One very common flashback-scenario occurs as follows:
Internal or external perceptions of possible abandonment trigger fear and shame,
which then activates panicky Inner Critic cognitions,
which in turn launches an adrenalized
fight, flight, freeze or fawn trauma response (subsequently referred to as the 4F's). The 4F's correlate respectively with narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive, dissociative or codependent defensive reactions.
Here is an example of the layered processes of an emotional flashback.
A complex PTSD sufferer wakes up feeling depressed. Because childhood experience has conditioned her to believe that she is unworthy and unacceptable in this state, she quickly becomes anxious and ashamed.
This in turn activates her Inner Critic to goad her with perfectionistic and endangering messages.
The critic clamors: "No wonder no one likes you. Get your lazy, worthless ass going or you'll end up as a wretched bag lady on the street"!
Retraumatized by her own inner voice,
she then launches into her most habitual 4F behavior.
She lashes out at the nearest person as she becomes irritable, controlling and pushy
(Fight/ Narcissistic) - or she launches into busy productivity driven by negative, perfectionistic and catastrophic thinking
(Flight/Obsessive-Compulsive)- or she flips on the TV and becomes dissociated, spaced out and sleepy
(Freeze/ Dissociative) - or she focuses immediately on solving someone's else's problem and becomes servile, self-abnegating and ingratiating
(Fawn/Codependent).
Unfortunately this dynamic also commonly operates in reverse,
creating perpetual motion cycles of internal trauma as 4F acting out also gives the critic endless material for self-hating criticism,
which in turn amps up fear and shame and finally compounds the abandonment depression with a non-stop experience of self-abandonment.
http://www.pete-walker.com/managingAbandonDepression.htm
