Somatic Flashbacks and Trauma: How Your Body Holds on to Painful Memories
You drive by your old high school and suddenly your brain flashes back to the constant bullying, the guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer, the time your teacher let the whole class know you failed your final. Your stomach is in knots and you feel like you’re suffocating. Painful experiences, and the trauma that can result, don’t just live in your brain. They are also stored as body memories.
“We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body.”
Bessel van der Kolk
How Does the Body Store Trauma
When something painful happens to us, and we feel intense emotions, the experience is a full body response. Hormones are released, our respiratory and cardiac functions change, and our circulatory system prepares for action. When the event challenges our ability to cope, our system can be overwhelmed. As a result, the memory is stored in fragments in our brain. But our bodies also carry a memory of the trauma.
If the event is so overpowering we can’t deal with it, or worse we push it down, the trauma can be stuck in our brain and body. This may result in increased mental and physical health symptoms. Researchers have found a correlation between negative events in childhood and lifelong increased risk for mental and physical health difficulties.
“It is impossible for any stressful stimulus, chronic or acute, to act on only one part of the super-system. What happens to one will affect all.”
Gabor Maté
What Are Somatic Memories
Somatic is defined as relating to the body. Somatic symptoms are physical. Headaches, heart palpitations, stomach issues, fatigue, dizziness, insomnia, and sexual pain can all be somatic symptoms related to trauma.
If you are experiencing physical symptoms, it’s a good idea to check with a doctor first, to rule out any medical concerns. Sometimes physical symptoms defy medical explanation and this may indicate trauma as a precipitating factor.
Traumatic experiences that happen very early in childhood (before we develop the ability to speak) and attachment difficulties may show up as unexplained physical symptoms later in life. Sometimes the memory of the experience is not clear but the physical reaction to reminders of the event can cause a whole body response (classic flight/fight/freeze).
Our bodies remember what our brains want to forget.
Types of Flashbacks
Flashbacks occur when something reminds us of an earlier traumatic experience. These reminders are often referred to as triggers and they can include people, places and things that create a response in our bodies and brains. We may or may not be aware of the links between the trigger and the response. Sometimes things that are unrelated to what we experienced (but that remind us of our traumatic event) can cause flashbacks. Flashbacks can also happen without an external reminder and as a result of intrusive thoughts.
Flashbacks can be intense and you can even feel like you are reliving the traumatic event. Typically flashbacks are brought about by reminders of stressful events and have a visual component. If you are in a car accident, you may feel tense and nervous when you are in a car. You can even experience strong memories of the event, almost as if you are reliving it. And when this happens, your body may react in the same way it did during the traumatic event.
At times our brains (and bodies) struggle with perception of time and reality. We can feel like we are re-experiencing painful events in the present. This full body response indicates a somatic flashback.
Emotional flashbacks
People who have experienced repeated traumatic experiences, especially when they begin in early childhood, may develop a form of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) called C-PTSD - or Complex PTSD. C-PTSD can alter your sense of yourself and the world around you. People struggling with C-PTSD may experience intense flashbacks that don’t necessarily have a visual element but create an intense emotional response.
Reminders of past abuse can trigger an overwhelming emotional response that can persist. And there may be little recognition between the stimulus and response, which makes regulating harder. Maybe you have had the experience of exposure to a reminder of your childhood and then experienced intense rage, fear and shame. You may not have remembered (or replayed in your mind) a specific event, but your physical state feels threatened and your emotions shift. Emotional flashbacks can be difficult to deal with because sometimes there is no clear connection between the reminder and the intensity of the response.
Can I Get Rid of Traumatic Body Memories
As we learned previously, in our blog about getting over painful experiences, pushing it down or wishing it away doesn’t help. And in the case of somatic memories, suppressing your emotions may actually lead to physical consequences.
“He says the best way out is always through.
And I agree to that, or in so far
As that I can see no way out but through–
Leastways for me–and then they’ll be convinced.”
Robert Frost
How to Handle Somatic Flashbacks
The first step in handling flashbacks is reassuring yourself that you are in the present and the thing you are experiencing is not happening now. Grounding techniques can be helpful and will bring you back to the present. Regulating somatic flashbacks requires a combination of body based and cognitive strategies. Start with calming the body and then move to challenging your thinking and time orienting yourself.
Cultivating mindfulness can help you identify what you are feeling and why. This is especially useful in the context of emotional flashbacks, where there is no specific memory to clue you in as to why you are feeling what you’re feeling.
Return gently to your body (and the present) with slow, deep breathing. Try a longer exhale (inhale for 4, hold for 6, exhale for 8) to slow down your heart and mind.
Shake it off, literally. Peter Levine, in his book Waking the Tiger, explains the connection between stress and release in the natural world and humans’ experience of trauma and recovery. Allowing yourself to physically shake and move when your body is under stress can help you release the feeling and move through your reaction to the event.
Identify your external triggers and learn to cope ahead. If you can learn to reassure and calm yourself before exposure to the things that may cause you pain, you have a greater chance of not experiencing distress in the presence of triggers.
Finally, work through your trauma with the help of a trauma therapist.
Resolving Trauma
Your past will always be something that happened to you, but it doesn’t have to make you feel the same way. Healing from trauma means you are able to think about painful events but not feel as distressed. Your triggers (and somatic flashbacks) should not be as intense and you may begin to view your experiences with more clarity and insight. When your body and mind have healed you can start making meaning of your experiences and integrating that knowledge into the present version of yourself.
We know the past can be painful and that it feels scary to confront. When you’re ready, contact us to schedule a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation. We also provide support for women struggling with depression, anxiety, and life transitions.
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