Dealing with repressed memories

Evan
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Hi guys!

So lately I've been struggling with repressed memories. I keep getting like, little pieces of memories and clues as to what might've happened. It's been driving me up a wall, because I really just want the truth at this point.

People all my life have told me my memories were wrong, that I'm making things up when I know I'm not. It's really affected my view on my own thoughts and recollections. I really would just like some advice on how to deal with these things.

How do I tell the difference between "false memories" and repressed ones? What route would be a good one to go down as far as figuring things out? Any advice would be good, also just want to know I'm not alone here lol

Thanks guys <3

This is so hard! The not knowing and not getting any answers. I dont have much advice but as to keep talking about it and taking it step by step.
Im dealing with a lot of body and emotional memories from littles without visual images or recolection of event and its driving me insane to. But the fear and everything that is happening in my body is so real its nog possible to fake. Try to trust yourself.

This is a complex topic but it might help to approach it by removing the dichotomy between 'true' and 'false' memory. Instead, think in terms of accuracy. Something doesn't have to be totally recalled in every detail to be generally accurate. I can remember a remarkable dinner at a restaurant whose name I've forgotten. Is my whole memory of the experience 'false' or is there just a lost detail in a larger, mostly accurate, memory? Pressing myself to recall that lost detail might lead to pushing an inaccurate detail into its place. Instead, I try to make my peace with knowing some details and waiting for others. You decide how much accuracy you need to have a useful memory.

Morgan

It's important to go slow. There's a reason that you don't remember things, and trying to go after them is usually not a good idea. What you can do is notice and honor the feelings and body sensations--those are true and valid no matter whether or not the memories are accurate.

If you've been gaslighted your whole life, it's going to be hard to trust yourself. Do you have a good therapist to help you?

Hi Evan, we share your frustration. Trauma memories are often stored as something like fragmentary pieces of the whole experience. This holds for persons without a dissociative disorder as for someone with PTSD.

I used to get angry with members of my system for "keeping the memories from me." This can happen, of course, but it was mostly wrong. It wasn't as if the alters who experienced the trauma have a perfect memory of the events themselves. No matter who was there for traumatic events, we all used dissociation -- fuzzing out -- to escape the inescapable.

We still get only parts of trauma experiences, virtually never the whole thing. Rarely we have a recall of most details of a fragment of time. More often it's just one or a couple of aspects of the experience, such as the sounds, images, emotions, thoughts, physical sensations, words being spoken, or even our overall attitude.

As Morgan said, false stuff can happen when you start filling in gaps between or around what's recalled. This can happen when what you get doesn't make immediate sense and you determine to construct a full narrative when you don't yet have all the pieces. You may only have 5% of the pieces in that moment.

My advice is to accept what memories come to you, consider what they suggest, but don't try to fill in all details before you have them. Or if you tend to do that, accept that at this point it's more a guess.

That said, people don't develop DID because they were spoken to crossly a few times.

Repressed memories is a Freudian concept and suggests intention. Fragmented trauma memories is probably a better way to think of them.

EMDR is one therapy that can help pull up more bits of a memory and sort of put it back together so it can become a more neutralized memory. It's not for someone who's not yet stable and it should ideally be used by a therapist trained in both DID and EMDR. I'm only mentioning it, not recommending it.

I have felt like things made more sense in my life since I've accepted how I remember things than listening to that I am crazy and remember things wrong. On the flip side I seem to be more effected by every day life since I have done this and listened to myself. But listening to myself has made things make more sense and I feel more - I don't know how to phrase it - connected to myself and to my current environment. That seems to improve every day slightly but I am feeling more stress because of it and physical issues. As a counselor said to me when I was 20 "De Nile is a very warm river to swim in" She was right, it is. Denial felt much more comforting, much more nourishing than the reality I'm having to face and deal with.

LucyTate wrote:So lately I've been struggling with repressed memories. I keep getting like, little pieces of memories and clues as to what might've happened. It's been driving me up a wall, because I really just want the truth at this point.

I already replied but your yearning for answers hits home with me so much.

I don't know how it works for everyone but for us, it's extremely common for us to get a sliver of something come back -- an image, a short movie, a feeling, a physical sensation, etc. -- with little or no context. Sometime later, and I'm talking anywhere from a few minutes to a few decades, we get more and realize or just know that it's connected. In other words, we start with a fragment and it gets added to later until it's clear or at least clearer what happened.

