Unlocking memories? (Trigger Warning)

[hurtbeat]

I remember my stepfathers aunt and her husband babysitting me and my siblings at times. I always hated it because the aunt would rage at me and tell me that I was rude towards her husband and that "every child where they lived loved him". 

I can't really remember him, only his wife and her terrifying anger. She would always make my mom and stepdad spank me extra hard after they had been babysitting me and my sisters because of my behaviour. I remember thinking that my behaviour usually wouldn't tick my mother and stepfather off, I thought that she was over dramatic.

Recently my sister told me she remembers the aunts husband and how we always had to sit in his lap and that he would pat our thighs...
I got a flashback then.. or just a picture in my head from what she had told me? I saw myself sitting in his lap alone in the living room, he was weird and not connecting with me at all. It was awkward and silent and I thought he was weird...  It could be that he made me feel uncomfortable and that I told the Aunt which threw a tantrum to take the focus off from him and onto me instead. I remember the phrase: "Go and sit with uncle John" being used a lot. Or am I just making things up? I honestly don't know

There was another aunt, her partner that she lived with tickled my sisters "in the wrong place" and when I told the aunt about it he threw a tantrum and threatened me.  I was terrified and his threat was enough to convince mother that it wasn't a safe place to let your children stay (never mind that they were drunk and screaming at each other the last time they had babysit us).

I was always an expressive child and would speak up if I thought something was wrong, though they almost never listened.

Now I am trying my hardest to remember the first aunts husband ("Uncle John") that I wrote about in the beginning. I have a very clear memory of me standing naked in the bathroom after I just had gotten up from the bath and the aunt handing me a towel while screaming about what a horrible child I was. I wonder what had happened before then.

Every time I try and vent this to someone they warn me about false memories and this makes me even more insecure about what I remember.  Is there any way that you could unlock them without paying charlatans for one hour of hypnosis? I feel like I want to know, it's very unsettling to not have the whole picture.

[Dee]

Hurtbeat,

I didn't read your entire thread, so I'm sorry if I missed something important.  I just don't want to be triggered right now.  However, I do want to talk about unlocking memories and false memories.

I don't really believe in false memories.  I just don't see how that could happen.  I do believe we can remember them a little differently than the way they happened, but not in a way that really changes the overall truth.  I think we remember things a little differently due to age and emotional state.  It doesn't really matter to me, it isn't the details that count, it is that something happened.  Perhaps if someone told you what happened and then you believe them it could be false, but this isn't what you are doing.

As far as unlocking memories.  It has been suggested to me that things may have happened before I can remember and that just because I don't remember doesn't mean it didn't occur.  Given what I do remember I am starting to believe that it is likely I have repressed some.  Yet, if and when I am ready the memories will come.  Maybe I just don't want to remember or maybe it is too painful, yet I feel like I don't need the memories to treat them.  I don't want to force things before I am ready.

I understand you want the whole picture, but maybe you have it?  In your heart you know, you just don't have the painful details?  Don't rush it, it sounds like it is coming at a pace that can be tolerated.  Go with your heart.  Perhaps others will feel differently, this is just where I am today.

[Three Roses]

I agree with Dee, she's really given you some great insight.

I think false memory syndrome, IF it exists, is rare. Statistically, trauma survivors have more of a tendency to minimize and discount their experiences, rather than make things up. It has certainly been my experience that the memories I used to push back down were, indeed, true and more extensive than I remembered until relatively recently.

[hurtbeat]

Thanks for answering!
And sorry for the triggers <3

There has been a lot of talk about false memories here in Sweden where I live but it is mostly connected to people with schizophrenia and/ or psychosis who happened to fall into the hands of psychologists who were asking them leading questions.
This resulted in them going to jail for crimes that they probably never committed.

For me my memories are different, some things I just "know" because I remember coming to conclusions about how things worked in our family.
And some memories are like "movies".

When I try to picture what could have happened I just get more confused.
It could be that the worst trauma for me was the aunt screaming and not anything before it.
It's hard to differentiate between feelings and thoughts from present day and past days, maybe I am mixing things up because of this new information?

I dunno.. I'm confused.

[Dee]

Flashbacks often are a lot like movies.  So for a moment try not to think with your head.  Survivors are great at rationalizing and analyzing.  Try to think with your heart.  What does your gut tell you?  I admit this is hard for me to do.

Lately I have been dealing with things that I didn't forget, but didn't remember.  Does this make any sense to you?  It was always there, but I didn't recall it.

