You are probably having an anxiety attack which may indicate that you are about to have a memory or flashback of some trauma. You may not even remember the traumatic event. (We will cover memory retrieval and flashbacks in the links below).
For some reason, it seems we choose to have an anxiety attack, rather than feel shame, betrayal, fear, rage, grief, horror, sense of abandonment, etc. of the traumatic event. It's sort of like a "trade". Anyone who has ever awakened in the middle of the night with an anxiety attack knows this is not much of a trade. But we can busy ourselves, for the moment anyway, with the extreme uncomfortableness of an anxiety attack and not have to deal with its source.
When we hear of kids in high school who are suffering from anxiety attacks, which may be accompanied by cutting and burning, (We will address self abuse in the link below.) this is a "red flag" for some kind of trauma. Very often just before repressed memories are beginning to surface, a person will have anxiety attacks. The memory could be of some physical abuse, sexual abuse or rape they may have chosen not to remember, as is mentioned during the Recoil Stage in our article on Victimology.
It seems that as the person begins to let the memories come, the anxiety attacks diminish and gradually, all but disappear. It's as if our subconscious wants to give us a good "shake" to get our attention so we will deal with the trauma and get on with our lives.
An additional note: We now have a message board for people to connect with other who have experienced some of the same stages in their recovery.
Flashbacks
Memory Retrieval
Self Abuse
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