Examined Lives: Preventing Unhealthy Trigger Reactions by Healing Emotional Flashbacks

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A gentle reminder that many “trigger” reactions are emotional flashbacks that can be healed with therapy, practice and time. 

Most people associate the term "flash back" with a sudden immersion into a past circumstance -the Vietnam veteran who finds himself in the jungle hearing gunfire in the midst of a neighborhood fireworks show. 

But flashbacks don’t necessarily involve visual or even sensory memories that take you out of your current circumstance. If loud voices, quite spaces, disorganization, a request for a conversation with your boss, or an invitation to speak on a stage paralyze you or cause you to feel anxiety, you may be unconsciously re-living an event in your childhood. Even discomfort with being alone is most likely the result of a time that you were left alone with no solace as a helpless child. These feelings often lead to compulsive eating, perfectionism, sleepless nights and other unhealthy behavior patterns. 

If you feel unwarranted shame or a fear of being “found out” when you are confronted with a financial problem, a messy house, a big or small mistake, or an unhealthy relationship, you are almost certainly experiencing an “implicit” (emotional) flashback. These unhealthy reactions do not require a big past trauma; they can arise from the impact of innocent parents who let you “cry it out” a bit too often as an infant or a careless late pickup from your athletic practice after dark. 

When we have an implicit flashback, it feels like the current circumstance is the problem, but rarely is it true that you need to quit in the middle of your degree process, leave your marriage, storm out of the meeting, grab another handful of potato chips, gulp down one more glass of wine, (or in extreme circumstances,attempt suicide or violence against yourself or someone else). 

Some helpful questions to ask yourself in the midst of an unpleasant emotional response are:

1. When is the last time I felt this way? And the time before that? When is the earliest time I recall feeling this way?
2. What were the external circumstances that led to the first time I reacted this way? To answer this question, it’s helpful to try and remember the season of the year, the other people who were present, the color of the room or the activity that was happening. 

Becoming aware that the source of your response is not the current cirumstance is very helpful, but this is where we might need professional to truly heal us; A talented therapist can bring you back to your past traumas and stop your trigger reactions by using techniques that unfreeze the memory and engage your whole brain in the processing of the event(s), which naturally “heals” the memory into just a normal memory, rather than a flashback producer. 

After this process, you might still feel a trigger reaction arising, but your brain will assist you in resisting the urge to react in an unhealthy or self-sabotaging way. Your brain becomes your ally, rather than your assistant provocateur. 

(Since these childhood flashbacks have a biological component, this whole brain healing is especially important. Many people exhibit symptoms that might seem like bi polar, depressive or manic, when they are actually experiencing the effects of an emotional flashback. Medication is often critical for symptom control, but sometimes therapy and life examinations can actually heal your brain)

If we take the time to examine our lives, we might discover rich fodder for healing and increase our capacity for love and understanding as we improve our relationship with even the darkest parts of ourselves. 

I wrote this post in memory of the brothers and sisters we have lost to suicide, violence, and self-neglect in the hope that someone might be inspired to examine and heal their life. 

Thank you for reading my post. 

Mary