Remembering

[Chaos rains]

I started this journey sure that I had no repressed memories. I still don't think I really do. But one the other hand, I don't actually remember much of my childhood, which seems like that might be a red flag? I asked my therapist about it and she told me that I *should* remember my childhood. She asked me, who was your fourth grade teacher? Ok, I have no idea. But I kind of remember other grades. In third grade there was nice lay teacher (Catholic school), but I don't recall her name. I have vague recollection of the nuns in 1st and 2nd. 5th and 7th, I don't know. 6th and 8th, i think I do recall the nuns that taught those grades. So, yeah, red flags indeed.

Do you all remember who your teachers were?

Lately there has been this image flitting around in my brain. My mother grabbing me by the shoulders and pushing me between her and something/someone that was coming at her. I think it might have involved alcohol and might have been all in fun. I was, maybe, 9 or 10,maybe younger or maybe older. I recall something like being startled and confused. For one, she was touching me. Her touch repulses me, but I don't know when that started, or why really. I have no memories of her touching me in a kind or caring way. On a rare occasion I got slapped for being mouthy, but that was about it.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I've been comfortable with not remembering much of my childhood for so long, and it makes me nervous to have these little flashes of remembering. It's not like I'm suddenly remembering something that happened as much as I remember *remembering* something. Something I used to think about when I was younger. Something I'd rather not revisit.

Is this part of healing? We don't really have to remember things...do we? Do I really have to think about why my mother would reflexively put me between her and something dangerous, or even something pretending to be dangerous? Why am suddenly thinking about this, and why do I even care? Rhetorical questions, of course. It's been a long winter for me.

[woodsgnome]

Here's how memory seems to work for me.

For beginners, on the whole my memory has proven to be pretty sharp, quite thorough (often to my chagrin; who'd want to ever remember?). I can recall the names of all the teachers, most of whom I consider awful, all of them abusive in one way or another, for 13 years of private schools..

Ah, but there's also huge gaps. While I recall the 3rd grade teacher's name an much of her usual over-the-top demeanour, there is a HUGE gap of what seems to have been 'something significant' that I rather hope never does reappear. Though this teacher left the school at the end of my 3rd grade year, she returned one day during the 4th and ... while many kids were excited to see her, I felt extremely uneasy. As, interestingly, was she. I recall a scared sort of stare when she would even idly gaze my way; eventually just avoiding me entirely; and I did the same. Something awful is all I can surmise -- still lurking, but I fervently hope the precise memory will not resurface.

While I've wondered, in some trepidation, if whatever was hidden in the background would flit back into memory, it never has, and I rather hope it never does.

There are some other gaps of that kind, but that one is noticeable. So it seems the memory game can play all sorts of tricks. Yet, in my case, the general insights from the gaps do tend to merge with those that are almost crystal clear, and I really never want to know; just choose to work (if needed) with the other intense abusive memories still mostly intact. Several (too many) took place during my adult years as well.

Sometimes when others bring up certain themes, even in idle conversation, I  find myself easily dissociating. One time this happened during a therapy session, for which I apologized to my T and she reminded me -- it's perfectly normal, and ok, to experience this.

I, too, have concluded that the patterns, even when the details aren't apparently fully recalled, speak to where we might indeed need healing. Most of those 'why' questions are often elusive. After all, we're talking abuse that was senseless to begin with.

There's variety in how each of us respond, and how or when our memories play a role. For me, the best part isn't remembering every detail, but growing beyond what I do know and continuing along the path that seems optimal for me now. The past is still, last I checked, stretching further and further behind me, taking all the 'whys' with it. Now, finally, a new horizon of peace-making with my past is finally emerging. I hope it does for you as well.

[Armee]

I found it hard to understand what normal memory is like.

Something that helped me know it was more than just poor memory was that I remember the outside...neighborhood...and things I'd do outside my house before the age of 5. Don't remember anything about the actual house, the inside, or things that happened there. Also other things were that when I looked at photos I recognized where I was if I was in other people's homes but not my own home...I didn't recognize my own home or bedrooms even as a teen.

Trust yourself. 
 

[NarcKiddo]

I, too, wonder about memories and what I have repressed.

I am not really sure about the grade system. I remember the names of my class teachers from age 7 onwards. I remember vaguely what the age 7 and 8 teachers looked like and I have quite definite memories about the age 9 one because he was very fierce and scary, although he was always perfectly nice to me.

My father was posted overseas when I was probably aged around 2. We were due to be coming home again when I was turning 6 but had to leave in a hurry a few months early because war was about to break out. My life went to absolute  when we came home. My memories pretty much start from then.

However, I am not at all sure how good my life was before my memories start. I don't have a total blank, and I am not really sure when memories generally start. I remember some people from that time and I remember our cat. I do not remember anything about my nursery school. I remember the garden in which I used to play alone. I don't remember any other children, though I must have known some because my mother used to lay on elaborate birthday parties and there are photos of me in fancy dress.