We have probably hundreds of these flashes of past events. Therapy absolutely helps and focusing on these known pieces in therapy and out helps to pull back more. At first I was like, WTH, this is how it works, why can't I just get it all and deal with it? It's mostly not that any specific alter is blocking anything for me or other hosts or alters. It's more like nobody holds these fragments as full, recallable, transferable memories.

For us, when we get a neutral memory fragment pop into our mind, in therapy or out, we'll try to roll it over a moment to get a feel for whether it's just a random image that doesn't reflect an actual memory. For example, is it something we saw on TV, something that we witnessed happening in public, a flight of fancy? We may or may not get feedback from inside for whether it's a memory of our life or something else.

If we get a negatively (or less frequently positively) charged fragment popping into the mind, if there's fear or anger or some strong physical sensation associated with the fragment, we've come to assume it's a flash to a life event. We assume that because in our experience all of these have been later identifiable as a memory of an actual event or they're still unknown. It's hard to describe such the whole process but we know it when it happens.

Within the first year of determining we had DID, we had a lot of what we considered to be solid childhood memories that were partly true and partly false. They turned out to be experiences that were associated with trauma but whose bad parts were deleted. With the memory missing continuity, we at some point apparently filled these in with more neutral or even positive explanations. These are memories that were triggered into consciousness dozens or even hundreds of times over our lifetime, so they weren't avoidable after a while. The collective mind's need to neutralize and rewrite them is obvious to us now in hindsight.

I had two known memories that would replay before I had any abuse memory. And like Johnny Jack says it was like a process. The first was of sitting in the bathroom on the bathroom scales wishing I could disappear at about age 3 or 4. My father found me and laughed and said "you can't hide from us that easily" my mother laughed too.

Then as Jonny Jack says it was like the next bit was rewritten because from it being a mocking horrible situation where I was terrified and wanting to disappear it then changed to my father gently and kindly putting me back to my bed. At a point a few years ago there then was the thought that actually he took me to my parents room. But it didn't go any further than that. It was like there were two options and I didn't know which happened. Did he take me to their room or back to bed. I didn't really like to think about the memory of hiding in the bathroom but it would often pop into my head.

Then recently with this break from reality - that's my best way to describe it - I can't cope and my mind takes a complete break from reality altogether and there's no functioning part that lives in reality I had alsorts of flashbacks which were parts taking over the body and reliving traumatic stuff. So this memory I kept being shown of hiding in the middle of the night terrified and wishing to disappear then made more sense. It didn't fit with the then caring next part where I wasn't mocked but looked after properly. So I think my brain rewrote the memory, it kept the being terrified in the bathroom but rewrote that I was infact safe and ok.

I would often as a child rewrite film endings if films were sad or upsetting to the point where that ending would seem like the real ending to me. It was only watching the film's as an adult when I realised I did that because I'd think "that's not the ending" but it was. The film didn't get rewritten to a sad ending, I must have rewritten it in my mind to a happy ending. When I realised this, it nearly sent me mad at first because I would be convinced somebody changed the film, I then remembered laying in bed thinking up a different ending to the film over and over till I fell asleep. I realised I'd so much done that that to me films had completely different endings.

After realising I did that it must have opened up the knowing of what I call two seperate existences because that's when the hiding in the bathroom memory was shown having another possibility. It didn't go past that I wasn't carried back to bed but just that I wasn't. That's when the similarity between the how I changed the film ending and the memory of being caringly put back to bed could be seen - they don't fit together. My made up endings didn't fit the film same as being carried back to bed caringly didn't fit with being terrified and wishing to disappear and then my main carers laughing and mockingly saying "you can't hide from us that easily" they didn't fit. I knew they didn't fit for a long time but the mind doesn't want to face things it doesn't have to or need to inorder to survive. My daughter being alone with my father for 2 hours triggered the need to remember because I was overcome with panic of what he might be doing. It spiralled. Protecting my children has always been important and I did minimise contact with my parents who are seperated but I didn't realize how much of a risk they were till a situation spiralled and I was forced into remembering. My daughter started playing football, my father after about a year started coaching the team and until then he'd had very minimal contact with my children. I would be there or his wife would be or both. So he was then late back with her one day, two hours and I freaked. They were in a bar with another parent and their child. But to me he was alone with her. It made it all too real to keep living in denial. My daughter is 12, I keep saying to myself that she's 12 and she wouldn't repress a memory but it still plays on my mind. I talked to her but she thinks I'm crazy and there's nothing wrong with her grandad which is good because that means she's ok but she thinks I'm crazy, I think she's at risk and the authorities won't listen to me and say I'm the problem and my father should coach football.

