So, one of the things I was thinking about on the way home from a therapy session, my 2nd of this week, was a question surrounding my incessant need to embrace flashbacks…


I post that up, not to shamelessly get followers, although I’d be very grateful for you support along this healing journey of past sexual abuse…but to reiterate how unreal that really sounds. To actually say out loud, and believe it inside, that I feel a serious need to have and embrace my flashbacks.

Do any of you that suffer from flashbacks, actually want to embrace them?   Because if you do, I can seriously relate.

I asked her, “how can someone actually want to embrace a flashback?”  To try and relieve the pain, the trauma. Now this isn’t the first time that question has come up in a session, nor the first time I wrote about it here on this new blog.  Still though I find some kind of weird comfort and asking her about it and trying to figure it out.  Without judging, or being condescending, she will always tell me, it’s not unusual. That I’m ok, and we’ll continue to work through it.

One of things about mine, is that they almost always happen in the mornings, when I’m in the shower. It’s at the point that I expect them, and I need them to happen.  Lately, they have been diminishing, and that frustrates me.  Of course, she is happy because they are starting to subside just a bit, but me…yeah not so much.  That’s where my mindset has to change, whether I like it or not.

I’m not a morning person, by any stretch of the imagination.  If anything I’m very quiet, docile, and need to get going on my own without too much commotion. So changing my routine means I’m going to have to get up earlier, even by 10 minutes or so just to try and focus my mind on something other than expecting to relive the events again.

I haven’t quite decided how I’m going to accomplish this yet, but I believe her when she tells me it’s important to do so I must give this serious consideration.  Maybe my coffee alittle earlier,  listen to some different music, or turn on the TV to the morning news. Something to focus on more than the impending, yet currently necessary, pain that starts my day.

Just thinking about it gives me serious anxiety, because I don’t like change. I’m quite routine oriented;  maybe you can relate too? Asking someone with PTSD, Anxiety, and Dissociation, who also has OCD, to change their routine…I mean seriously, is that even possible??

Right now my past trauma, and my past in general, defines a big part of who I am. Personally, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing in it’s entirety.  Maybe that’s not healthy to feel that way, but that’s reality in my world.  I’m trying to play a Survivor role in this process while still embracing the victim.

So between the therapy, and this blog, I’m learning more about myself. What’s ok, what shouldn’t be ok, how to change what needs to be changed, yet still keep who I am.  The fear of losing myself might just be the scariest thing of all, and I know that fear is keeping me from really moving forward down the healing path.

Baby steps I guess….baby steps…

Anyways, I hope you’ll think of me this weekend and in the coming week as I try and take the advice of someone I trust. Realizing that flashbacks are keeping from healing, and I need to heal, as much as I’m afraid too.

-Lyric