I'm interested how Armee does not remember the home but remembers places outside. I don't remember much of the home but I remember even less of the caregivers I had and that is what strikes me the most. I remember a particular priest who came to the house and was nice to me. I remember the maid. I remember seeing my sister in the hospital nursery just after she was born. I do not remember my nanny at all, up until the sudden journey home. I barely remember my father but I do remember him as a person and what he looked like. I don't remember my mother. I don't remember what she looked like. I know, of course. I have seen photos. I have one memory of her - out at sea, water ski-ing, and falling. She was far away and I cried when she fell. I don't remember the sound of her voice. I remember some sort of presence, and it is not a good memory, because it surrounds her repeated confiscation of my pacifier before bed when I was around 4. It would be taken from me because I was too old for it, I would panic and cry, she would throw it in my waste basket from whence I would retrieve it when she had gone and hide it under my pillow. Rinse, repeat.

I've discussed this a bit with my therapist - particularly whether it is a good or bad idea to try to remember more. She said I would just have to be guided by feelings that might come up, and advised me to tread carefully. I did spend some time looking at old photos, and looking up old press articles about that time. This did not generate any more memories but it didn't really generate anything at all. I did not get any sense that what I was doing may be good, or dangerous. What I do not remember seems to be firmly shut off from me.

What is happening quite a lot now, though, is that I am getting feelings around current events that feel like old feelings. When, for instance, my mother behaves badly towards someone else the disdain and disgust she displays hurts me in a personal way as well as on their behalf. If these feelings are emotional memories then it may be a good thing I don't have specific memories. The ones I have from age 6 onwards are bad enough.

I don't think we have to remember things specifically. I do, however, think that our mind brings things up for processing when we are ready to do so (even if we don't consciously feel ready or desirous). I've been working through the feelings I have been getting with my therapist. We are taking the approach that it is an opportunity for adult me to reassure the rest of me that those are old feelings. What she did then to hurt me as a defenceless child she can no longer do. Of course my logical brain knows this, but without doing some level of processing the emotions my emotional brain simply cannot accept I am an adult with agency.

I'm interested to read that your mother's touch repulses you, Chaos rains. Mine does, too. I am even revolted by the thought that I had to spend 9 months gestating inside her. Even more revolted by the notion that part of my genetic material was inside her for her entire life until I was born, and inside my grandmother, too, for a while, since eggs develop in the foetus. Ugh. I also do not have memories of being touched in a kind or caring way, although she would claim otherwise. But I know I repulsed her as a baby because she has said as much.

[Armee]

Wow I held my breath the entire time reading your reply NK. I don't know why. Maybe it stressed me out to just think about you having to remember your childhood! 

I wanted to add after reading I realized i didnt answer specific questions. I vaguely remember my kindergarten teacher and her classroom set up. Like almost but not quite remember what she looks like...I think black curly hair and that her name was hard to pronounce and had a Q in it. And just the spatial arrangement of her room. I remember 1st grade (6/7) where I sat and that the teacher would write my name on the board for talking and keep me in at recess for penmanship. But I don't remember the teacher at all. I remember the spatial feel of where in space my second grade classroom was but not the teacher though I do remember her saying 2 things to me...1 about my mom and stepdad divorcing and 1 about us moving. I remember my third grade teacher...ms Esperanza with curly blonde hair who's husband drove a truck for the company Yellow and she had candy with that logo on it that she would give us. I don't remember anything else from the classroom except that kids teased me for wearing clothes my grandma sewed me. I loved those clothes and I told off one of them by saying Espirit jeans were going out of style. Fourth grade I do not remember at all. Fifth grade I moved to a new school. I remember the spatial orientation of the classroom and sitting in the back drawing instead of learning. Not the teacher but I start to have memories of friends. Starting 6th grade I remember more teachers.

I also didn't talk about touch. I was repulsed by my mom as well. Touch absolutely disgusted by but also disgusted...repelled by seeing her belongings. And the worse was her looking at me. Even as an adult when she was an old dying woman. This is not attachment but anti-attachment.

My sister is the same. One year as adult our mom gave us each a pair of nice flannel pajamas. I learned later my sister had the same reaction as me. We tried to wear them, got all disgusted, took them off and threw them away immediately. What the h?
 

[Blueberry]

Fascinating question and responses, though sad obviously too.

Chaos rains, I personally would interpret that 'should' from your T as meaning people would generally remember their childhood if they hadn't had a reason to repress it. You had a reason though.

I see myself and childhood memories closest in woodsgnome's post, though there are differences too. One reason why I have such clear memories of my childhood is the amount of intellectual, logical-thinking stuff that went on in FOO. I had to be able to prove things, almost like in a court of law, and for that I needed to be able to retain memories. Even far into my therapeutic/recovery journey I held onto all the details I could because that was safest in my way of thinking. Based on that, I imagine that how exactly and in what detail and number we retain memories might depend on what we discover we need to do to survive our childhood and then that pattern gets ingrained. Another aspect which I always thought helped me keep structured of when this and that happened was that we moved a number of times in my childhood including when I was 3yo and I have memories of before that move. Though now I would say more - I can remember sitting there as an older child remembering those memories. But also as an adult in my 30's or 40's I asked my M about a few inconsequential, harmless little snatches of memories - where were we? did that happen? And she was able to say "Yes! That was when... with family friends... in year..." And I'd only been 2yo. Having shared that memory and having it recognised in FOO and placed in context, I no longer have the picture and non-verbalised sensations of that happy-in-the-moment 2yo.

