Flashbacks to tiny traumas

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You know that feeling you get when you recently did something dumb, or embarrassing, and even just thinking about it hurts, and you want to hit yourself in your own face when the memory comes up??

OK, maybe that last part is just me, BUT, my real question is: How many of you still get that feeling at random times for stupid things you did years ago? Because I do, and it's a problem.

All the time

Me too. The other thing is when I'm thinking about the embarassing episode, I can't help saying something out loud, e.g. "oh no" - must seem strange to anyone nearby at that moment!!

Same. Including the hitting self in the head thing.

I have several decades worth to remember.

Yes, I'm haunted by so many of them.

Yes.
I wouldn't call them flashbacks exactly. But intensely relived memories of acute embarraent, shame and self recrimination that are extremely painful to revisit.

Sometimes this happens when I am half awake and the intensity of it makes me instantly wide awake and sometimes I shout "NO!" at the moment the memory comes back.

I've always had this, and it seriously bothers me. Is this a common trait on the spectrum?

In addition to the lesser flashes to things that should be minor embarrassments I've started having serious problems related to reliving more extreme past traumatic events.

The more I get involved with the autism community the more people I meet with some form of PTSD.

Yes I do. And I hate them.

I hate that.

I do. Not too often (maybe a few times a week) but it happens. Flashbacks of small,embarrassing moments from the past. Fortunately I can make them go away as soon as they appear - I just say 'Meow"(its a tic) and they memory is gone.

Yes, and it sucks. It's a permanent part of what my brain does with all the years of wrong words I've spoken, wrong actions taken, embarrassing failures of communication, and the most recent lame incident which was, well, humiliating. And I'm always providing it with more events to get the bad, weird but familiar 'shock' feeling that radiates through my body when the memories pop back up. I I am concentrating on something it de-rails me. If I'm sleeping and it happens, I won't get to sleep again for a long while, if at all. When it has happened lately, I've been telling myself to be, "unconcerned with it at the moment"; had a little success at least shortening the hurt using that phrase.

Wait until you are my age, I have about 5 decades of bad memories. Now, I will admit, I have never been in war or disaster or had anything traumatic happen to me, but still, find bad memories hard to deal with. I have even tried to get help for this but it seems nothing can be done. This is why I wish I knew I was on the spectrum long ago. For example, I chose a career in health care and had a lot of bad things happen on the job because it was a bad fit for me. So was food service. Rather than be afraid of the math, could there be some way I could have learned advanced math and then had a career that needed it but was a better fit? also think that if there was one thing my parents could have done for me, it would have been to send me to better schools even if it meant having to move. Knowing is a way to avoid at least some bad memories later.

I have the OP's problem, and I also sensed a similarity to PTSD. The events don't have to have seemed traumatic, but recalling them does feel that way. I try to forget the memories, which is a technique I read about somewhere. It diminishes the emotional charge.

I do this all the time.

Yes I do. It often makes my body flinch, and sometimes react verbally.