The Difference Between a Flashback and a Bad Memory

Photo by Prixel Creative

As a writer and public speaker who aims to bring hope to those with PTSD, people often share with me stories about their traumas and their effects. The sentence structure is typically the same; “This bad thing happened to me and then later on something related to that bad thing happened and it made me think about the first bad thing so now I have PTSD.” 

I follow up this statement with this, “That’s awful. Were you diagnosed by a mental health professional?”

“No,” is what typically follows.

Usually I suggest people do that, especially early on so that they can learn tools for coping with PTSD, something I wish I had done twenty years ago when my PTSD developed. I’m often met by resistance with this suggestion, which makes me wonder if perhaps they feel they don’t need help from a professional or what they’re experiencing is not that serious.

I think these kinds of conversations have arisen thanks to PTSD becoming familiar. Twenty years ago when my journey first started, PTSD existed, but it wasn’t talked about like it is today. Thanks in part to veterans needing assistance after returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus the numerous natural and man made disasters that have occurred, our society has been forced to learn more about PTSD. In that need to know, information gets misunderstood and PTSD becomes as common as a buzzword.

I remember people posting on social media that they were experiencing PTSD after the 2016 presidential election. Then months later during the Super Bowl when the Patriots came from behind in a stunning turn of events, friends of mine posted how this was reminding them of the 2016 presidential election and they were experiencing PTSD from that night. Then an article with “PTSD” in the titled popped up on LinkedIn, though not a single sentence in her article substantiated anything related to experiencing PTSD. I’ve seen social media posts about being startled by something like a fire alarm and feeling PTSD as a result, and when I suggest to the person posting that they take care of themselves, often the reply I see is “well, I don’t really have PTSD….I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.”

News flash….none of these examples actually relate to PTSD. 

As my contribution to helping stop the misuse of PTSD, let me explain the difference between a flashback and a bad memory as simply as possible, which seems to be the basic misunderstanding of what PTSD is really all about. A flashback feels like you’re actually re-experiencing a traumatic event, whereas a bad memory is merely a reminder. Flashbacks are a symptom of PTSD. Bad memories are not.

I’ll give you an example of a bad memory that may appear like a flashback that I recently experienced. I was cleaning my windows at my house, and as I sprayed the cleaning solution on the window, I got a whiff of it’s odor. Immediately, I remembered washing outhouses at Girl Scout camp. I hadn’t thought about Girl Scout camp in decades. I loved Girl Scout camp, but one component of camp was a chore had to be done every day. Our group was divided into smaller groups and those smaller groups rotated doing these chores. Outhouse cleaning involved going to one of the outhouses at camp, cleaning the toilet seat, restocking the toilet paper and filling the water jugs and replacing the soap for hand washing. Because camp was during the summer, the smell was awful. As I sprayed my windows, it reminded me of the smell of the cleaning solution that we used to clean the toilets and memories of cleaning these outhouses came to mind. However, I still felt the same as I continued cleaning the windows.

Now allow me to explain a flashback. My worst one occurred during an unusual October snowstorm in New Jersey in 2011, fourteen years after my initial traumatic experience. My husband and I were sitting in our living room without power. I was reading a magazine using the last bit of light that refracted from the overcast sky. After about ten inches of thick, heavy snow fell around our house, I heard that sound that immediately took me back to my traumatic experience. It was the sound of a tree ripping apart. As a large tree that borders our property with our neighbor’s fell, I felt like I was back on the porch of my childhood home re-experiencing my traumatic event. I went into panic mode. My heart rate increased, my hands started to sweat and I barked at my husband a mile a minute. I also shook a little and I felt a constant undertone of anxiety that sometimes peaked for a week. Thankfully after seeing a therapist a few days later, that’s been the last flashback I’ve experienced. 

Does this help you better understand the difference?

Quiet

Photo courtesy of Brimstone Creative

During my last vacation, on day one I found myself sitting on the beach staring at the fronds on a nearby palm tree. I noticed their shape, the way they moved with the breeze, the light that illuminated between them. Even though there were so many other things I could have been doing that I love, such as swimming and snorkeling, all I wanted to do was stare at my surroundings. Though I wasn’t wearing a watch, I’d venture to say that that palm tree took my attention for at least 15 minutes.

Right up until we left for vacation, most of my days were rather noisy. Like most people probably do, I squeezed in a lot of work beforehand so that things wouldn’t be waiting for me when I returned. Normally, I have a work/life balance that keeps me feeling productive and joyful at the same time, which took me years to figure out and I’m so grateful that I have. Because many patients wanted to see me before I left, and because I wanted to accommodate them, my days were longer than usual. Add on top of that the effort I was putting into my writing career and other business ventures, plus packing, bill paying, cat boarding and all the other things I like to have in order before going away, I had significantly more tasks crammed into long days than normal. My strategy was to rest on the plane since I knew I’d be exhausted by that point.

I didn’t think those days were particularly noisy per se, because the tasks I was doing I do on a regular basis, but just not all at once. It wasn’t until I sat on that beach and stared at nature did I notice how much my mind was craving quiet. For months, I was looking forward to seeing the fish and coral as I snorkeled, which I like to do every day I’m away. In that moment, I wasn’t interested in doing that. I didn’t even want to think about anything, not even what activities I wanted to do while on vacation or what book I wanted to read. I didn’t even want to think about when I wanted to leave the beach to get ready for dinner. All I wanted to do was stare at nature and admire it’s beauty.

I remember when my PTSD was at its worst and my mind felt very noisy from flashbacks, anxiety and general life stressors that usually come from transitioning into adulthood. Because it was 1997 and society didn’t talk about PTSD like we do today, it never occurred to me that spending time outside looking at nature may be helpful.

