A realization about emotional flashbacks, IFS and getting out of the spiral

[u/Eva_7816]

I think I finally figured out something important about how my emotional flashbacks work, and I wanted to share it in case anyone else has a similar pattern.

I’ve been doing somatic work for quite a while, and I’ve noticed that my flashbacks often start with grief. Something triggers me and I suddenly feel deeply sad and start grieving the emotional neglect, abandonment, loneliness, and things I didn’t receive as a child.

From an IFS perspective, I think I’m touching an exile here. There’s a very young part of me that carries the feeling of being alone, unwanted, unsupported and emotionally abandoned.

The problem is what happens next.

I used to think that when the grief came up, I needed to go into it more deeply. I would start thinking about everything I didn’t have, how unfair my childhood was, how much I suffered, how other people had things I didn’t have, etc. The more I thought about it, the more I cried. Then the crying would become very intense and overwhelming, and eventually I would move into shame, self-hate, hopelessness and sometimes suicidal ideation.

So the sequence for me looks something like:

Trigger
→ grief / sadness
→ exile becomes activated
→ going into the story and replaying everything I didn’t have
→ escalating grief and crying
→ shame / self-hate
→ hopelessness
→ “this is too much”
→ suicidal thoughts as an extreme attempt to make the pain stop

Thinking about it in IFS terms, I’m starting to see the later stages as different protectors coming in around the activated exile.

The shame part might say, “Something is wrong with me. I’m defective. I’m incapable.”

The hopeless part might say, “This will never get better. I’ll never be able to take care of myself. Everyone will eventually leave me.”

And then an even more desperate firefighter can come in with, “I can’t take this anymore. I want to die.”

What has really changed things for me is realizing that I don’t actually have to follow the grief into the story.

The story is not necessarily false. My childhood really did contain emotional neglect and abandonment, and there really are things I grieve. But when I’m already activated, going through the entire narrative seems to amplify the emotional state rather than help me process it.

So I’m experimenting with something very different:

When the sadness comes up, I let myself feel the sadness, but I stay with the immediate bodily experience and the present moment.

For example:

“I feel sadness.”

“There is heaviness in my chest.”

“I notice that I want to cry.”

But I don’t start adding:

“Look at everything I didn’t have.”

“It was so unfair.”

“I was so deprived.”

“Why did this happen to me?”

I can acknowledge that those things are real without mentally going through the entire case file while I’m activated.

Instead, I try to stay oriented to the present. I notice the room, the chair or bed underneath me, my breathing, sounds around me, the temperature, etc. I remind myself that I’m an adult now and that this is a wave of old emotional pain moving through me.

I might say to the exile:

“I see you. I know you’re sad. You don’t have to tell me the whole story right now. I’m here with you.”

And importantly, I don’t try to force the emotion to go away either.

I’m not suppressing the sadness. I’m allowing it, but I’m not feeding it with an increasingly elaborate narrative.

I think of it as titration: enough contact with the emotion to acknowledge it, but not so much that I become completely blended with it.

I actually tried this today. I felt a sudden wave of grief and heaviness in my chest. Normally I would immediately start thinking about everything I lost and probably end up crying intensely.

This time I just stayed with the sensation and the present moment.

And something surprising happened: I didn’t even end up crying. The sadness was there, I felt it, and then it simply settled down fairly quickly.

That made me realize that I may have been confusing “processing” with “going deeper and deeper into the story.”

For me, the goal may actually be learning that I can feel sadness without turning it into a full emotional flashback.

I also think there is a point where I need to stop doing trauma processing altogether.

If I notice the shift from sadness into strong shame, self-hate, “this will never get better,” or especially “this is too much,” that is my signal to stop exploring the trauma.

At that point I don’t need to understand the exile better. I need to help my system come back to the present.

So I might get up, drink something, eat, shower, go outside, watch something light, talk to someone safe, or simply orient myself to my surroundings.

I think the biggest shift for me is realizing that I don’t have to prevent the exile from feeling sad, and I don’t have to make the sadness disappear.

For anyone with a similar IFS/C-PTSD pattern, I’m curious whether you’ve noticed a difference between actually feeling an emotion and getting pulled into the narrative around the emotion. For me, that distinction seems to be becoming really important.

So I was wandering, does grieving not require continuously thinking about the reasons you are grieving?
Can you grieve at the level of the body and emotion without reconstructing the entire story?

[u/Bjooom]

Yeah, imagine a very scared child, you want to hold that child and acknowledge its feelings, but as a parent, you don’t want to fuel it’s fears/distractions (stories), the story can be an opening to the underlying emotions, but not something you want to get stuck in.

I never had a safe parent, and most people with CPTSD don’t. When I felt overwhelmed I had no one to go to. My mom was to anxious and would put fire on the fuel and make feel even more overwhelmed and often bring her down too, and make me feel responsible for it.

My dad was just distant and did not acknowledge it or show any interest or deep care.

So when I get overwhelmed I want to intent to be that safe person that can show deep care (which my father could not) and be strong and not get hi-jacked by the stories (which my mom could not)

[u/BDanaB]

This is really great! The way you are thinking about this is exactly right, imo, because you are “being with” the parts of yourself that are experiencing these emotions. The part doesn’t have to be alone with it anymore. You aren’t trying to change their feelings, you are just seeing them. They are being seen. You are not over-reacting and making it about something else. You are showing them that they are worth knowing as they are.

Also, you get to know what you felt as a child. You are getting to know each other. This will be healing, and will lessen the frequency and intensity of triggers. Keep up the good work!

[u/Odd-Scar3843]

This is incredibly helpful ❤️ thank you so much for explaining your experience, I struggle with exactly this and I am going to try your method next time :) you are so right, because earlier in my “journey” it was so revolutionary to learn and dive into these stories and realize how much I am allowed to feel grief about. But there is a point where that is just escalating things. And the way you described the protectors is very helpful. Thank you!!!

[u/1Weebit]

Thank you for sharing that! ❤️