[hurtbeat]

Yeah, kind of!

I came to think of a few scenarios when my sister talked to me about her memories of that uncle but I feel a little bit insecure if I just imagined it because she was talking about it or if it was actual memories.

I know I remember things wrong some times.
My mother used to confuse me about my memories when I confronted her and I know I still have a problem with my memory today, some times things get mixed up which I usually realize later.

I tried talking to my sister about it because she remembered feeling uncomfortable but when I talked to her again she just brushed it away like it was probably nothing.

[lisbeth]

amongst other things I'm an artist and I did a collage about my abuse (got a few more to do) I got images off the web that I associated with the abuse after making a list of things that reminded me of that time and made me feel uncomfortable - as I pasted the collage together I found myself remembering and after I coloured it in to turn it into something better than the bad memories.  Things really flowed for me and it might work for others.

[Blackbird]

No respectful expert accepts "false memories". There is no such thing. There can be delusions, where one believes they were abused when they weren't, but it's extremelly rare, usually the person was actually abused. Sometimes not to the extent they thought, but enough to give trauma, hence the memories coming back.

I stumbled upon a site yesterday explaining the reasons behind the so called false memory syndrome, and it began with laywers trying to prove the innocence of abusers, so that should tell you something. Here it is: http://www.screamsfromchildhood.com/hoax_false_memory.html

Unfortunately, due to all the stigma surrounding mental health, we are still not believed and the idea that we can have false memories is still very present and widespread through the media, because god forbid people actually assume we were actually abused as children, and how often it does in fact happen.

As far as memories go, our imaginations do play a part, but not that big of a part as once thought. We can skew a bit timelines and confabulate a bit around that, but if a memory is present than it happened.

Then there's the psychological aspect. What really matters is how your life is now, in adulthood, and the devastation or not your childhood caused you. That is enough to warrant years of therapy, and a CPTSD diagnosis if in fact the diagnoses manuals accepted it as an entity as the experts do.

[Dee]

My question lately has been if you forget, but not really forget, then remember and can't stop thinking about it, is it a recovered memory?  For example, I was looking at picture of when I was 20 the other day.  I ran across one with me doing an activity and then I remembered that night.  I didn't forget the event, but I didn't remember either.  I don't know how to explain it.  I am unsure if it was repressed or I just didn't think about it.

Might be the subject of therapy today.

[Blueberry]

I posted this on another thread, but don't want to link it, made a few minor changes anyway. This part of my post down below is on unlocking memories, and also on 'suggested memories' and how they felt.

Unfortunately for me, I never forgot most of the sexual abuse, but from what I've heard among other survivors that's unusual. I did have memories all through childhood / adolescence that disappeared when I was a young adult and then re-surfaced when I started intensive therapy. They were most definitely not 'false memories'.

A long time ago, one T pretty forcefully suggested that FOO might have done this or that to me (1 instance of physical abuse, 1 of emotional). This T really believed her own intuition here. There was zero resonance for me. No memories have ever come up of what she suggested. Also I have sometimes dreamt instances of physical abuse that never took place. I know this definitely because I would have died 10 times over. No way could you survive those injuries with no scars, the way I am. I think they were a graphic representation of the emotional abuse that FOO did to me. I'm describing all this to show that there are tangible differences between my own real memories (even if tucked away for a while), my dreams/nightmares and ideas suggested to me. Though I do know of CSA survivors whose suppressed memories have resurfaced in dreams, so I'm not discounting it. Just saying, I learnt to trust my own feelings, and probably most of us can.

[sigiriuk]

Hi Hurtbeat
I do not like flashbacks and often wonder whether they are real too. A Psychiatrist explained to me this simple truth (to me, anyway):

There is a "narrative" and there are "processes". The narrative is the flashbacks and memories.

The processes are how we coped, and continue to cope.

As survivors we naturally get caught up in the narrative because it is so distressing, and grabs our attention. We could spend a lifetime on the narrative and we will always wonder "What else is there to remember?".

But working with the processes is our road of healing.

Please look after yourself.

S

[Lingurine]

This keeps me busy too. I thought there was no such thing as memories popping up, until I had some recently. It shocked and scared me. There is no way that we can know exactly what happened because when you're a little kid you can't permit yourself to feel or react to it, like an adult would. So naturally you have to suppress memories that are life threatening. Now, as adults, we know something is so wrong and that alone for me is enough to not want to know the whole truth.

Lingurine