Has anyone ever had a flashback before?

I'm not sure if I experienced a flashback or not. I'll try and describe what it was like.

I was going through a bunch of thoughts in my head, trying to sort out some of my problems. I do a lot of thinking in the shower, so that's where I was, and I had just gotten out and started to dry off. That's when it hit me, seemingly out of the blue. I'm not sure what triggered it.

Have you ever read a really good novel? If so, you eventually forget that you're reading the words, kinda lose yourself in the book, and the scenes and dialog you're reading starts to play out in your minds eye. That's kinda like what I experienced - except bad.

About five years ago I had gone to see a specialist, actually it was my last visit to him. I was just dotting my I's and crossing my T's - mostly a formality. I had only seen him once previously, and even then it was brief. However, nothing could have prepared me for what I was getting into when I walked into his office.

It seemed like any other visit to a doctor. I was my normal self, we exchanged pleasantries, and we both sat down - it was in his office, so he was behind his desk. I don't remember how the conversation even started, but it's burned into my brain where it ended up.

Basically, this guy - this asshole - he started to insult me. Not directly, but he was putting me down. Hard. He said a lot of hurtful things, masked as "advice" but his intentions weren't to help at all. They were to make me feel like shit. I won't bother repeating what he said, because it was rather painful.

I was in shock at first, I didn't know how to react. However, he was hitting on a lot of negative things that I thought about myself. I'm generally extremely hard on myself - as perfectionists tend to be - and it was like this guy crawled into my head, and collected tons of negative thoughts I had and was repeating them back to me. Not only that, he was affirming them.

Obviously, this was like a knife in my gut. It hurt like hell. The most shaming part, though, the part that really eats at me now - the part that hurts the most in retrospect, was my reaction.

I sat there and agreed with him, the entire time. I remember forcing myself to smile, struggling not to look upset or cry, and just agreeing with everything he said to me. This went on for maybe five to almost ten minutes. The guy just eviscerated me and made me feel like an utterly worthless piece of shit. When he was done, we both stood up, I shook his hand... and I thanked him.

Yes, that's right. I thanked him for his time. That's what gnaws at me the most. I then left.

I don't know what brought this memory up. I hadn't thought about it in years. But suddenly, it was there and I was back in that office. Of course, I never told anyone about what had happened. I was too ashamed, not only about what he had said to me, but how I reacted to it.

I'm curious has anyone ever had a flashback like this before, where they've relived a painful memory like that? Is that what a flashback is like?

 

I think this is EXACTLY what happened.

I think I even figured out what triggered it. I was reading a book, and some things described were hitting pretty close to home. Too close. I stopped reading and went to take a shower. I spent time thinking about what I had read, and it was on my mind.

When I got out and started to dry off that's when the flashback hit me. I think it was part of this paragraph that triggered it.

I think this is why I had that memory, because that's EXACTLY what happened to me in that office. I sat there with a smile on my face, in an attempt to block out the pain that I was experiencing - to suppress it.

For the last several days I've been dwelling on that memory. It came back so strong that it felt like it happened last week. I hadn't thought about it in years until it just suddenly came back to me.

Basically, things started to go downhill when the topic of my weight loss came up. I had been working hard and losing weight. I was very near my goal weight. Everything was going well, but those last few pounds were being stubborn. He brought up the fact that he had noticed that I had lost weight. I confirmed that I had, and that I was very near my goal weight. He then proceeded to tell me that I was going to fail, the odds were against me, and basically put me down in all sorts of ways. He insinuated that the reason that I had been overweight in the first place was that I was lazy, and that even if I did manage to reach my goal weight, that I'd revert back to my lazy habits and gain it all back plus more.

...and that was just where things STARTED to go downhill. Things got worse. Way worse.

All the while he was doing this, he was attempting to disguise things as "advice" and "helpful information". The way he said things and his tone of voice make it clear that it was intended to be an attack on my person and character. Instead of referring to me directly, he'd say something like, "You know most people in your shoes..." And he'd preface his attacks with something like, "I don't mean to be offensive, but..."

And of course, I sat there with a smile on my face and took it. He basically took every negative thought that I had, pulled it from my brain, and attempted to affirm it. I have rarely in my life felt as worthless as I did when I walked out of that office.