******Trigger warnings CSA, PA
LG,
I had repressed memories. I remembered my dad being an alchoholic and there was one incident when he got physically abusive that was spoken about in the family that I slept through. I found out later from my sister that I had been there once when we were locked in a bedroom with my mom moving furniture to block the door so my dad couldn't get in, which I have NO memory of. I started recovering memories of sexual and physical abuse when I was in therapy during my 3Os. The bulk of my work with my first therapist was recovering memories and processing trauma. I thought I was completey crazy when I was remembering and had a REALLY difficult time believing the authenticity. I still can occasionally mainly because I still don't have a lot of visuals, just body sensations, emotions and knowledge that just kind of pops up but I don't know how I know. In the beginning I made the decision to just go with it, act as if it was true and see where it went (I was totally estranged from my father so I wasn't going to confront him.) My older sister was a big help because when I told her that I had recovered memories of sexual abuse, she was like "that's it, that's the can of worms I've been carrying around inside of me all these years." But the real confirmation was when my sister and I went to see my dad on his deathbed. The whole story is in a post here somewhere, if I have time later I'll track it down, but in the course of that, I spoke to the priest who took my dad's last confession and based on what the priest said to me when I talked to him, I believe my dad confessed to him what he had done. And last but not least, the kinds of emotions and feelings and terror that I have experienced in processing this stuff with my T tells me that I may not be able to remember all the details, but a lot happened and it wasn't good. Hope that helps, feel free to ask any follow up questions.

AG

BTW just FYI I did a LOT of reading about repressed memories, especially because I was recovering them right in the middle of the big controversy. They have proven that it is possible to make someone believe something that never happened and the more research they do, the more mallable they think memory is BUT there has also been research which has proved the reality of repressed memories. There were several studies that followed up emergency room documented cases of abuse in children, whom they subsequently questioned as adults and there were people who had no question been abused that had NO conscious memories of it. So I really do believe it's possible to split off stuff we know and bury it so deep we don't know we know it. My opinion (admittedly based on my experience) fwiw.

I have had all sorts of stuff coming up and yes, I question all the time whether it is memories or just something else. It is just like AG and Monte have said above...especially about the internal rage at my dismissal of them as "not memories."

****TRIGGERS - assault, possible SA, physical abuse****

Some of it is just feelings and sensations around things I know happened, but don't remember well. For example, if you read my thread about that guy N, I just knew the list of things that he had done to me, but had no feeling or sensation and only like a single image and a single sound in my head regarding that memory. A bunch of emotions and sensations have been coming up around that stuff. I know for sure that stuff happened, because I was 16 and since then, there has never been a time when I didn't know the "list" of things he did to me.

There have been a lot of similar emotions, sensations and some images surfacing regarding my childhood (5-6) and my mom's boyfriend at the time, Ken. He physically abused my oldest sister in front of me, but I don't remember witnessing it, just that he made a hole in the wall. Oldest sister says I was right there. So, yeah, possible to repress memories, especially when you're that young. I have the image of his face up inches away from me with sensations of being pinned, hurt and touched inappropriately. When I remember this stuff, I hear his voice panting (he used to call for years later and pant inappropriately into the phone whenever I'd pick up). And then I have an image of hiding from him in my closet. However, since I have no clear-cut memory of this man ever having done bad things to me, I can't say if any of that stuff is memory or just a lot of bad experiences getting jumbled together in my mind. And the only evidence I have that something bad happened is a sudden change in my childhood sexual development and social development around that period, to the point of some pretty abnormal behaviors that I haven't even admitted in the intimacy section of the forum.

It *feels* like something happened, but I'd never be able to prove it. That guy is long gone. I don't even know his last name. He abused both of my older sisters physically (the younger of which has blocked a lot out from that time period). He apparently abused my mom physically, which led her to have two abortions while she was with him. Those actions caused a court battle which ended in my sisters moving away with their dad and my mom having a complete breakdown for months (also do not remember this, except that I know think this might have been when my guinea pig died suspiciously). Anyway, so I cannot ask my sisters or my mother without hurting them. My dad wasn't there, so he wouldn't know, and is so sensitive about feeling like abandoning me. I guess, despite them being pretty awful parents, I really have no desire to hurt them by asking such a question which they wouldn't have the answer to. Anyway, T has called these things "memories" even though I have fought that word, because I just cannot know and it feels unfair. T says all that matters is that this man obviously made me feel very unsafe. Even though he was obviously a very bad man, I actually feel guilty if I am blaming him for something that he did not do.

So, in the end, I just feel like I'm floating unless something concrete surfaces. But, honestly, what is the likelihood of retrieving something so far back that my mind has obviously fought against recording?

I'm struggling with this a lot lately, too. In my case, I think it's more dissociated memories rather than repressed. If I do have repressed memories, I have read in several places that the nature of repressed memories makes them harder to retrieve than dissociated memories.

I find that I get really confused about what to believe is real when I see things or whatever. I've only recently had an instance where I saw an image or playing out of a scene. And I *seriously* doubt that it's real, but I just don't know, especially since the image was accompanied by fear and physical sensations. It just leaves me SO confused about it all.

