Affair flashbacks often hit you without warning. You find yourself going about your daily routine and WHAM! the flashback hits you. Sometimes it starts small and other times if is a full blown cinemascope production with full range sound and vivid colors.
Flashbacks have a way of taking away your confidence. About the time you think you can manage and make it through recovery, the flashback takes you back two steps.
Your mind and emotions are shaken up. It leaves you feeling weak and powerless. You feel like you are reliving the whole episode again.
What makes them worse is that the flashbacks occur without warning. There is no aura or advance notice. They just start without regard to where you are or what you are doing. Being surprised when you were not expecting it makes them unnerving. It is hard to prepare yourself for something that can occur without warnings.
When they occur, you are reminded of what you did not want to be reminded of. It may feel like you are going through a torture that you have already been through before.
What adds to the frustration is that when they are happening, the harder you try to make it stop, the more intense it becomes.
So, what can you do about these unwanted flashbacks?
First, accept that they are part of recovery. Like the muscular soreness that comes from physical workouts, the flashbacks are part of recovery. Accepting them as part of recovery reduces the tension that often comes when you try resisting them.
The looping replay of events of flashbacks are your mind and body trying to cope with what happened. Much like the rehearsal you did as a child to learn new things, your mind and body are learning new ways of coping. The flashback is the attempt to master and move past what happened.
Parts of your brain will want to be ‘on guard’ as a way of protecting you from threats. When your brain starts replaying events, the guardedness will be activated again.
The neuron connections formed in your brain with the news of the affair were shocking. Your mind requires time to adjust to such a jarring shock and adjust to those connections that were forced upon you. As your brain makes adjustments in finding ways of making sense of what happened, you experience ‘flashbacks’.
It would be nice if adjustments occurred in smooth, decreasing manner. It does not happen that way. The pathway is often jagged, with some flashbacks being more intense than the others.
Having one more intense than the previous one does not automatically mean that you are taking a step back in recovery. It also does not mean that your recovery has stopped.
What it does mean is that your brain and your emotions are continuing in making adjustments. Something as life changing as an affair takes time to adjust to. Parts of your mind will accept many aspects of what happened long before your heart and the other parts of your brain will. This is part of the healing process.
Second, realize that they are temporary. The sensations, thoughts and images will not last. They are not an endless experience. Like a bad dream, they will pass. Being temporary, they are not real. Although the events and emotions were real, the replay is not reality. In realizing they are temporary, it means that they are time limited and they are a reflection rather than a reality.
Third, you can use the flashback as an opportunity to pray. Although you cannot change what happened, you can change the meanings that you attach to it. Prayer is a way of attaining acceptance, and also a way of changing the meanings you associated with the affair. When you pray rather than panic, it will help make the flashback less traumatizing.
If you are stuck in Affair Trauma and struggle getting past it, we can help. The video “Overcoming Affair Trauma” guides you in getting out of the trauma functioning and returning back to the way you were.
Flashbacks may be a sign that there are still parts of the affair that you are struggling with. The good news is, you can move past that.
Best Regards,
Jeff
