amnesia

I have a question. In regards to amnesia what if you don't remember your childhood or can't recall things but say you remember your street you lived on or which school you attented? I really have no recall for most things but if talking to someone I can tell them I lived on X street and attended X school but my brain becomes frantic for the answer and it also feels like someone else lived it. Do have to remember NOTHING about your childhood to have amnesia? I'm kinda confused...am I faking or what?
Another note I forgot to mention...I didn't start having slight amnesia (almost unoticable) until the age of about 13-14 maybe when I started really acting out in school and with drugs...then some pretty intense stress caused my mind to shatter is the only word I can use to desribe it...then I remembered close to nothing of my childhood, this was at the age of about 25. Now I cannot recall so many things of myself or my past and even if I did it doesn't belong to me.

I have almost total amnesia before the age of 16.

I also remember the address of my childhood home and the names of my schools.

Why is this? I am not sure, but I think perhaps I tried to find them out in the past and the memory is from times after childhood.


My system has now allowed a sharing of memories. Many parts are still struggling with finding their memories. With me - the sharing can be confusing because sometimes it's hard to know which part holds the memories. A boundary is falling - memories and feelings are being shared. This is healthy. Soon - it's hard to tell one part from the other.

I hope this helps.

yeh its really weird how we can remember those things but not others. I know I dont remember certain things but just thought it strange how I could remember addresses and schools but not other things. My memory doesnt work right in that I dont make connections to things I should be able to like smelling a certain smell and it bringing me back to my grandmothers home or something like that ( not an actual memory but just an example). I dont understand and I get really stressed and nervous when people ask me like my brain is frantically searching for the information but its just not coming to me, its all so confusing. Still waiting to hear back from my former outpatient center for some good referrals for dissociative therapists in my area. If anyone knows any in California let me know

If you are in the LA/California area...
http://www.therapist4me.com/


Emily Williams, MA, LPC- Program Director, Therapist St. Louis Missouri

Emily earned her Master’s degree in clinical psychology from Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, MO. Emily is a Licensed Professional Counselor and is currently Program Director and a primary therapist at Castlewood Treatment Center. Emily has experience in treating Dissociative Identity Disorder...

http://www.castlewoodtc.com/our-staff/

There are 2 different types of memory in the brain: implicit and explicit. Explicit are the ones we "remember". If you had to remember your address or school or names of teachers, etc. these would be stored in the higher brain areas and would be explicitly available. Traumatic and dissociated memories do not ever reach the higher brain. They get "stuck" in the primitive brain and are stored implicitly. That is why they are so alien and foreign, why we often have "body memories" and inexplicable flashbacks occur that do not seem to be related to anything in our awareness. Part of what integration is is getting those memories out of the primitive, implicit brain structures and into the conscious, higher brain that is part of our awareness and subject to control. But because they literally are separate and in another part of the brain, that is why it is so difficult to retrieve the memories and integrate our parts even though we want to and feel like we are ready. It just isn't under our control.

I think you'd be hard pushed to find someone with complete complete amnesia from their childhood. I have about 7 memories - which are more like photo's in my head as if I have been shown them. It is completely "normal" to remember some bits and not others. Random bits that make you think: why on earth do I remember that? Like me remembering vividly having to go visit my sister at primary school because she was poorly. I remember schools I went to and even faces of some of the teachers. I dunno. I'm a bit scatty today but I just wanted to say... you're not faking bcasue you have some memory.

thanks everyone for all the replies they were very helpful and informative too!

My mind was cased in what I call a psychological white Novocain paste.. I had no memories.. They did not start coming back until a few years ago. I was completely dissociative.. completely disabled. Amnesia was the worst section of the 4 dissociative. Mass pasting of everything.. I was completely shut down..

Anything can happen. Anything the brain wants to disconnect will be disconnected. I might remember that I knew a girl. I might remember that bad things happened around her and it caused great damage. Yet, it is so far away, locked down deep enough and Novocain that I remember nothing around the situation. The situation and all relative situations are numbed out. I knew of an event of long ago, that is all. I am not connected to anything. Therefore, I miss nothing, yet, Im not myself, Im a sheet of nothingness. I have no past, I walk and react, nothing more. Things are different now..

I do not remember most of my life. Who bought my cloths, were I ate. Nothing.. I know a few facts.. Nothing is worth remembering. That is why I don't remember it. I remember the dissociative state. It was like sleep walking inside myself.. It was a grey dark area. I was deep inside, not outside...

Amnesia is a protectant and it works...

I'm sorry to hear that Omnicell...if it helps at all, I can really relate