anyone else struggle with being highly suggestible?

but the difference is that you KNOW you were awake when you snap out of it.

Yes!!! Exactly so.

Mine are a mix of meaningful and seemingly meaningless. I can usually find at least a thematic meaning in them, but sometimes there are literal bits of memories or parts involved in them too.

I also get that lost in an unknown thought thing. It's light a lighter version of my "blank outs" that I get in therapy, where I go inside and it's white and blank and I have the awareness of physically existing in the space I'm in and of time passing, but no awareness of the outside world and often no specific memory of exactly what was being thought about or done. However, it's not like time loss in that I don't really do anything during that time, but am sitting there sort of vacant.

Hi dividedtruth,
I was reding your post and stopped at the part that ur sister that doesn't remember much of her life before 8 or 9....could anyone elaborate this. I mean isn't it normal for people to remember just few incidents before this age....like let's say at most 10 incidents?
Well i asked my sibilings and they said too they don't remember much before this mentioned age....what age(range of age) should people start to remember most their lives?
Thank you

I've been told by the mental health team that my "awake nightmares" are intrusive thoughts and hallucinations, also that I'm not psychotic.

I know my nightmares both asleep and awake become more frequent as my stress levels rise. I have an anxiety problem and panic attacks.

Some of my awake nightmares are of past events, or have a subject connection to past events. I'm guessing these ones are flashbacks or PTSD related?

The staring into space thinking is familiar, but I can't remember now, whether I remember after those lost hours of thinking, what it was I was thinking about. X

angel123 wrote:Hi dividedtruth,
I was reding your post and stopped at the part that ur sister that doesn't remember much of her life before 8 or 9....could anyone elaborate this. I mean isn't it normal for people to remember just few incidents before this age....like let's say at most 10 incidents?
Well i asked my sibilings and they said too they don't remember much before this mentioned age....what age(range of age) should people start to remember most their lives?
Thank you

I think it differs with lots of people. I was mainly confused simply because my sister said that she didn't even remember where we lived before that time. I mean, my memories start at 5, and I have a VERY vague recollection of the apartment we lived in the first half of that year, and the apartment we lived in the second half of that year. And the memories are like little snapshots or 3 second videos. It just surprised me that my sister wouldn't be able to remember where we lived when SHE was 5,6,7, and 8, like I can.

I don't know if I said this here or on another post, but this is my huge denial issue. While others seem to have huge blank spots in their past, I don't. I have RECENT blank spots, and RECENTLY, my memory has been aweful, but I just don't see any lost years or anything when I map out my life. Instead, my family is always astounded by what I DO remember, like, I can remember almost all the phone numbers of all the places we lived, right from age 5. Not to mention my strange ability to remember some therapy sessions almost verbatim.

Hope I helped. I don't know what is normal and what isn't, so it's probably best not to take MY word! Hopefully someone else on here can answer your question better than I can, since my memory seems to be a little bit different from everyone else's, lol!

I have the numbers thing! Phone numbers, car registration plates, postcodes. I can also commit entire conversations to memory if I consider them important enough. Just don't ask me what day it is, where I parked the car, where I've been today, or the route home. x

angel123 wrote:Hi dividedtruth,
I was reding your post and stopped at the part that ur sister that doesn't remember much of her life before 8 or 9....could anyone elaborate this. I mean isn't it normal for people to remember just few incidents before this age....like let's say at most 10 incidents?
Well i asked my sibilings and they said too they don't remember much before this mentioned age....what age(range of age) should people start to remember most their lives?
Thank you

It definitely differs for a lot of people. I was surprised to find out I was the only one in my middle school class that remembered being 5! My T said that a lot of times, people's childhoods will be a blur, but they'll remember highlights (like a day at a theme park or something). However, with my childhood, I remembered more because there were more emotionally stimulating situations. We tend to remember memories with high emotions because of the parts of the brain it stimulates, just as we tend to remember bad situations more clearly than good situations due to the parts of the brain stimulated. (Sorry I can't be more clear on this, my thoughts are a bit jumbled and I don't really remember the names of the brain parts I learned in psychology class ). So for me, I remember most of my child hood because most of it was spent in high-emotion situations, such as watching my mom and dad fight. The high amount of emotion also helps me to remember other parts that I might not have otherwise remembered, because my brain was already triggered to remember more due to the hightened emotional state. (At least, that's how I understand it). I can easily remember bad times from my child hood, and then good times, and then it takes more thinking/effort to remember good times that didn't especially stand out (such as a time that wasn't a holiday or birthday but was still enjoyable). And then there was, of course, blank spots from when I'd switch/split, though I've filled most of those in now.

