A breakthrough this eve -- Memory came back!

[JayDubs]

Wahoo!!  This actually feels kind of good.  Many years ago I spent a couple of years steadily in AA and did get some benefit out of it.   Have issues with it as well but that isn't for the here and now.  About 4/5 years ago I went and jumped into therapy.   Looking back I think I was really lucky with the first T I picked.  I had no idea what direction she was going to take..she was close I think.  We went into EMDR sessions.  Plus some other stuff.   Also did a 'group' therapy/experience that was interesting and a little too dangerous for my liking.

Anyway...to much backfill.  I watched a video this evening of a newscaster going unhinged 'off' camera.  It triggered me a little with the anger being displayed.  I caught that...moved on. Then I watched this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk6Atmbp6p0&feature=youtu.be with this lady talking about cpstd.  Then it hit me.  Memories that never came up all the times before and memories that have impacted my career terribly.  I am so excited!    A fairly common occurrence that went on between the ages of 8 and probably 12/13.   Definitely not the worst thing that happened, but maybe the most impactful.  OMG!  How did I miss this all this time?  Probably the most influential with teaching me the disastrous consequences of failure, never to ask for help, etc.

Never hurts to keep digging.  Maybe a little serendipity will come your way!

[AphoticAtramentous]

Glad to hear it, JayDubs. It's nice to be able to 'dig' and find things you felt lost about before. I hope these memories will help you in your healing process. ^^

[JayDubs]

Thanks.  I surely wasn't doing myself any favors by not remembering them.    This is huge and it was repetitive.  A nice way to put this would be...young kid asks for help with homework...then receives a lot of  which escalates into  and the young kid is now     How have I missed this for so long?   Rhetorical question of course.

[Three Roses]

sometimes doing this kind of work on your own can cause retraumatization, that's what happened to me. i hope you have the help of a therapist if you're going to "go after" more memories. but yay that you've found some memories and are feeling good about it. 

[JayDubs]

Great points..Looking to get back into therapy and will soon.  Honestly wasn't digging for anything.  It just came at me.  I feel good about it because it makes 'sense' concerning some repetitive/cyclic issues I have had.   I am still dumbfounded that I missed it when it was sitting in front of me the whole time.   Is there such a thing as semi-repressed?   Thinking maybe I should hold off on looking at it further now that you bring it up.  For now that is. 

[Three Roses]

yes, there are all different types of memories and varying degrees of "suppression", from what i understand. i myself mis-remembered something pretty huge, which i now see as an attempt to explain away the circumstances of that event. so now the timeline, how old i actually was, and all the other surrounding memories are intact. I also had a completely "forgotten" event pop up, looking back it was fascinating how it sort of fleshed itself out & how i kind of watched it be uncovered. i can't explain without paragraphs and paragraphs, so i'll spare you. but it was fascinating. Like i said, i did this on my own, using the exercises in a book that had no warning about doing this alone, without therapy. that lead me down a rabbit hole that i'm just now crawling out of.

[JayDubs]

"can't explain without paragraphs and paragraphs, so i'll spare you"

Un-spare me sometime! 

[Three Roses]

Ok, I'll give it a go. But I should warn you I'm a visual thinker and can't always translate ideas into language!

Looking back, decades ago, I can see where the foggiest little smudge of a memory would start to emerge, but I would push it away mentally. This happened involuntarily. I wouldn't say to myself, "I don't want to remember that," but it would come and go without a full recollection. I would just think of it as one of the many events from the past that you get sort of reminded of on a daily basis. Still, there was something different about this memory in retrospect.

Fast forward to about 3 years ago: I was reading a book, and decided I'd do the exercises in it without benefit of a therapist, and unwittingly re awakened many repressed memories. So I was dealing with all that (not advisable, by the way - you need a guide for recovering memories but I only know that now) when this same smudge of a memory reappeared. My brain went to shoving it away again, but this time my conscious mind took hold of it the way a grown up would say to a child, "What do you have there?"

As I "looked" at the fragment, I wondered at its meaning, recognizing I'd thought of it many times before but never examined it fully. As I consciously thought, "I want to remember this", the smudge started to flesh itself in, much like those pages you can buy that you brush with a paintbrush dipped in plain water and a picture appears on the page. If you don't know what I mean, this will give you an idea - https://youtu.be/2rvpVrYJ9eE

Slowly, a still picture formed. I was standing in a living room, and slowly the people who were with me were revealed as they kind of "filled in". I recognized this was an actual occurrence, a real memory, and just allowed my mind to do as it pleased. I didn't try to force anything, but I felt curious, brave, and capable, and just let things happen.

One of the people in my completed new "picture" appeared to be talking to someone. When I focused on that, the still picture came to life, and I watched the scene play out before me. I felt the feelings vividly, and I even think I can remember the moment my brain decided "Nope! This goes in the basement."

It's a very unpleasant memory and that's all I want to say about it at the moment.

So, after all that and more, I decided to look into things more deeply and discovered the complex version of PTSD, which I was diagnosed with in 2012 but never knew about CPTSD. Found this forum, learned a bunch, decided to go to therapy, which was very helpful but could only go so far, it not being trauma-informed therapy which is what I need. I don't have a problem with my beliefs about myself which is what that therapy (gestalt) was about. Gestalt therapy would be very helpful to anyone who wanted to explore and correct their core beliefs about themselves.

I'm not sure if I've remembered everything now or not, but I've remembered enough and I've felt validated by my therapist and this forum that, yes, those events were bad enough to cause trauma.

If you have more questions I'll do my best to answer.

[JayDubs]

I am out at the moment so this will be short.   

Lovely sharing!   Someday I hope have a piece of that gift.   I too am a visual thinker...and understand the need to explain at times.   


Thank you!