website and YouTube channel, of course!
- And you can look at stuff that the guy who coined the term “Emotional Flashback” has written. His name is Pete Walker, and he offers a lot of useful information, written very compassionately. Here’s a link to his website, with articles that might interest you right on the left column.
- Realize that you can heal from this stuff. A relationship with someone who has compassion and a clue will help a lot, especially if the inner critic or feelings of shame keep taking over your thoughts and feelings, despite your best efforts. So, consider seeking help from someone familiar with this stuff. If you already have a support network (Lots of people struggling with this stuff don’t yet have that, and that can change over time!), find someone safe to start sharing a little bit of this stuff with. And if you don’t yet have that, you might seek help from a counselor. One with compassion, and hopefully one who knows some of this stuff and can help guide you to a sense of self-compassion and curiosity. One you can connect with over time. One who can offer you a bit of a roadmap to where you are and where you can go. One who can, most importantly, offer genuineness and compassion in a way that will help you feel those things toward yourself more and more.