Flashbacks, dreams, the brain remembers what I do not...

Flashback and dreams, both are involuntary reflexes...

Flashbacks, dreams and the brain remembering things that I cannot recall.

Isn’t it funny how flashbacks come up, just for a moment or two everything in front of you is just as it was, a snapshot in time. It’s real, the smells the sounds everything. The most confusing part is when you are ripped back to reality. You are left confused. For me, it’s almost worse coming back to reality than the flashback was. I feel the flashback was a chance for me to remember. Remember what happened, remember what all went on.

The Brain Knows No Bounds

My counselor explained to me once that the brain attempts to avoid pain. The brain knows no difference in physical, mental, or emotional pain. The brain does not differentiate between actual hurt or mental anguish. The brain has a way to take things that are mentally or emotionally painful and put them in the back, lock them up, and allow you to go on with life with out really knowing every detail to the day’s events.

With this said, my view of flashbacks has changed a bit. I find myself back in the other world trying to find the details I no longer have. In fact, I have come to a literal and figurative wall in my writing of my book because there are so many details that I cannot remember. Flashbacks are now my way of “interviewing” myself on the event.

Being ripped back to reality is often worse than the flashback itself. Many questions left unanswered, for in that brief moment I could not relive everything. Now that I am back to reality I find myself mentally stuck in the flashback trying hard to question every bit of what I saw. Was there something I missed? Was there anything new? I waste the rest of my day wrestling with why did I have the flashback, was it a smell? Was there a sound? Was it the environment I was in?

Dreams… Good or Bad?

My counselor asked me about my dreams and I responded to her, I have no idea I don’t remember any of them. She said it’s probably for the best, most who remember their dreams with PTSD have problems sleeping and it’s my brain attempting to block pain. I didn’t disagree, but I didn’t agree either. I took what she said and I pondered on it.

Now, I think that judging the rare dreams I do remember, there is more info in them that lets me know what’s blocking my damn memories. So the dreams not being remembered is just as bad as me being ripped back to reality after a flashback. There is info in there that I cannot unlock right now and it’s frustrating.

I did an exercise where I had to record myself talking about one of my memories from deployment in as much detail that I could recall. I did. I felt retarded, but I did it. Then my assignment for the week was to listen to it once a day and relive it with my eyes closed and see if any more detail came to mind.

The other part of listening to it repeatedly is that you, in a way, desensitize yourself from that memory by forcing yourself to relive and reassess the memory. Eventually, you reach a point where that memory doesn’t bother you as much as it would because you’ve had that chance to look at as many aspects of it as you could. You also start uncovering details the more you go over it.

The problem I have with this methodology is that there is no ONE event that gave me PTSD. I was deployed 3 times, there were many things that happened that pushed me to where I am at. I don’t think anyone would have enough time in a day to recall every event over 3 deployments and reassess every detail.

Personally, I have a couple events that stand out and I get stuck on the shit I can remember rather than attempting to recall the shit I don’t remember.

Unlocking the Brain

My brain has locked up many things. It’s frustrating when I think back and have to admit I don’t even recall the order of the missions. I just recall bits of missions and it could all be the same time for all I know. I think a part of it was my team was constantly hitting the ground running. Even though we have a ton of missions that I went on, it’s difficult to keep them straight.

There is no sure fire way to unlock the brain. Parts of the “tell a story and listen to it” have worked. Parts of flashbacks have brought up details I have lost. My wife wants to to try hypnosis, but I have yet to try. I’ll be honest I don’t believe hypnosis is real. My wife has also pointed out a method where you are supervised using some special herbal concoction that is supposed to bring up everything at once. Which is why you have to be observed while doing this method. Everywhere I work though there’s rules that I’m pretty sure the “herbs” break the rules of where I work and I would be fired.

One thing’s for sure the VA is not helpful. The Vet Center linked to the VA was where I received counseling to a certain point where they left me with “yay, you’ve come as far as you can go! Have a good life, call us if you need us.” WHAT? I’m done? I’m not fucking done! You start off by telling me “yup it’s the rest of your life” and finish with “yay you graduate, tell your friends about us.”