That First Flashback in Public
It was the tipping point in my journey.
*Content Warning — Graphic description of suicidal ideation and attempts.
I have been experiencing flashbacks, night terrors, and other PTSD symptoms for over eighteen years. I cannot say any single symptom is the worst. They are all equally frightening and they are disembodying. There’s a lonely void where my soul has been torn out. A place where love happened — where happiness was — where the joy of living my life was kept. These symptoms are thieves, robbing people of living fulfilling lives with near impunity.
The flashbacks continue to be just as devastating as they always have been. Over this length of time, it would seem logical I would become desensitized or jaded, causing their impact to diminish. This is simply not the case. Perhaps this is because the traumatic incidents I went through were shocking and have left permanent scars on my brain.
That the flashbacks and night terrors have maintained a grip of this magnitude on me, yet here I am, all these years later, after all the work I’ve done on myself and continue to do, every flashback and every night terror leaves me dazed as though I’ve been punched in the jaw by a professional boxer. Paradoxically, my rational self knows the horrific incident in the flashback isn’t actually happening in the present moment. But all my senses, the very things all people rely on to orientate, equalize, and maintain balance in their lives convince me to believe differently. Exhausting.
Imagine standing in the coffee aisle of a grocery store struggling to convince yourself this is the present moment — NOT sixteen years ago. You are NOT engaged in a gunfight in an abandoned house in the middle of the night. But, because you’re experiencing all the horrible emotions, sights, sounds, and odors just as you had during that incident many years ago, you truly believe you are right there again and react accordingly. However, you can still see the tile floor of the grocery store, the rows of coffee and other products on the shelves, and people pushing their shopping carts all around you. The power of the conflicting perceptions occurring inside my brain and body are freakishly surreal. The confusion is baffling, and it is a deeply disturbing thing to have to go through.
The overwhelming sensorial feedback from a flashback such as this is like simultaneously living in two parallel universes. Maybe I am, and we as humans can’t comprehend a phenomenon such as this. This isn’t an unreasonable concept for me to ponder. Time, space, and our brains are all infinitesimally more complex than we will likely ever know. But I won’t pretend to be an astrophysicist or a neuroscientist and attempt to spout off a litany of facts I can’t prove.
The incident I just described is not a fictional scenario. Nor have I embellished it in any way. This has happened to me numerous times over the years — there have been many times I have had to run out of a grocery store and leave a full shopping cart behind. On one occasion, my service dog, Loc pushed me into the back stock room to get me away from all the people in the store because I had failed to interpret her alerts and was in a serious crisis. She has gotten me out of some very tight spots throughout our years together. But I’ll save those stories for another piece.
I have always done my best to articulate, through my published written work, the trail of emotional and physical devastation PTSD symptoms have left in my life, using writing techniques such as metaphor and soliloquy to “show” not “tell.” I’ve received positive feedback and support from people who have read my work — some even saying my writing has “taken them there” and has helped them gain a deeper understanding of PTSD. This is my goal and I am grateful. However, in this piece, I’m going to deviate slightly and describe what a person would have seen from an observational point of view had they witnessed me have a flashback in public.
It likely will be short. Like writing about how I once tripped and fell on a sidewalk, it doesn’t require much effort to describe and it’s easy for people to relate to. However, most people can’t relate to having a flashback from a traumatic event. It requires intimate experience and knowledge. And due to the lack of empathy and the invisibility of symptoms, when people see someone exhibiting “odd” behaviors, they’re deemed unacceptable — leading to the heavy burden of stigma born by the survivor. Falling on a sidewalk doesn’t elicit the same stigma. It may even be humorous. Understandably so, provided I’m not seriously injured in the process! However, you wouldn’t find any humor in witnessing me have a flashback. It’s bizarre, shocking, confusing, and frightening to people. In my experience, people can’t get away from me fast enough. In a way, I can understand this. But the vacuum they leave behind is like having the loneliness and isolation PTSD symptoms weaponized — it’s painful and unbearable.
Before having my first public flashback, PTSD symptoms had already begun to disrupt my life and I was becoming familiar with the havoc they were wreaking. However, I hadn’t yet experienced the level of astonishment this caused me. The tormenting upheaval of my emotional state from this point forward was unprecedented and I was wholly unprepared for it.
