All of My Trust, all of My Self [My abuse story]

Come nightmares

This doesn't fit anywhere specific on the timeline that is my life because these episodes just...happen, so I thought I'd make a separate chapter about this.

It's common with trauma to have nightmares about what happened to you, repressed memories and flashbacks can happen during sleep.

A flashback when you're awake is worse in my opinion, though. A dream is just your brain trying to process information you've learnt throughout the day, so if you've thought a lot about your trauma that day it can creep into your dreams at night.
I've had nightmares were I've been running from a man but can't get away, or barely get out but spend the rest of the night avoiding this man in my dreams. It's always my abuser. Sometimes I'm being restrained and can't get away. It feels like there's someone in the room with me wrapping their arms around me tightly but I know I'm fully asleep because I can see the dream clearly. I wake up feeling groggy and anxious and the anxiety usually lasts the whole day.

When I have a flashback when awake, it can be very different depending on how bad it makes me feel on the day. Sometimes I can just burst out crying and have a panic attack, which I can deal with on my own because it's usually brought on by me thinking about the incidents and having the negative response to it.
If something triggers me like a sound, a phrase ect; it can trigger my fight or flight response. I can end up frozen on the ground for a long time. It's happened in front of friends before and it's scary for them as well as myself. The best thing a friend can do for me in that situation would be to give me my space and allow me to come back down. I'm usually in my own bubble when this happens and I don't respond apparently.
Then there's the Big Bad Ones. They don't happen as often as the first two but they're draining. At my worst I will start screaming and crying and I can do that for hours. I usually end up screaming for help when this happens because I hurt so badly emotionally and I'm panicking so bad that I feel like I'm going to die. It feels like I'm experiencing the abuse all over again and my mind is racing. It's a loud and messy reaction but if someone (preferably a family member or a therapist, not a friend because that's too much responsibility for them to burden themselves with) is nearby it helps if they remind me to do my breathing exercises to calm my anxiety and to ground myself. That includes thinking about anything other than the abuse, like what I can smell, hear, see and taste that I know for a fact is real.
I've had an episode this bad before that I was unable to come down from because I was that hysterical and I was ignored by the family member I was with, as if I was a child having a tantrum.

If someone is at a stage of their therapy were they are making good progress this won't happen as often (or at all depending on how severe their ptsd is/was) but dealing with trauma is terrifying for both the victim and those around them and a lot of people react to it differently. Some mild, some more severe, but we're not crazy or weird and it's not your fault.
Re-living a terrifying experience as if it's still happening to you is scary, remembering bad things is upsetting, and from what my family has told me; seeing another family member in distress because of something you can't go back in time and fix is heartbreaking but there are a wide variety of therapies that can help ease the symptoms and things won't be so bad forever.

I started EMDR therapy recently, and I haven't started the proper treatment yet, but it's one example of the different routes you can take with therapy to help make dealing with trauma a lot easier. Some things work, some don't, but PTSD can be treated and trauma symptoms can be eased. People are inventing new therapies even today so that everyone has the chance to lead a happier life. Things can start out rocky and it takes a lot of hard work to make things better again, but it does get easier <3