I (unfortunately) had a flashback last night, so I thought I would write out what it felt like so foster and adoptive parents of traumatized children can have a better understanding of what their children are going through when they have one. I have been dealing with flashbacks for years, so I cycled through the process pretty quickly. What I am describing over a period of an hour used to take me days to cycle through.

I have been very sick with a sinus infection and bronchitis. I cannot sleep if I cannot breathe through my nose. It is very triggering for me to breathe through my mouth.

Out of sheer desperation, I set up my pillows so I was lying on my back and sitting almost straight up and down. I hoped this would clear my sinuses. Instead, it triggered a flashback.

***** trigger warning – This information is graphic ******

One issue that might surprise you as a parent of an abused adopted child is that recovered memories (or flashbacks) come with very raw pain. People often assume that, even though the memory has been “hidden” from the child, the emotions should not still be there, too. That assumption could not be more wrong.

When an abused child recovers a memory/has a flashback, the emotions associated with the event return as well. The full punch of the emotions might lag behind by a day or two, but they will definitely come. When the child feels those emotions, they are as raw is if the traumatizing event has just happened.

Whenever your adopted child has a flashback, prepare yourself for dealing with very raw emotions within the next couple of days. Your child needs you to reasssure him that what he is feeling is normal. Experiencing very deep and raw emotions years after the event took place can make the child feel “crazy.” It is very important that you reassure the child that feeling these emotions is a normal part of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

If you are parenting a traumatized adopted child who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), you might wonder what a flashback feels like. Before I had one, I had a very different idea about what a flashback was. I heard about veterans seeing the movie Saving Private Ryan and finding themselves “reliving” their trauma through flashbacks. I envisioned people who felt as if they had time traveled back to their past and lost touch with the reality of the present. This was very different from my experience with flashbacks.

Flashbacks generally come in one of two ways. One way is like what happened to those veterans: Something “triggers” the flashback because the sight, sound, smell, etc. reminds the person of the trauma. However, flashbacks do not necessarily need a trigger to come. Flashbacks also happen when the traumatized adopted child feels safe enough to begin healing from the trauma.

Most people are familiar with visual flashbacks being a part of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I have also written about emotional flashbacks. Another variety of flashbacks that is less well-known is called a body memory.

A body memory is a flashback that a traumatized adopted child feels in his body. A body memory can result from any form of trauma to the body. A good example is the amputee who continues to “feel” his amputated limb. Some people believe that even the cells of the body experience trauma and that body memories are the body’s way of releasing the energy associated with the trauma, just as a flashback is the release of the emotional memory.

If the traumatized adopted child does not know what is happening, experiencing a body memory can be scary.