Alright, mate.
The other day something intense happened.
But before I dive into what happened…let me ask a question.
Do you ever get the feeling that you go temporarily nuts for seemingly no reason?
One minute you’re going about your day and you either gradually or suddenly spiral into intense feelings of shame, anxiety, depression, sadness or just otherwise complete emotional neuroticism.
If that doesn’t happen to you — I am genuinely glad.
But for those more wonky-minded individuals like myself, it’s not just an inconvenience.
It’s a crippling impediment to your life that paralyzes you.
Okay, back to the story.
The other day I was sitting at the computer desk in my Airbnb in Malta.
I’d had a pretty rough day emotionally already.
Nothing dramatic.
Just a feeling of general irritability that stuck to me like a shadow.
I couldn’t shake it.
Earlier in the day I tried going for a long drive… but the way the Maltese people behave behind the wheel only made me more irritable.
So I said “forget it” and decided to go back to the Airbnb to write out my thoughts.
As I’m sitting there, I realize I’m not feeling okay.
My Airbnb host walks into the room.
I’ve not seen her in days. She doesn’t live there. She must have come to pick something up.
She sticks her head around the corner of the office and says hello.
I greet her. She leaves. I return to my journaling.
That’s when it started. I overhear her cleaning up. Sweeping, mopping, vacuuming.
Suddenly, anxiety pours through me. Every cell of my body suddenly starts shaking with fear and panic.
My thoughts begin racing wildly.
“Shit, I forgot to clean the air fryer. She’s going to find the air fryer grease and she’s going to be upset with me. It’s her house,” I thought.
It gets worse.
“What if the bathroom isn’t clean enough? Did I remember to flush the toilet? What if I forgot and she discovers it?”
“I left the air conditioning on. What if she discovers it’s on and realizes that I’ve been using up electricity? I bet it costs a fortune. I bet I’m costing her a fortune.”
These terrified thoughts flood my brain as I sit there shaking.
Meanwhile, she’s in a visibly good mood, completely oblivious to my panic attack as she goes about her light cleaning routine.
She comes into the room again and asks if she can sweep the floor of the office.
“Of course, go ahead,” I say with a polite smile.
Holy shit, I’m a good actor when I want to be.
As she begins sweeping up around me, the panic in my system reaches a new level as another emotion sneaks into my system along with it.
Shame. I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.
Instead — I put my noise-cancelling headphones on, disappeared into a journal page in my Notion workspace and began typing frantically.
As my fingers bash the keys, the warped contents of my brain in that moment spew onto the screen.
I take a breath and pause for a second to read back what I had just written.
And that pause was all I needed.
“Oh my god. This is insane.”
This one thought seemed to snap me out of… whatever the hell was happening to me.
I suddenly realized how out of place this emotional reaction was to the situation.
“Why am I having a panic attack because my Airbnb host is cleaning her apartment?” I thought.
I started breathing slowly. The 7-11 breathing technique an old therapist taught me a while ago.
It worked. As my body began to relax, my Airbnb host enters my peripheral vision. I look away from the screen to meet her eyes. She’s smiling warmly. I take my headphones off.
She says, “I’m leaving now. Enjoy your stay and if there’s anything else you need please just WhatsApp me.”
“Thank you,” I say before she leaves the apartment, closing the door behind her.
As I return to the safety of solitude — the anxiety leaves me completely along with the shame. And it’s replaced by a profound sadness as a realization flows through my fingers onto the page.
“That was how I felt growing up.”
Tears start to well up in the corners of my eyes as new insights bombard my mind.
It was true.
In an instant, it was as if I was teleported back in time.
Suddenly, I was no longer a 32-year-old man.
I was a 9-year-old boy shaking with fear as my father was on the cusp of exploding into a rage at the unclean state of my room.
It was like walking on eggshells in the house.
The panic I felt as I sat there in my Airbnb was the same panic I felt as a boy.
The same ambiguity.
The same “which version of dad will I get?” anxiety.
And why was this triggered by my Airbnb host you might ask?
Because she was in a position of authority over me — since it was her apartment and not mine.
What I had experienced is what is referred to in CPTSD as an emotional flashback.
According to the book “CPTSD: From Surviving To Thriving” by Pete Walker, an emotional flashback is:
“an intensely disturbing regression to the overwhelming feeling-states of your childhood abandonment. When you are stuck in a flashback, fear, shame and/or depression can dominate your experience. These are some common experiences of being in an emotional flashback: You feel little, fragile and helpless. Everything feels too hard. Life is too scary. Being seen feels excruciatingly vulnerable. Your battery seems to be dead. In the worst flashbacks an apocalypse feels like it will imminently be upon you. When you are trapped in a flashback, you are reliving the worst emotional times of your childhood.”
Here’s the takeaway…
If you’ve ever experienced something similar—those moments where your emotional reaction seems wildly disproportionate to the situation—you might be experiencing an emotional flashback too.
The good news is that awareness is the first step toward healing.
What helped me in that moment was:
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Pausing to notice my thoughts
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Recognizing the mismatch between my reaction and reality
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Using a breathing technique (7 seconds in, 11 seconds out)
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Understanding the root of my reaction
These flashbacks don’t have to control your life.
By developing awareness of your triggers and having tools ready to manage these moments, you can gradually reduce their impact.
Whether it’s therapy, mindfulness practices, or just naming what’s happening as it occurs by saying:
“This is a flashback, not reality”
You have more power than you realize.
Remember: Your past shaped you, but it doesn’t have to define your future responses.
You’re not broken—you’re healing.
I’d love to hear if this resonates with any of you.
Have you experienced something similar? What techniques have helped you navigate these challenging moments?
Stay courageous,
Oliver