Memories

So total memory recall is something that MAY come in time. I know i have a lot of healing to do..I'll just be patient. I do think i'm getting the idea about what to expect.

Most of the time, my loss of time or amnesia is disguised, but then it will slap me in the face when it becomes too obvious to ignore. But really, if I think about, there is not much that I do remember about my childhood and much of adulthood. Only snap shots here and there. So facinating as though i'm living a science fiction movie. smh

The phrase total recall raises a lot of issue. I’m not sure we can ever know what total recall would even be. Although I believe that I recovered close to 100 of the significant stuff within 5 months, how do I know I still not repressing. I had no idea I was repressing before. Who’s to say I’m not repressing now?

Perhaps the important thing is that one needs to recover enough to recapture their identity. This can be difficult when one’s identity is tied up in the disturbing life experiences that they are repressing. I really was a bit like Jason Bourne. I knew I needed my memory back but at the same time a part of me knew how disturbing those memories were to me. Hence, I was doing battle with myself.

I had a big watershed moment at the end of the first month. There were still some details I had yet to recall but it was with that watershed moment that came the catharsis and the return of my identity. I do think the repression brought considerable anxiety which eventually cleared once my memory returned. Suddenly, I got the realization that my life made sense in that it was driven by the experiences I was forgetting.

I guess I would define total recall as that recall necessary to recapture your identity.

And yes, I was told to watch out for the "imaginative Hollywood types." It's as is they know we are out there and they write these stories to hook us in or trip us up. Think of all the memory and amnesia movies out there, and all the alternate reality flicks. The Matrix was like the prefect fix for me. It fit so good that it took me right down the rabbit hole for a bit.

Wow. There really is a disinformation war going on out there. Things are so bad that one PHD feels compelled to write an article stating that we can have accurate memories. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/def ... our-memory

Apparently the majority of clinicians still believe in repression but incredibly Ms. Loftus has a plan to change that "These results hold implications for the potential resolution of the science-practice gap and for the dissemination of memory research in the training of mental-health professionals." She want to force feed everyone her "studies."

You can help. Ask every practitioner you see, "Do you believe in repression?" If they don't, ask them to read here and elsewhere. Ask them if they are aware of the fMRI studies. If their mind appears to be closed to the idea of repression, then please dump them. They have no business being a clinician. Ask all your friends to do the same with their doctors and therapist. We can make a big difference for those in the future. Please do it.

I didn’t give much thought to my choice of words “total recall.” I was thinking of memory as being on a continuum, with total repression or no memory at zero and “total recall” being something like a movie that is complete enough to understand context and meaning, and total recall would be a 10. The other types of recall sit on that continuum somewhere in the middle.

I'm wondering if the subconscious mind is always keeping some secrets from us, not just for you and me but for all humans. The continuum of dissociation as a normal human condition.

E. Howell has written the most enlightening book on DID. Written more for the clinician, she suggests a dissociative structure of the average human mind as well as a dissociative society. If it's functional to a certain degree for those with DID then why not for a a larger system, that being society.

" Most of us would rather avoid identifying with either the perpetrator or the victim. To acknowledge this kind of trauma could happen to us or those we love can be utterly terrifying. For many, denying the existence of such abuse reduces the anxiety of dealing with the reality that it does exist"

DID is a prototype of the dissociative structure of the mind. I am in agreement with Bromberg (1998,2006) that this mental structure characterizes us all.

Many of today's clinicians are appreciative of the multiple self view of the personality and the dissociative structure of the human mind. From this perspective, none of us is a singular unit, but rather a highly organized aggregation of self states that are internally dissociated to varying degrees and in varying ways. And in this way, work with People with DID (multiples) may serve to inform us of new approaches to providing good psychotherapy for people who are not multiples.(Howell, 2011)

Forever21, your thoughts and suggestions are strikingly familiar. Do we perhaps have friends in common or been hanging out in some of the same circles. Oh . . . probably just a coincidence reinforcing a delusion. LOL

T.A. Anderson. Haha good catch. Just the collective unconscious at work.

You are spot on!

forever21 wrote:T.A. Anderson. Haha good catch. Just the collective unconscious at work.

I think you figured this next one out already.