As modern neurobiologists point out, the repetition of the traumatic experience in the flashbacks can be itself re-traumatizing; if not life-threatening, it is at least threatening to the chemical structure of the brain and can ultimately lead to deterioration. And this would also seem to explain the high suicide rate of survivor, for example, survivors of Vietnam.
Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History
flashbacks, mental-illness, neurobiology, posttraumatic-stress-disorder, ptsd, retraumatization, suicidality, suicide, suicide-rates, veterans-affairs, vietnam-veterans, vietnam-war