Emotional Flashbacks are, as this entire journey is, all new to me. Not the flashbacks themselves but identifying and understanding them. As with the vast majority of my emotions, feelings and reactions, I just always wrote them off as "that's just how I am" or "that's the way I was raised to feel or react". The emotional flashbacks have controlled so many of my emotions and reactions and very, very rarely in a positive manner. They can, have, and do set my entire world into a downward spiral. They have been recognized more here of late due to the situations that I have been in. Now the trick is for me to learn to stop and identify when they are happening and how to properly process them. Preferably in a positive and far more constructive manner. I have the unhealthy habit of worst-case scenario outlook. If they are late arriving, they must be dead in a ditch, If they don't answer or respond in the way my expectations expect, then they must not love me or value me. Or as simple as making a small mistake or falling short at work or at home, then I must be the loser that I was always told I would be. So begins the negative talks in my head which leads to the thoughts of not deserving the good, not being deserving of the love that I receive. None of which is true, and in the proper mindset I readily know this. As children we looked for validation from our parents. We need them to instill in us that we are good enough, that we can excel at our dreams. If this is missing and the negative is instilled in your head and your heart, then its hard for success to be expected. For me it seems, I work anticipating the failure. It has become such a common theme in my life. It leads to complete self-destruction. If the failure is expected, then it's almost as if I focus on the failure and lose sight of the goal. Example being my job. My office has had a few slow months. Completely understandable this time of year. I have great expectations to succeed, my confidence tells me I can, I have, and I will succeed. But after a few bumps, the emotional flashbacks of being told I will never be able to win take over my head and the confidence slowly fades away.  Then I get wrapped up in preparing for the failure. My self-destruction is immanent, and the failure is certain. This has been prominent in every facet of my life, and in most circumstances, it has partially justified the failure. I was never expected to succeed anyways, so why is everyone, me included, shocked at the failure. All of which goes against the grain of who I TRULY believe I am. I know I'm a winner because every time I get my ass knocked down by life, I get back up and continue on. I am loved, this has been reinforced here lately because of the support that I have received over this website and the fact that my phone and social media never stopped with people reaching to wish me happy birthday. The love is reinforced daily by friends and family. The confidence is there because I see the things that I have accomplished, the hurdles I have overcome and love I have to offer despite all the feelings I have. However, the inner thoughts can easily disrupt any feelings of love and confidence with some made up scenario that an emotional flashback can trigger. 

My relationship with my stepfather ended partially due to an emotional flashback. I was mid-thirties and worked for him. One day, after several days of being verbally beaten down at work, and evening phone calls to help reiterate what a piece of shit he thought I was, it came to a head. He made the decision to turn an argument physical by grabbing me by the throat. Oddly enough. being grabbed up didn't really bother me that much. It was the yellow eyes, the alcohol on his breath and the spit hitting my face as he screamed at me that triggered me. As the emotions hit me, I immediately became the nine-year-old little boy that was being woken up at 1 AM because something I had done earlier in the day had festered in his mind long enough, he felt the need to take action. The fear I had on those nights came back. The anger that I had carried my whole for life not being able to defend myself took over. When I struck him and he hit the ground I was hit with a great sense of guilt. I had no intentions of hitting him. No desire to knock him out. It was involuntary. Mid thirty me didn't hit him, my inner scared shitless and defenseless nine-year-old me did! I carried a mix of guilt and shame for a long time over that day. The last words ever spoken to him were "don't get up" But truth be told, it wasn't the first time that I had to knock him out. It was however the last time. I parted ways with the company and never spoke to him again. It was liberating for me, to escape him. I was thirty-five and still being screamed at and belittled like I was still a child. I was also scared and apprehensive to be out on my own. I was, after all, told for my entire life that I would never be anything without him, his company or paycheck. So, when I had few ups and downs early on, it helped to reinforce that Learned thinking. Life has taught me that I have succeeded in spite of his thoughts of me. I will continue to succeed because as I said earlier, you can knock me down, but you can bet your ass I will get back up. It's when I knock myself down that getting up is the hardest. Which is why am here. I understand that life is full of ups and downs, bumps and bruises. I am working to understand what it is that triggers my negative thoughts, how to recognize that it is in my head and that it is not my true reality.

I think I have identified some of the leading triggers to my emotional flashbacks. Failure and abandonment seem to be the two leading causes of recent. Being able to identify what emotions are caused by the flashback is part of my journey and healing. Reading the book, listening to the podcasts from others that suffer from CPTSD and most importantly DOING THE WORK!! I am still highly confident that, I can and am, healing from this. Just the understanding that I have CPTSD was a huge weight of my chest. Now I find myself, as the day goes along, looking at different feelings, emotions and situations that I experience and deciphering the "why". This, still, is not an instant process. My mouth still runs faster than my thoughts at times. Some of my emotions are acted upon before I process the true nature of the emotion, the strength of the emotion and the proper reaction to the emotion. So many times, I have jumped right into the "burn the world down" responses. This is obviously not the proper reaction nor is it conducive to the life I want to live, or the man that I want to be. My CPTSD was not caused by one ass whooping so I cannot possibly expect the healing to happen after one chapter or one thought break through. I have mentioned in previous posts that I have tried to change a lot in my world here lately. I stay surrounded by positive people, I feed my mind. heart and soul positive thoughts, I have removed caffeine from my diet, and I work out and eat healthy daily. The changes to my mental health seem to be improving exponentially with the understanding that I am still very early on in the healing process. Every journey begins with the first step. 

Thank you for taking the time to read my posts. Hopefully you were able to pull something from this. I have added the option to comment and to share. If you know anyone that may benefit from this site, please share. If not, share it anyways! I am amazed at the amount people that can relate to this. my social media is the only outlet I have so it reaches very few. Thank you again and if nobody told you today that they love you, I do.