neutral to good memories

[Blueberry]

Over the past little while I've had neutral to good memories returning. It's often just a little flash of a memory and usually about innocuous things like nature. I have had visual memories of nature/natural world return before this, but now there's more to the memory, like maybe the sound of twigs snapping or a feel for the whole situation like the cool autumn air on my skin (which is certainly not here atm!) or a quick scent from the undergrowth. It's from places in my childhood, where I haven't lived for years.

That feels like progress because multiple sensations are returning in connection to individual memories. I lost good memories a few decades ago when FOO told me I needed to forget the past. I could only do that by blocking all memories, not by just blocking the bad ones.

[DD]

I had a similar thing. I blocked out my childhood completely for a while. When the dam broke and stuff came through, eventually the good abd neutral stuff started to return too. Like I used to study japanese as a child. Or saxophone as a teenager.

It is a strange thing but good. I feel less rootless and more grounded. It has clearly strengthened my identity and helped me to less question my existence (or right to it).

So much bad stuff has come up, I'm really happy some good stuff comes too. My T asked me to weite a lifeline in a way where I draw a line in the middle of the paper. Below that come the bad stuff and above that the good stuff. I noticed that even when things were really bad, they weren't all bad. There has always been some good to help me survive.

[Kizzie]

Great thread BB and DD, it's always so interesting to me how members experience progress in recovery. I feel like the small snipets you are beginning to feel will turn into bigger ones.    to that!

[storyworld]

That's awesome that you're remembering some good stuff! That must feel encouraging and ... comforting?

[DD]

For me I feel less adrift now. Not all of it is good, but having more of my life back kind of feels I have a past, and roots, and it helps me stay better focused on who I am, what I need, and all that.

[StartingHealing]

I've recently have had the same thing happen to me.  Memories coming back of mainly good things and it does help in keeping me focused on self care. 

Wishing you all the best

[Blueberry]

That's awesome that you're remembering some good stuff! That must feel encouraging and ... comforting?

I'm not very good at feeling at pinpointing emotions, so I'd just say it feels nice because at least it does not feel overwhelming, frightening, frustrating     and they are feelings I can hold w/o running to the fridge, doing SH etc

I wrote in my initial post that I blocked "all" memories. That was a bit of an exaggeration. It felt that way, but that would have made me into a zombie for a while (I suppose). It was more that I blocked the clarity and colourfulness of a whole lot of good stuff, especially the natural world in one of the countries I grew up in - those blue, blue skies e.g. and I realise now the sounds I wrote about above. Being out in the natural world so long as it's fairly safe is a place of resiliency for me so it's good those memories are coming back. I also think it is very unlikely I will ever go back to that particular country, so it's nice that memories are coming back which I can access whenever I want within me.

One of the things I learnt in psycho-educative trauma T is that the thing with traumatic memories is that the different aspects to the memory - the visuals, sounds, smells, sensations, touch, the story-line etc - they all get kind of blasted to smithereens and go flying all over the place and so they're not stored in one place. Part of the objective of trauma T is to bring them back together, bit by bit like puzzle pieces if need be, which supposedly makes us less reactive, less triggered. So to me it sounds like a good thing intellectually-speaking that what seem to be innocuous memories or even good memories are coming back with additional aspects like sound or smell or more colour. Who knows? Maybe this is a necessary stage in my journey before my brain can bring different aspects of bad memories back together? Maybe it's giving me a kind of resiliency before going into 'bad' stuff? When I come to think of it, I am possibly on the cusp of something. That tends to be the case when things are difficult - going back to bed, eating as if there's no tomorrow, avoiding stuff etc

[storyworld]

That is interesting. I have also noticed recently I'm remembering more pleasant things, like just recently I thought of a time during which I spent at a friend's house. And caught my hair on fire, which would seem like a not-good memory, but we found it hilarious! (And it was just a little singe. I like your question re resiliency. That's something I'm working on, too.