I know my T believes that it's real, because we've talked about what's better, knowing where these feelings/images are coming from or staying in the dark? If she didn't believe it or at least didn't express her belief, I know I would think I just have an active imagination.

Anyway, sorry that none of that is helpful. I guess I just wanted to say that I have all the same questions about it that you do. (((LG)))

AG, Yaku, DF, Monte...thank you for the replies and for sharing your experiences. I can't bring myself to share my own experience just yet, I am still processing it. But I do appreciate your replies and they have been helpful to me to know that I am not alone in these memories and the confusion surrounding them.

quote:

I go from complete denial and thinking I must just be crazy and making things up to accepting the memories as real which causes great despair. Usually I'm somewhere in between. When I am in denial I get arguments inside about how wrong I am and they insist the memories are real. I also start to wonder, if it never happened then why do I feel so horrible. Why do I see these horrible images in my head and feel these things in my body.

Thank you, STRM, for capturing exactly what I am feeling with this stuff. I keep trying to say, "No way. I have NO context for this memory that keeps popping up," and then something inside gets very hurt and angry like, "Why don't you BELIEVE me?!" Ugh. It's like someone in there is throwing out these images, sensations and feelings and trying to tell their story, but because *I* wasn't there (as in, I cannot place these things in the context of a larger memory...because they are literally like maybe 5-15 seconds worth of information), I just have to say, "I'm sorry. I just don't know!"

I have wondered about repressed memories. My mind and body seem to remember things in a lot of different ways. I think right now I am wondering what the point is for me of trying to sort this all out. (I think I am in a phase where it all just hurts like crazy).


*****triggers: being attacked, abuse. *****

I was recently talking with my T about an attack that happened as an adult. Much of what happened, I can’t talk about at all with her. My of much I remember comes to my mind as vivid pictures, and sitting with them long enough to “translate” the pictures into words is just too much. I have been able to talk with my T about a lot of what happened after. I told her about the paramedics arriving and helping. I told her about a woman being there, in some kind of official role, and that she was asking a lot of questions. My T asked what she was asking about, and I had to tell her I have no idea… I really can’t recall what in the world she was asking. I wonder if have the memory of what the woman was asking about is somewhere inside my brain. I remember not really paying attention to her at the time and feeling overwhelmed by her questions. I remember my hands the most – I remember everything about them, how they looked, how they felt, where they were at every moment. I remember focusing on them at the time of the attack and afterwards, as if I was trying to keep my focus on them because everything else going on with my body was too much to bear.

I tend to feel cold whenever I remember or think of what happened. In the past, I thought I felt cold as result of feeling fear and my sympathetic nervous system getting wound up which can cause blood vessels to constrict… and thus I would feel cold. I studied neurobiology and this is just what made sense to me. I told my T about this. I shiver in her office no matter how many layer of clothes I am wearing whenever we talk about this attack. She asked me if I had felt cold at the time of the attack or afterwards. I don’t remember feeling cold, or hot, or anything like that. She asked about some of what I remember about the paramedic’s response to me. Logically, it makes sense that I would have felt very cold during the time of this traumatic incident. My body seems to remember feeling cold, but my mind doesn’t remember it at all. As much as it logically makes sense that I felt cold, and as much as my body seems to remember (and remind me), it doesn’t feel real to me that I felt cold. It seems bizarre. Like if I was so cold, how come my mind would not remember? And this is for something “simple” as being cold during trauma.

Parts of this traumatic event I don’t remember because I was drugged for part of it. I don’t have any idea if those memories are there anywhere in my brain, or were completely blocked from being encoded. Somehow, I think my body still remembers some.
I dissociated during the trauma. I used to dissociate all the time whenever I recalled any of it. The second any of it came to mind, I would dissociate from it and the present moment too.

3rd party sources (and the perpetrator himself) have validated way more than I remember.

********end of triggers********


I have had childhood memories of abuse validated by others as an adult. I have told my T, “it is validation I never really wanted.”

I also briefly saw a T who was convinced I was more abused by a particular family member than I remember. I have checked with outside sources (as much possible) that it wasn’t any worse than I remember. I suppose it still could have been worse than I remember.
I have forgotten about things and then remembered in a “oh yeah… I remember that…” kind of way.

I have also been surprised by things I have forgotten that have been validated by others, even a family member. If they wouldn’t have said it (without anything to gain themselves) I don’t think I would believe it at all.
Some of what I remember I also have a very different perspective on than I did as a kid during the trauma. Some of what I remember didn’t seem so bad then (I didn’t know any better) and feels like crap now.

I think the hardest part for me right now is sitting with validation that I never wanted, abuse I have never wanted to face as abuse, feelings I can’t stand now – including the ones that don’t make sense and that I may never be able to make sense of. Somehow, sometimes, they feel worse when I can’t explain them, and sometimes, it feels even worse when I can.

For me, for a lot of reasons, I’ll probably never know or recall all that has happened to me. I not sure I’ll fully fix my body memories either. My hope is that I can learn to live with it, and instead of feeling run over by the pain of the past again and again… I hope I can be able to live with me and myself more. I want more freedom. Right now, sometimes I feel trapped.

((((Jane))))

What you are saying about remembering and not remembering and maybe never fixing the body memory stuff really resonates with my fears. Safe hugs to you.