I get flashbacks from my car fire
 

Everyone once in a while I have sensory flashbacks to when I accidentally set my car on fire about two years ago. It's happening right now. I feel like I smell smoke, but I know I it's probably not happening. I have nothing that could be smoking in here.

Sometimes I even see smoke. Last time this happened at this apartment, I thought I saw smoke come out of the air vent. Obviously that didn't actually happen.

Once it happened at work, and I knew for sure it wasn't possible that something was actually on fire. Dissociated like crazy, no panic attack thankfully.

It's freaky.

I have other PTSD stuff as I've discussed all over this forum, but this smoke thing is shitty because theoretically there could be a fire and I seriously can't tell.

I could swear my house is on fire

this sucks

Like how The Hound gets flashbacks of when The Mountain shoved his face into a fire?!

I thought your car fire was kinda beneficial? didn't you get paid out?

burn incense that reminds you of something else

actually set it on fire and see if theres a difference

yes it was beneficial. it was still mildly traumatic to watch my car consumed by flames.

funny you say this. i cooked some eggs a little bit after i made this thread and it smelled exactly the same after... that after-cooking smell was exactly the same.

i was in an accident where my car flipped and i had to crawl out of it before it exploded. sometimes when i'm going 70 on the highway i have flashbacks but its pretty short

i have psychological balls of steel. my current alcohol abuse is COMPLETELY unrelated btw uh huh yeah

your car smelled like egg?

no it smelled like an oven being on or something. you know what im talking about.

break out the nag champa

actual smoke/burning smells just make it worse unfortunately. i feel like i have to look at them constantly to make sure they aren't setting something on fire.

you got it

I had someone crash into the back of my truck a couple of years ago when I was at a stop light. I still have these episodes from time to time where I feel anxiety rush through me, then I feel the impact of it.. and then I can smell the weed they were smoking in their car.

:/

i have flashbacks about trauma stuff but as long as i can keep some assemblance of the date or w/e... i usually can logically know that stuff isn't actually happening now and the chance that my ex-bf is in my vicinity is extremely small.

this fire thing just drives me crazy because there could really be a fire, and i can't trust my senses

brains are cray cray eh

a semitruck burned down here at work last sunday. I was all ohhhhhhhh daaaaaaaamn

it's certainly dramatic.

uh huh yeah

i thought i was fine after cambodia. i mean i know i wasn't fine but i got by and functioned and kinda just moved on from all of it.

then when i was in bali this summer i saw a toddler get hit by a motorbike right infront of me. i had a crazy flashback and kinda went numb. the kid was fine, everything was fine. and i thought i'd just walk away and that would be it. but my body was like nope i'm going to make this suck. i ended up getting sick and puking all night and into the next day. then, when i thought it had blown over, i had a 3 hour drive down the mountain in crazy traffic and it brought everything back. it was like a 3 hour panic attack and when we got there i crashed in my bed. i was so exhausted from being tense in the car that i had a fever and my body was spent. brains are weird.

i saw a homeopath about it shortly after. he gave me some drops for a bit and i've noticed a heap of difference. i can ride in cars without being petrified now.

yeah.. and the power of suggestion. A. came home the other day and said she felt nauseated. I'm like.. oh boy, here we go. I don't want stomach flu to happen to us! I got so worried about it I actually felt like I was coming down with it.

Totally. I know in the past when I've wanted to cut out of work, I could make up a "reason" that I'd tell my boss, and without fail I'd start feeling it a little. Or when I was addicted to painkillers, I'd exaggerate a pain to a doc and it would totally start to hurt more.

Hey MacG, thanks for being so nice. Nah, no medication that would make it worse. I thankfully do not actually see flames, though I did see smoke one time come through the air vent. Looking around at everyone else is definitely a good idea, it's just too bad it makes me so anxious even when I know it's not real.

that's what I do when I hear nearby gunfire at work. I judge my level of concern on how other people are responding. screams and a lot of vehicular traffic mean red alert time

When I was 3 or 4 I watched my house burn down

really?! what was that like