Dear Jaybird,

You say you've gone into scenes purposefully "to try to evoke and look at issues and memories" with a top you trust. Did it work? Sometimes right after a flashback, when I'm coming out of it, Donald tries to get me to go back into the memory so that he can learn some more about it, but I usually can't consciously return there once I'm back in the land of the adults.

>>> I think also, at least for me, the trigger seems to be "new" experiences, surprises from the top, or limits I wasn't aware of. <<<

Do you mean by this that any new experiences are liable to flip your switch, or do just certain ones seem to do it? And because they are new they take you by surprise? I think the difference is important, because if the first is true (anything new sets you off) it suggests some interesting (and also awful) things about the kind of abuse you received. I learned to fear and distrust change when I was young because my father, a drinker, was so unpredictable. Luckily for me, I don't start to flashback whenever something new happens in a scene, just certain unexpected things might set me off. More often than not with me, however, it's just a simple old hand spanking that brings the memories to the surface.

You're right when you say that in many people non-sexual as well as sexual and SM-sexual experiences will trigger abuse memories. I was generalizing from my own experience, which has been that strictly S&M activities set off the memories.

>>> Unfortunately I'm still at the stage in the healing process that I have a hard time getting *out* of the flashback to safeword. <<<

You too, eh? It's hard to remember anything when you're a baby lying on your back crying your eyes out because something atrociously painful is being done to you. Safeword? You didn't have one back then, and somehow, when you're reliving the experience, it's hard to remember that you have one now. I don't have a safeword, but I'm required to inform Donald when I'm having a flashback. Unfortunately, most of my memories seem to be of events at a pre-verbal stage, and so I forget to talk sometimes. Donald has always been so good at reading me that at first I expected him to know exactly what was going on when I fell into one of those memories, and it shocked me the first few times when I started sobbing and shaking and he went merrily on with the scene, business as usual. I was even dumb enough to think he didn't care about me or the fact that I was freaking out. After this happened enough times I began to figure out that my flashback behavior apparently doesn't look so different from my normal sub behavior, when viewed from the outside. I have been trying to train myself to speak up, to say something when I go into those states and I think these days I succeed about 50% of the time. Often it will be something dumb and vague, like "No this isn't right!" But as long as I say something different enough from what I normally say during a scene, Donald will prick up his ears and investigate further. It's interesting that this sort of miscommunication can go on even between two partners who know each other very well, but due to the circumstances (inability to verbalize, the behavior resembling the sub's typical responses to pain) I suppose it isn't all that surprising.