Anyway that's how it worked for me. I rewrote alot and believed it. It was incredibly painful when I was in therapy 10 years ago and I faced the emotional and physical abuse I'd suffered. That was awful because I thought I'd had a great childhood but that did not match up with my adult experience of my parents. I didn't have childhood memories with them in it till therapy and realising they were cruel, I slept in a damp room, if I got attached to a pet or anything they'd take it, I was sent to the garage at night, my mother would take me to the doctor's trying to get me diagnosed with something when she knew my aching bones were because I was in a damp room. All that was really really shocking and painful to process.

**TW MENTION OF PHYSICAL AND SA**

I spoke to my sister, she would say "don't remember when dad was beating you and you was trying to climb out the window. Don't you remember when he stuck a key up your nose" All that was bad enough. I then remembered him choking me and my mother laughing. No wonder I took drugs and ran away a couple of times I thought, I'm not this terrible child they have to bare for no reason. All that was bad enough. Horrible to face. I thought that all caused the DID along with being SA by my uncle. But when I remembered what happened with my uncle even that didn't make sense. I was little kid 5 or 6 at the most and I wasn't frightened, I told him touch me again and I'm telling and he threatened to kill me and I said I'll be dead I won't care. He was always wary of me. What little kid at that age is gonna say that unless they're already living in hell. When I remembered that it was triggered by my son saying he had been SA by my uncles son. I told the police. But I wasn't coping, nearly went out of reality but my psychiatrist sent me to therapy and I remembered what happened.

That memory went in a reverse process. I remembered saying "I'll be dead I won't care" then I talked about it in therapy. I went home and experienced body memory first of what physically happened for me to say that and then after going back to therapy and talking again I managed to put it all together.
Not only that I also then remembered being older at his house, 9 or 10 and I wasn't supposed to be there. I wasn't invited there often but he did always get me to babysit for him. He and his cousin were talking about abusing their children. My uncle said they couldn't because I was there. They had to physically throw some other peado out because my uncle probably figured at 5 I'm saying "kill me" then what am I gonna say at 10. He didn't know his sister, my mother, was abusing me. And that's why I know information is power from such a young age and I know the look of fear because I saw it in a grown man at age 5 and I know the power of simply having no fear. Not that I don't have fear, it's sectioned off in parts, but sometimes in life you can't afford to have fear, fear costs too much. Fear is necessary though to know when you're in a dangerous situation.

I was 14 when I babysat for my uncle and his children used to creep me out. They would play sadistic games and I used to say "just play hide and seek" and then get them to hide and then I'd play a computer game for an hour to avoid interaction with them because they were creepy and then find them. At the time I didn't know they were creepy messed up kids because of abuse, that's the danger of dissected memory. I just thought these are some weird kids, I'm not being paid enough. I felt bad about my son, about my cousins and beat myself up for a long time because if I didn't block it all out so well then I might of been able to help them, save them, but I did block it out. Then I think if I didn't block it all out would I be an abuser like my cousin is, I don't know. I had to accept I just did what I could manage at the time. Accepting that helps me accept I can only do what I can manage now. So as much as I'd like to go to court and see my parents jailed I'm not in a place where I'm capable of that, of the strength and I think level of cooperation and lowered dissociative barriers to effectively be able to do it. Beating myself won't help so I have to slowly work towards it. I may get there, I may not but I know I'm doing the best I can right now and that's good enough and if it isn't then it's tough because I can't do any better right now.

**END TRIGGER**

So it's definitely a process. And each process can be slightly different, the memory comes in bits and in its own order but you know when it's right because it's makes sense of things that didn't fit with what you already knew.

