Coping with Flashbacks

by John, SO for Keepers

What follows is one S.O.s experience with his multiple wife. I am not a medical expert or a psychological therapist, just a guy who loves his wife and wants to tell other S.O.s how I learned to handle flashbacks.Flashbacks, the harrowing reliving of past events, have to alarm you, the significant other, for no other reason than you have no idea where your loved one is, who they are with, what you can do…all you know is that they do not know who you are or they think you are someone else.

As time goes by and flashbacks either slowly eliminate themselves or you understand what is happening you will have a better idea of what to do.

Flashbacks are, quite simply stated, a reoccurrence of a past event that is so real to the one experiencing it that to them they are going through it in it’s full power. They feel pain, both emotional and physical, and you, as their SO want to help them, to take them away from the pain…yet sometimes you can and sometimes you cannot. They are there in that past moment in time and you are here in the present; it’s like they are traveling back in time and you are along for the ride but not able to touch or reach out to them.

Your words are about all you can offer and even that must often come after they have gone through the majority of the flashback.

I have seen flashbacks, or abreactions, lasting for minutes, hours, days and while some of the alters are in the flashback, some, like whoever is in control of the body is here with you physically, but they are not “all here”…something is amiss, something is not right some alters cannot be found. As Keepers say it, they are “not on all thrusters” when others are “missing”

So, how did I as the S.O. cope? How does one handle what is going on and at the same time offer assistance to them?

As difficult as it may be at times, try not to react to any degree of excess, try to remain as level headed and level voiced as possible. If they were yelling at me, telling me to stay away, chances are they were not seeing me; I had to remember that. I did not reach out to them, except with my words, words of support, of who I was, of where they should go to.

I say where they should go to because over the years we learned that our home was a “safe” place for them, so we agreed that if they heard the words “go back to 1745″ our address, they knew to somehow head there; inside they could go down that path and return to 1745 leaving the abreaction or the flashback behind and they in turn would “return” to the present and be back with me. Sometimes it was or is an alter or two at a time coming back and at other times the whole brood would return at once.

As a flashback subsides or they “escape from it” and returned to me I held them as I would have if I had been there to hold them the first time…comfort them, offer them the protection of my arms around them, protect them from “them, him her, whoever, whatever” and just love them. Let them feel safe and protected for once, let them know someone cares that they went through that, that I was sorry it happened to them, that they did not deserve that to happen to them, that it wasn’t their fault and that they are not bad. I let them know they are good and loved and I would be there for them. Then I held them as long as was practical, as long as they needed it. Sometimes that meant cuddling up in bed at 7 o’clock in the evening and staying there until I got up to go to work the next day, but it was the best thing I could do right then.

My wife is 54 now and the flashbacks have decreased in their intensity and frequency, but that does not mean they are over. All it takes is a trigger and we can be “off to the races” again. Now though, she has others who can help her cope with the flashbacks. She volunteers at The Center, she helps the office manager prepare the weekly church bulletins, answer the phones and offers her a sympathetic ear.

Lyn, the office manager, has proven to be very adept at seeing the multiplicity, feeling free to ask questions to better understand it and has on several occasions recognized that “something has happened”. She has handled it delicately and gently, asking to find out who is in abreaction; sometimes she finds out then, sometimes not until later, but each time through a soft, sympathetic approach, never condescending, she has brought them back to where they feel safe again.

I really believe the biggest key in helping someone through flashbacks is to have their trust before they go into the abreaction. If they don’t trust you and have faith in you before a flashback, you cannot help them while they are in it. They had to trust me to listen to my directions out, or to “come to me or 1745″ to come back home to the present.

If you are confronted with your SO having a flashback my advice is to be as sympathetic as possible, as supportive as possible, keep at arms length as you are not you then, speak softly and considerately, never demanding or condescending in your tone. When they return to “now” be there for them, to hold them, give them a place to be safe, in your arms.