I don't know if I said this here or on another post, but this is my huge denial issue. While others seem to have huge blank spots in their past, I don't. I have RECENT blank spots, and RECENTLY, my memory has been aweful, but I just don't see any lost years or anything when I map out my life. Instead, my family is always astounded by what I DO remember, like, I can remember almost all the phone numbers of all the places we lived, right from age 5. Not to mention my strange ability to remember some therapy sessions almost verbatim.

I have this problem too. For me, I didn't even realize how much I DIDN'T remember until T would ask me for specific examples from ANY time in my childhood to support my generalizations about my past and I could not give him a single one. Or, that I was told I witnessed (bad) things that I should remember, but don't. Or that if I go intellectually through the timeline of very significant events that I know happened from an informational perspective, I realize I don't actually have any memory of them. Like, my dad was in and out of the house (significant breakups between him and my mom) at least four or five times between birth and nine, when he left for good...but I always just say, "My dad left at the end of third grade." Or, that my older sisters moved out to stay with their dad after said bad thing I witnessed, and I remember driving to pick them up for visits, but I didn't actually remember that there was a period of time where they didn't share the room with me. Until T dug a little bit with me, I outright complained to him that I hadn't forgotten anything and I had an excellent memory of our past. Before my parts started acting up during therapy, I could remember whole sessions almost verbatim as well. Same thing with addresses and phone numbers from my childhood, but we didn't move very much. I've had a few memories coming up, though, that definitely were dissociated (when I can give the benefit of the doubt to the little ones that they are true) and TONS of feelings about things I knew happened objectively, but thought I was numb and apathetic about. So, it's becoming obvious to me that I don't remember those early years nearly as well as I thought I did...

I don't know if that helps with the denial stuff at all and I'm not saying your experience is the same either. But, I don't think most people feel like they dropped out of the sky at nine-years-old with no history. I think most everyone has a general sense of having existed within a certain a certain environment and it isn't until you go looking for specific stuff that you realize the emptiness that is there. I could be wrong, but I think most peoples' brains would kind of create a sort of context to their lives, even if it is only pieced together from information that others have given. Like, I have memories that are made from photos of my childhood or stories that my older siblings or extended family have told about me. When I try to sort out whether I actually remember those things happening, I don't...I just remember the story being told over and over and made it my own.

Thank you all for replying to my question and u were very helpful amd most important sorry dividedtruth i jumed in and asked this question in ur thread....i just stopped at that part and automatically asked the question in ur thread.

Dude no problem! I like it when the conversation goes a different route...usually it's a question I already had, or one that I would have had in the future. and I am guilty of doing the same thing more than once, lol!

-- Tue Aug 30, 2011 9:04 pm --

tomboy24 wrote:[ However, with my childhood, I remembered more because there were more emotionally stimulating situations. We tend to remember memories with high emotions because of the parts of the brain it stimulates, just as we tend to remember bad situations more clearly than good situations due to the parts of the brain stimulated. (Sorry I can't be more clear on this, my thoughts are a bit jumbled and I don't really remember the names of the brain parts I learned in psychology class ). So for me, I remember most of my child hood because most of it was spent in high-emotion situations, such as watching my mom and dad fight. The high amount of emotion also helps me to remember other parts that I might not have otherwise remembered, because my brain was already triggered to remember more due to the hightened emotional state.

Omg this makes so much sense! It would explain why I sometimes can remember things SO WELL. And other stuff not so well lol! I can relate on how some stuff, you don't realize you don't remember it until T brings it up.

Posible trigger***Like, I can remember times when I would cry for a very long time by myself after my Dad would drop me and my sister off after visitation. (one of those memories, I see myself in it) My mom was really cold. But I can't remember him picking me up for visitation...except one but it's super foggy.

I know I was happy though, because there is video of me being like 3 and running into his arms yelling Daddy! when he came to pick me up

I am not suggestible at all. In fact, I am totally the opposite.

My alters for the most part are EXTREMELY Defiant too! They rebel. They never join.
There must be some parts of me that are suggestible but they are certainly not the dominant ones.

This is a problem often.


Ember - She is my most defiant one. Age 5. Fought the abuse. Fought the control. She will not give in no matter what.