Allcoulors wrote:This is so hard! The not knowing and not getting any answers. I dont have much advice but as to keep talking about it and taking it step by step.
Im dealing with a lot of body and emotional memories from littles without visual images or recolection of event and its driving me insane to. But the fear and everything that is happening in my body is so real its nog possible to fake. Try to trust yourself.

I'll remember this! I feel that way, too. The emotion is far too real for it to just be some strange misunderstanding.

-- Sun Mar 01, 2020 11:00 pm --

IainEtc wrote:This is a complex topic but it might help to approach it by removing the dichotomy between 'true' and 'false' memory. Instead, think in terms of accuracy. Something doesn't have to be totally recalled in every detail to be generally accurate. I can remember a remarkable dinner at a restaurant whose name I've forgotten. Is my whole memory of the experience 'false' or is there just a lost detail in a larger, mostly accurate, memory? Pressing myself to recall that lost detail might lead to pushing an inaccurate detail into its place. Instead, I try to make my peace with knowing some details and waiting for others. You decide how much accuracy you need to have a useful memory.

Morgan

Okay, this makes a lot of sense. I'll try to not press it too much, I don't want to start trying to fill the gap with things that don't fit very well. Thank you <3

-- Sun Mar 01, 2020 11:03 pm --

Johnny-Jack wrote:Repressed memories is a Freudian concept and suggests intention. Fragmented trauma memories is probably a better way to think of them.

EMDR is one therapy that can help pull up more bits of a memory and sort of put it back together so it can become a more neutralized memory. It's not for someone who's not yet stable and it should ideally be used by a therapist trained in both DID and EMDR. I'm only mentioning it, not recommending it.

I really like that way of referring to it! "Repressed memories" can have a lot of automatic stigma attached. I looked into EMDR, it seems very interesting honestly. Not something to do at this moment lol, but maybe in the future. Thank you so much for your response <3

-- Sun Mar 01, 2020 11:07 pm --

Sarandipity wrote:I have felt like things made more sense in my life since I've accepted how I remember things than listening to that I am crazy and remember things wrong. On the flip side I seem to be more effected by every day life since I have done this and listened to myself. But listening to myself has made things make more sense and I feel more - I don't know how to phrase it - connected to myself and to my current environment. That seems to improve every day slightly but I am feeling more stress because of it and physical issues. As a counselor said to me when I was 20 "De Nile is a very warm river to swim in" She was right, it is. Denial felt much more comforting, much more nourishing than the reality I'm having to face and deal with.

Yeah, I agree that coming out of denial is really, really hard. Like "really hard" doesn't even describe it lol. I'll try to be more accepting of myself and less critical, I think that can be an issue. Thank you for the reply and I hope things continue to improve for you and your stress floats far away <3

Johnny-Jack wrote:

LucyTate wrote:So lately I've been struggling with repressed memories. I keep getting like, little pieces of memories and clues as to what might've happened. It's been driving me up a wall, because I really just want the truth at this point.

I already replied but your yearning for answers hits home with me so much.

I don't know how it works for everyone but for us, it's extremely common for us to get a sliver of something come back -- an image, a short movie, a feeling, a physical sensation, etc. -- with little or no context. Sometime later, and I'm talking anywhere from a few minutes to a few decades, we get more and realize or just know that it's connected. In other words, we start with a fragment and it gets added to later until it's clear or at least clearer what happened.

...

For us, when we get a neutral memory fragment pop into our mind, in therapy or out, we'll try to roll it over a moment to get a feel for whether it's just a random image that doesn't reflect an actual memory. For example, is it something we saw on TV, something that we witnessed happening in public, a flight of fancy? We may or may not get feedback from inside for whether it's a memory of our life or something else.

If we get a negatively (or less frequently positively) charged fragment popping into the mind, if there's fear or anger or some strong physical sensation associated with the fragment, we've come to assume it's a flash to a life event. We assume that because in our experience all of these have been later identifiable as a memory of an actual event or they're still unknown. It's hard to describe such the whole process but we know it when it happens...

This entire reply was really really helpful and interesting. I feel that first paragraph so much! I think all of us do. I'll be taking that advice, and like the other things people have been kind enough to suggest, I'll let the other's know if they struggle with it, too. Thank you for this <3