Recovering Memories?

[RanOnEmpty]

So, I'm familiar with emotional flashbacks, reliving memories, and of course the occasional fragmentary recovered memory.

But I've seen many references to recovered memories around here, and I'm wondering: is it common to recover a large number of memories, or long stretches of time? There are very long periods of my childhood that are a total blank -does that mean I have a lot of trauma to relive? 

[AphoticAtramentous]

Some people recover memories, some don't. For some, it's a part of their journey towards healing. But for others it's not so necessary.

Regaining memories though is a practice one should usually only do in a safe environment, i.e. therapy. I tried doing it on my own once, didn't end well. But doing it with a therapist helps to tackle those memories as they come up. Think of it as like... Your mind is a cupboard of clutter, and when you open the cupboard door, stuff falls out. On your own, things fall to the floor, there's broken stuff and a mess... But with a therapist, they can catch things before they fall to the floor - they can help you manage and understand those memories, without them being overwhelming.

Regaining memories doesn't have to be traumatic at all. For some it can be very validating or relieving, but it does need some care.

Regards,
Aphotic.

[Armee]

Ive "recovered" memories but they are fragments of events not long stretches or even complete stretches and never ever all at once. Piece by tiny fragmentatary piece. Over years

[Desert Flower]

I do have large stretches of time I don't remember and I wonder what's up with that too. And I will certainly not go there alone (I'm scared to), but maybe with my therapist (who turned out capable of handling things I didn't think I or she could in my first therapy session) I might start looking what's there.

[Denverite]

So far in my recovery work I've only gotten fragmentary memories not long stretches of time back.

[Papa Coco]

I've been recovering memories in small doses since I was 19. I'm 64 now. I still have blank spots.

Lately I've been practicing the art of letting go of emotional baggage. The concept, as is taught in Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender, is that memories don't hurt. Thoughts don't hurt. It's emotions that hurt. We attach emotions to memories, and when the memories come up, the emotion that we've attached to it, (fear, guilt, shame, remorse), is what causes us to squirm and lose sleep.

So, what I've been doing as of the past few weeks, is when a thought or memory causes me pain, I stop what I'm doing, close my eyes, and allow myself to feel the emotion. The trick is to NOT use any words or thoughts to stop the emotion, but to let it breathe. I've been doing it for a few weeks and as of yesterday, I've started seeing images of things I'm still too afraid to pursue.

The author, David Hawkins, teaches that one emotion can hold a million memories. So, when I allow an emotion of fear or regret or shame or guilt run its course, unimpeded by me trying to control or stop it in any way, all the memories that I've attached to that emotion start opening up to me. I make connections with things that I had never before considered to be connected. But they are connected, bonded by the glue of that one emotion. Dissolve the glue, and the memories are freed to come out of hiding. Memories start pouring out of a single emotion like a dozen clowns coming out of a tiny car.

I don't know if this is helpful for you, but for me, allowing the memories to come out while letting go of the emotions that cause the pain, is working. Incidentally, I have been listening to this book on Audible almost daily for several weeks. As a retired adult educator, I know that adults retain 15% of what they're taught, so if I listen to the book 8 times, I should pretty much retain most of it. Each time I listen to it, I get better at learning how to release emotions, and watch lost memories start to emerge.

I often have to release one emotion multiple times, but I quickly notice that each time I release it, it's less painful than the time before it. The author even said that this is a good thing to practice for a few months, and the results will be amazing to me. I'm starting to see that he is right about that. The beautiful thing about learning that emotions hold the pain, is that as I'm releasing the emotions more and more each day, the memories I'm starting to access aren't as painful as they were when I was trying to access memories without first addressing the emotion.

I think Hawkins might be right: Without emotional pain, memories don't really hurt anymore.

Last night, while releasing a big blob of lifelong fear/shame of being a total loser at everything I do, I saw my dad's face and it added to the pain that I was releasing. I admit that I broke protocol and stopped the exercise because I still felt too much fear over what my dad's face was doing in my earliest fear/shame emotions. That's okay. The beautiful thing is that I still have ultimate control. If the pain is too great, I just open my eyes and stop the exercise. My plan now is to simply run the exercise again the next time that same blob of fear/shame hits me, and I assume that as I let go of more of the emotion of that specific fear, that I will receive more of the vision of my dad. A day will come, when I've done this a few more times, that whatever memory is too attached to the emotion of fear is no longer attached to it, that I will see the rest of the vision and recover the rest of the memory.

I believe that our memories don't vanish. They hide. And they hide to protect us from the emotions of fear that are too great for our little brains to deal with. Release the fear/shame, and the memory no longer hurts. It's free to come out of hiding and let us view it.