Can childhood trauma and bullying still cause flashbacks decades later?

[Hello19834]

Trigger warning: mentions trauma/death/bullying.
Hello,
Sitting here tearful tonight as I keep getting random unpleasant flashbacks and triggers from past events which were traumatic and upsetting to me at the time. These events occurred during my childhood and teenage years and without going into too much detail included illness and death of grandparents when I was very young and also death of pets and also different forms of abuse (mainly bullying) when I was a teenager. I'm a very strong person and try to put things behind me and I think I have successfully managed to do this until I get these flashbacks and events playing through my mind and I feel it all comes crashing back down again. I don't have anyone to talk to in RL as I struggle to open up. I've tried CBT to no avail. I'm very mixed up tonight and my head is spinning. Is it normal for events from 30-40 years later to cause such upset? I've been diagnosed with depression, OCD and anxiety over the last decade and wonder if it's linked.
Thank you for reading

Yes, I know what you are talking about, I have it too.

Hi op, I’m really sorry that you’re experiencing this. Yep, it is totally normal given what you’ve said, but that’s still very hard, From my experience of trauma and flashbacks, and also from reading up on it, CBT is not the treatment for trauma. it’s effective at helping less significant issues or changing behaviour, but it doesn’t go deep enough to heal trauma.

I’d personally recommend EMDR, it’s been life changing for me. Best of luck

Yes.
I still get flashbacks from 50 years ago.
I did alot of trauma therapy that was organised into themes because the CBT and EMDR is all ACE dependent and I have too many ACEs to get through in a lifetime. The therapy did reduce the distress felt when I have a flashback so it is a win.
The other thing is to just let them play out and not start having thoughts about it like why am I having flashbacks? What is wrong with me? Why can’t I get past this? I’m so fucked up..
Try and get a coping mechanism where as soon as a flashback lets go of you, you do something grounding or distracting…something to reset.

Yes it is normal. There’s an idea that these things come back to us when we are ready to process them. So your brain is doing the right thing. However I don’t know anyone who has these experiences (in terms of flashbacks) and finds them easy !

Thereis a suggestion that ‘what we resist persists’. By that I mean that if you can nudge yourself towards feeling more accepting of what is happening then it can get easier. It can also help to remind yourself that though you had horrible experiences in the past, you have survived. You are now the you of a future life from these memories. It’s reassuring your younger self that you made it through.

Not a childhood trauma/flashback, but one about 26 years ago when I was quite pregnant and at a friends house party. I'd gone to bed as very tired due to being quite pregnant and my friend had very kindly given me her bedroom to sleep in. I think I had just laid down or about to when the door opened and a strange drunk bloke came in and sat on the bed next to me. I can't remember what was said, or if I said anything but next thing I remember is the door flew open and one of this blokes friends came in, apologised to me and took him away. My husband came in shortly after as must have heard some I was going on. I hadn't thought about this for almost 26 years until this week it just popped into my head, but it wasn't so much what happened that made me feel sick, it was what if the person who 'rescued' me hadn't noticed and how would I have safely got out of that room. Now he may have genuinely gone in there to sleep and wouldn't have done anything to me, but it was that sudden fear. Made me feel quite sick.

Something happened to me in school when I was 10 (I wont impart the details) but a teacher bullied me into admitting I had done something when I was guiltless. As a result I had a kind of mini breakdown. My grandmother always blamed that incident on my failing the 11 plus. She wanted to get her solicitor involved but my parents forbad it. The incident changed my entire personality. It destroyed my innocence and my belief in the essential goodness of people. Im in my 80s now and I still sometimes dwell on the incident. I later wrote about it in detail which I found cathartic.

So Yes I do believe that some adults who were bullied or traumatised as children can be affected throughout their lives,

Yes, I see it a lot. Your mind is still trying to rationalise the events from your childhood, not understanding that it's no longer necessary or helpful.

This is the way I explain trauma. When something bad and/or unexpected happens a part of the mind takes on the job of figuring out exactly what happen, why it happened and (crucially) our role in the event. This isn't to punish or torment us but to stop that particular thing happening again – it's a protective mechanism.

That's fine if we were texting when the car accident happened or the other person was drunk when they fell into us, but some things are just so random or unexpected that there's absolutely no way of predicting them, preparing for them or avoiding them. That bit of your subconscious doesn't get this message and carries on – hence the flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, nightmares that are often part of trauma.

Once that part of your mind understands that there isn't, and never will be, a satisfactory answer it will stop, because it's a fruitless exercise which is detracting from your current happiness. You won't forget what happened but the emotional link will be broken. This can be done quickly and without having to relive the memories (which you are doing now). The commonly held belief that trauma takes months and is painful puts a lot of people off but it's not true.

@Hello19834 it’s not a light read, but The body keeps the Score is a very insightful book on understanding trauma, how it’s been mistreated in the past and offers clinically sound therapies that can be helpful for processing and moving on from trauma.

But just to reiterate, it talks about lot about causes of trauma that can be hard to read so go gently if you read it. It has helped me make really beneficial decisions over the last 10 years though.

That's awful bless you..what an awful teacher.

Hello
Thank you, will definitely check it out. Anything that will help process things is definitely worth a try.

That really makes sense thank you. I hadn't actually though of it like that before but it really hits home how you've explained it. I think that's definitely first step to trying to unpick everything and hopefully stop these recurring memories

That must have been terrifying and you must have felt so vulnerable in that moment. Thank God that person came in to get him when they did. I think these near miss situations are definitely as scary and as traumatic than if the worst had actually occurred (if you see what I mean, I haven't explained myself very well).

@Hello19834 afterwards I don't think I thought much of it, and hadn't thought about it for years, until a week or so ago the what if popped in my head and it made me feel so sick and, well, frightened. I think it was more I was thinking of just how I would have got out of the room. I was quite pregnant and had my dd a week later which was unexpected as she was only 31 weeks.