I did not realize how long it has been since I've been here!  Whoops!  I've been busy reading and having epiphanies.  And flashbacks.  But one of the things I've realised lately is that the flashbacks are even more pervasive that I had thought.  And they come out of seeming no where.  And seem to be triggered by anything at all.  Or everything.  Best scenario is to be able to recognise that that is what's going on and I'm not losing my grip on reality. 

Some helpful ideas:
*breathe deeply
*open your eyes
*put your feet flat on the ground or touch the ground with your hands to remind yourself that you are safe (can look funny putting your hands on the floor in the grocery store...since one is already standing...but helpful nonetheless)
*look around the room and say outloud what you see (also awkward in public)
*Name what is happening..."I'm having a flashback, this isn't happening now."
Listen for present day sounds and say them outloud (birds, cars, people talking, say calming things to yourself)  {another one that is awkward in public}
*Try a taste that is connected with being safe (drink coffee, peppermint, chew gum...if they work, carry them with you)
*Use a smell that reminds you of the present (hand lotions, pot pourri, coffee, mint, candles)
*Hold an object that feels comforting (key chains, coins, pictures of a safe person or place, rocks, beads) {I have a small square of soft material that I have scented with an oil I find comforting.  It fits in my pocket and can be held, unseen, in my hand}
*Say the current date out loud
*Avoid doing things like staring, rocking, humming...they will take you further into a flashback (I used to do just these things because I had been told they were comforting...which they are, but not helpful during a flashback)

Part of the problem is that often I have flashedback to a place in my life when I was preverbal (hard to believe, I know, but I was not born talking!)  That was one of the hardest things to get through.  Learning how to manage ME, now, while really feeling like I was unable to speak my need or help myself.  Actually, for quite some time I WAS unable to speak my need or help myself.  But the trick was to go back to that era of my life at a time when I was okay and make changes (all in my mind, of course) that altered my feelings of saftey and security.  That really was a turning point.  Simple, all in my head, and REALLY made a big difference!  I changed something that needed to be changed that existed in a time long over.  But it shifted something and was very helpful. 

I have been busy cleaning.  Oh yeah, like walls and stuff.  Took me most of yesterday.  But it made a lovely difference.  Everything smells so nice and clean.  One room.  Next, the bathroom.  The walls.  I had to do the tub after I finished with my living room walls.  And while I was at it I did the toilet and sink.  Soon, the walls and the floors.  I've got it down to a science.  I put Oxy Clean in a spray bottle and use a bucket of hot water to rinse mt rag.  NOTE: Do Not store Oxy Clean in a closed bottle!  It WILL fizz out all over the place! 

I have been reading like the voracious reader that I am.  Memoirs of an Addicted Brain is a great read.  Really readable while including some rather techincal brain fucntion information.  The author, Marc Lewis is a former addict who now holds a PhD in developmental neuroscience.  It was an awesome read.  I was sad when I finshed it. 
But there is the new Sookie Stackhouse novel to read and an author I have recently discovered by the name of Kelley Armstrong.  Along the lines of the Sookie Stackhouse novels.  Brain candy. Genre?  Fantasy, I'm sure.  Werewolves, vampires, and other supernatural beings, and crimes to be solved. 
But then, some part of me would really like to be a shape shifter.  I's like to shift into a dog.  I really want to know what Sunshine is smelling and thinking when she ambles around and examines things.  What does she learn?  What does she smell?  What does she hear?  And how does Daisy know hours and hours before it is on the news that a storm is coming?