Time is not the only factor that can be messed up like that. Aside from the When -- the Where and the Who are likely to get confused. Generally speaking, when something is not being fully experienced and evaluated by Someone Somewhere Sometime, then the contents of the event might spill over into other Whos, Wheres, and Whens. That might be a difficult concept to grasp at first, so we usually apply it to time first, since that is the most simple to understand.
We usually regard time as going forward in one continuous regular stream. When we look more closely we find that that isn't really the truth of the matter. Time doesn't have to be continuous, it doesn't have to go forward, it is highly variable, and there is an infinity of probable time streams. That kind of stuff began to be re-discovered with relativity theory and quantum mechanics, and is becoming increasingly well understood. However, most people would still regard it as pretty weird.
For starters, the traditional concept of time that is generally agreed upon in this civilization at this time, will give us a working theory for how incidents are organized.
It is commonly believed that some things happen before other things. There is a past, which is the things that already have happened. There is a present, which is what is happening right now, and there is a future, which is the stuff that hasn't happened yet.
Since that is how people believe it is, we can expect to find incidents organized according to these ideas. However, be prepared for encountering totally different ways of organizing incidents as your thinking becomes more fluid.
If we assume time to be going forward, then unprocessed incidents would tend to float forward in the present. They would be time-stamped as happening "now" but since they don't get evaluated and filed, and since "now" continuously moves forward, the incidents will appear to be moving forward with the person. Once the incidents are cleared, that will be corrected. They will get their correct time-stamps and will move back to their proper place in time.
It is commonly believed that the past influences the present. Therefore people often organize incidents in their minds along similar lines. That is, earlier incidents are regarded as causing behavior and responses in later incidents. It doesn't have to be like that at all, but if that is how the person has it organized, that is what we will start with.
Incidents can often be found in chains sorted according to time. Related to a specific unwanted feeling we might find a whole series of incidents that all contain the same feeling in various contexts. Usually the earliest incident would be the most forceful or traumatic and the later ones would draw their power from the earliest incident.
In a typical chain, the earliest incident, which we call the Core Incident, will contain pain and unconsciousness. We could also call it a Force Imprint Incident, since that is when a certain set of responses get forcefully imprinted (stamped, programmed) on the mind.
The next most severe incident is the Traumatic Emotion Incident. It is usually connected with a loss or a threatened loss. It draws its power from a previous Force Imprint Incident. It contains strong mis-emotion, such as sorrow, fear, grief, terror.
Thirdly there is the Trigger Incident. That is a situation when a mental button is pushed and some of the traumatic contents from an Imprint incident or a Traumatic Emotion incident is replayed. The discomfort in an incident like that is created as an irrational automatic reaction, not as an actual external circumstance.
Typically a chain is unraveled in backwards order. That is, the most recent (and lighter) incidents would be available first, and one would gradually work back until one gets to the core traumatic incident. Upon clearing the core incident, the whole chain would be neutralized and the specific contents of that incident will no longer be carried forward.
Sooner or later the sub-conscious belief that earlier incidents cause later incidents will unravel and will no longer apply. However, initially the incident chain mechanism can be quite useful to navigate by.