So regardless of whether or not you have PTSD, if your mind is feeling noisy, I highly encourage you to go outside and sit in nature. Look at the things around you. What sounds do you hear? What does the fresh air feel like as you breathe it in? Are you able to do this without thinking random thoughts? If not, are those random thoughts helpful or distracting? If they’re distracting, can you commit to a consistent practice of observing nature and see if you can attain that quiet mind you’re seeking? 

An Open Letter to the Students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

photo courtesy of Prixel Creative

It’s been nearly a month since February 14th, and I’m specifically choosing to refer to that day simply by its date and not what happened, not for the purpose of ignoring or diminishing what occurred that day but so that those of you who are struggling the most aren’t stressed by the words I write.

While I titled this as an open letter to the students of your high school, who the media have highlighted as the force that will finally produce the change in gun control laws that our country desperately needs, who celebrities and people of influence have praised for your courage, sharpness and articulation, truthfully this letter is not for all of you. This is for those of you who are afraid to go to sleep at night because you can’t imagine having another nightmare. This is for those of you who don’t feel like you can ever step foot in your school again. This is for those of you who feel ruled by your anxiety all the time. This is for those of you who are haunted by random flashbacks from that day. This is for those of you who might be wondering why February 14th is affecting you seemingly more than your fellow classmates and you wish it wasn’t. 

You….I’m writing this for you, and I want you to know that you will be okay.

How do I know this? I was 20 when I developed PTSD. I won’t get into my traumatic experience because you don’t need to read and be exposed to more trauma. I’m now 41, and I’m okay.

I’ve been okay since 2011, which means that I dealt with symptoms on and off for fourteen years. I have a lot of hope that you won’t suffer nearly as long as I did because our society knows a lot more about PTSD than it did back in 1997 when it started for me. As weird as this may sound, up to that point the only exposure I had about PTSD was watching Brenda Walsh develop it after being robbed on Beverly Hills, 90210. Seriously. The internet was in its infancy. There was no such thing as texting. The ability to spread information was not what it is today. Back then, people didn’t know about PTSD as much as we do today.

Today, we have so many different therapies, from counseling to riding horses to surfing to painting. There’s hiking excursions and yoga retreats. There’s connecting with others through social media and there’s MeetUp groups. And these are all designed to help not only people diagnosed with PTSD but also their family members, their friends and anyone else experiencing similar symptoms.

These resources came out of necessity, because people like me didn’t have these when we needed them. We created them ourselves. I had to find my way out of my disorder, and thankfully I did, but it didn’t have to take me fourteen years had I had the resources that are available now. It doesn’t have to be that way for you either.

With effort towards taking care of yourself as well as leaning on those who want to help you while they manage the balancing act of supporting your growing independence that comes with being your age, you can move through your symptoms. I get that it may seem like you can’t see see yourself having a day without symptoms. Right now, that’s normal. That will ease up.

As I’m hoping you can tell from my letter to you that I am here to help you, but undoubtedly I am not enough for what you need. When you are ready, there is a large community of people who understand what you’re feeling and what you’re going through. That community will help you when you are ready and will listen whenever you need to be heard. 

And we will never lose hope that your life will be amazing and created by your design, even if you can’t see it now and even if you want to run away from thinking about it.

We got you.

Symptom Free After the Storm

Last Friday, the area where I live experienced a bomb cyclone. As someone whose PTSD resulted from a storm, any kind of weather event with the word bomb in it doesn’t exactly sit well with me. I decided to stay home that day and keep myself occupied with things I enjoy doing, namely cooking, writing, puzzles and reading.

Initially, the forecast predicted a lot of rain and 1-3 inches of snow in the afternoon. When I looked out the window at 8:30am and saw that the snow was falling fast, thick and heavy, I knew Mother Nature had other plans.

I noticed how the snow stuck to trees and utility lines and it reminded me of the October snowstorm of 2011. That was the first major snowstorm Mike and I experienced in our home in Randolph, NJ, and naively we had been excited about hunkering down and watching the snow cling to the colorful leaves that remained on the trees. We ignored the warnings that snow on these leaves would lead to falling trees and limbs. That excitement quickly turned into fear, damage to our house and no power for nine days. I suffered the worst flashbacks and anxiety since my PTSD first developed in 1997. Those symptoms and others lingered until I saw my therapist. 

Up until that 2011 snowstorm, any kind of severe storm put me on edge, and many times I’d experience flashbacks to my traumatic experience. Thankfully, I managed to move through this past bomb cyclone completely symptom free. This was the first major storm where I was able to do this.

And though I was reminded of that October snowstorm, I didn’t feel like I was reliving it.

How did I get here? For years, I was extremely vigilant about storms and hollow trees. When springtime came, I’d think of it as “thunderstorm season” and that I just needed to get through the first few storms and I’d feel better, like riding a bike for the first time in a while. Even though I was highly functioning and very good at hiding my symptoms, the life I really wanted to live didn’t manifest until I put in the effort to get better, which didn’t happen until I started writing my book in April of 2013.

Before writing Peace with Trees, I could tell someone about my traumatic experience with shakiness in my voice. Having written my story over a dozen times, I can now stand in front of large groups and walk people through my trauma, my symptoms and how I moved through them.

And thanks to that effort, last Friday was just another day, even though we lost power and a tree fell on our property. Amazingly, Mike and I didn’t even know this tree fell until we looked out the window the next day. Had I not written my book, I’m certain my symptoms would have flared up significantly because of this storm.