@
LookingForIt987 Venting what I experience in my head and body when triggered helps sometimes. It's like if I get it outside my body it feels less threatening.
Getting validation and empathy from others is very helpful too since it's something I've lacked for a big part of my life. I was taught to despise myself and so that's my automatic response still sometimes.
Singing is great since it's giving me vibrations in my body which is scientifically proved to help one heal from trauma. So I sing online karaoke now and then.
Painting /writing poetry / exercise and naps is some other coping methods I find helps me.
If by episode you mean a flashback, it depends. There's two types of flashback, visual and emotional. The visual one is hard to miss, it's the one you see portrayed in movies, fireworks and someone gets images of gunshots in a war etc.
Emotional flashbacks are the tricky bastards. Because they only leave you a sudden feeling. With no clue to why. And they can crawl around in the background and camouflage really well. So, I can sit at home in my couch and suddenly I feel tensed up, on guard, scared, threatened. From absolutely no where. It can go on four hours. Days sometimes.
And sometimes I myself don't even recognition it happening. Because of dissociation. But my surroundings does. They notice I'm off or acting different.
And sometimes just feeling those reactions scares me. Which leads to one of the four automatic defense reactions:
Fight, Flight, Fawn or Freeze. Fight - Anger. Aggression. Attack.
Flight - Hide. Run. Escape.
Fawn - I just do what someone tells me to do as if I'm a robot.
Freeze - Panic attack. Physical and or emotional paralysis. Muted. Staring at a wall. Can't move or speak.