That First Flashback in Public
I had the night off from work (I worked the midnight shift) and decided to take my two youngest daughters, ages nine and six, and one of their friends to the movies. I don’t know what time the show was, but it was after it had gotten dark. The parking lot of the movie theater complex was large and well-lit with many streetlights that caused an object within it to cast several shadows at different angles and in different directions. We were walking on the sidewalk along the side of the building and turned on a corner to continue walking along the backside of the building. Upon rounding the corner, out of the corner of my eye, I saw what turned out to be my own shadow being cast upon the wall. However, my immediate perception was that an adult had been concealing himself behind the corner, out of my sight. Suddenly our physical safety was in imminent danger.
Through training and experience, I had developed what is known as “muscle memory”, which means in an extremely high-stress situation you will instantly react without you having to consciously think about it, in the ways you have been trained and conditioned to. In an instant, I had drawn my service weapon and acquired sight-alignment on the center-mass of my own shadow being cast upon a brick wall of a crowded movie theater complex while in front of two of my daughters and their friend.
After determining there was no threat, the realities of what I had just done hit me like a wall of water. All I could think to do was get my girls and me out of there before it got worse — I scooped the three of them up into my arms and ran while carrying them to my vehicle.
As an observer in this situation, what would you have thought, and what might you have done? Imagine what was going through my head in the aftermath. Reflecting on it now, it was the “tipping point” in my journey. Up until this point, I had been teetering on the edge of the abyss. With this experience, I had leapt off its edge into the darkness.
Circling the Drain
As I have indicated, I had already been having problems with PTSD symptoms. Things such as sleeplessness, night terrors, and unpredictable bursts of blind rage had become frequent. I kept telling myself these things will eventually work themselves out; I just wasn’t “salty” enough yet, as it was known at the time in my profession. I was grossly incorrect. These things wouldn’t work themselves out — I spiraled out of control. This experience was a moment of clarity for me. I no longer believed I was not salty enough — I knew I was broken and beyond repair. The toxic culture within my former profession forced me to remain silent about the problems I was having, and the weight of carrying this burden became nearly fatal for me.
Reacting as I did is not normal and is fundamentally off. It flipped my emotional equilibrium upside down and made me call into question my existence. I believed death was a viable option for me. I began to contemplate and realistically plan to commit suicide. Later the same night of this incident, the crushing weight of it all became so unbearable that for the first time in my entire life, I put the barrel of a gun in my mouth — my life hung in the balance and all that stood between me and the end of it was a 2.5-pound trigger squeeze. Sadly, this would not be the last time either.
Suicide is an extremely serious matter and should always be treated as such. The mere mention of suicide by anyone MUST be treated seriously. You are not alone. Reach out. You are worth it. If you are thinking about suicide or you know someone who may be suicidal, PLEASE call either the National Suicide Hotline at: 1–800–273–8255 or Text “HOME” to the Crisis Text Line:
United States: 741741
Canada: 686868
United Kingdom: 85258
I no longer own any guns. I have sold or given them all away. This was one step I have taken to not only protect myself from myself but also because I have no use for guns anymore. I care not to ever have to watch the life leave the eyes of another living being at my hands again. Do I sound like I’m being harsh? Good! I should because that is my intention. Guns are for one thing and one thing only — killing. Shooting at paper silhouette targets, clay pigeons, or any other inanimate object are methods used to learn how to become more proficient at killing. It may be enjoyable to some people, but targets don’t shoot back either.
I hope I’m not leaving readers with the impression I’m glorifying these aspects of my life. There’s nothing glorious about any of what I have experienced — from the original traumatic incidents to the life-sentence of hell I have been given. I don’t want attention and I don’t want pity. These are the realities of my life. My only hope is other PTSD survivors like me (and their loved ones) will benefit from my experience and my vulnerability will help destigmatize mental illness and disabilities.
This is the first time I have attempted to “tell” readers what it looks like to experience PTSD symptoms rather than “show” them. It has been both challenging and rewarding. It is one thing to have people know your emotions around an incident, but it’s an entirely different thing to have them know what you did. I wonder how this will play out. Maybe people will see me differently? Or maybe they’ll think I’m dangerous? I am not dangerous — I’m a PTSD survivor.
Chris Patton is a retired State Trooper and shares his journey with PTSD through his writing. He writes from the perspective the experience of having flashbacks, night terrors, and other symptoms.