In my first and long inpatient stay, I said to other patients who had a lot of repressed stuff - "I never forgot anything!" They were shocked, partly because of the load I was apparently carrying. I never forgot the CSA - it took me a long time to realise that it gets that label - but what was done - I never forgot. Always present in my memories. Didn't forget the physical abuse and retained quite enough of the emotional/psychological/verbal abuse though fortunately not every single instance. I used to wonder and also fear what all else might come up... It turned out that I did have repressed memories though. Hearing others talk very vaguely about CSA, something floated back up to the surface in my memory and I knew - and wrote it later that day - not the first time I've had this memory. Often what has come back up in therapy since then was a realisation of the harm that was done, a realisation of how awful it all was for me at the time it was done. My memory for actions, events was good to very good but as a child I disconnected the emotions in order to survive. I guess that disconnect is pretty common in trauma for those of you on here who don't remember much of their childhood at all, there was maybe no overwhelming reason to recall even stuff like teachers' names, landscape, house, furniture, neighbours, garden, siblings' major events, playschool friends, birthday parties, trips to the zoo etc. [I feel like I now have to excuse myself for having had birthday parties as a child whereas others probably didn't at all. Just leaving that there.]

I also feel repulsed at the thought of my M's touch. She did the CSA, so it's not surprising. But the repulse didn't come till somewhere during my recovery journey and/or I have no recollection of being repulsed as a child/teen. It's possible I froze my body so much I didn't notice the repulsion even though it happened for brief seconds and got automatically repressed by some part of me. Or it could be that I couldn't survive in my FOO and have the repulsion so the feelings of repulsion didn't come till during therapy/healing/recovery journey.

[Little2Nothing]

Chaos Rains, I don't remember a lot about my childhood. The things that stick with me are the traumatic events. Even then it is just snippets and not fully connected events. I have often wondered if it is a blessing to not remember much. What I do remember brings sadness and pain. I may be wrong, but I think our brains protect us from a cascade of memories. 

[Chaos rains]

Oh my gosh, these responses!! I've been away for a couple of days, I'll respond this weekend. So much to think about. Thank you, All! More soon.

[Chaos rains]

I feel like my memories are about in line with all of yours, which helps me feel reassured. I guess I don't actually care what we "should" remember, or more like, as you say, Blueberry, what I might remember if I had no reason to repress anything. I was quite seriously ill for a year when I was 7 years old, and my entire life is divided at that point. I remember almost nothing before that, and a little more after. But everything changed, for a lot of reasons. They were the sort of things that an actual functioning mother would help a child with, which obviously did not happen.

What does surprise me, no idea why it does because it makes sense, is the general repulsion we all have to our mothers' touch. Mine has a lot to do with her boundary stomping and general attitude that I was more of an object than a person, along with the gaslighting, etc. She is the hardest, coldest person I've ever met. All sharp angles, no softness whatsoever. For someone who appeared to despise me, she certainly wanted total control over me.  And she invaded every aspect of my life until I finally realized that I have agency and could walk away from it.

I appreciate all of these responses so much. I am ok with not remembering much. Sometimes I feel a little scared that a repressed memory will emerge and devastate me, but I honestly think that's my anxiety looking for something to latch onto. I've been know to worry about really unlikely problems during times that I'm doing well. I joke that I'm "running low on things to worry about." I know it's not a joke, but it helps me calm down.

Thank you all for your wonderful perspectives and really, really interesting observations. 

[GoSlash27]

Chaos Rains,
 
 My childhood memories are several different categories of faulty.
 I have repressed memories (holes), many of which are apparently innocuous and I have no idea why I repressed them in the first place.
 I have "scrambled" memories; incoherent data, like someone took a magnet to my hard drive. Dates out of order, incorrect locations, etc.
 I have memories that are traumatic.
 I have memories that *should* be traumatic but aren't because I dissociated them (like they happened to someone else and I merely saw them happen).
 And finally I have completely normal and innocuous memories, randomly dispersed.

 The only teacher I remember clearly is my 2nd grade teacher. All the rest of them are a blur; nameless faces. You could put me under duress and I wouldn't be able to name a single teacher other than her.

 My most upsetting emotional responses have come from trying to reconstruct the scrambled memories. If I focus really hard for a few days and have some help I can eventually recall a repressed memory. I cry about it a few times and then it has no power; just another thing that happened. But the *scrambled* memories are dangerous. My subconscious REALLY doesn't like me poking around there. 

 I don't know how much of this stuff I even need to recall or if it's better left alone.

 Hope you're doing well this Sunday,
-Slashy

[Kizzie]

I'm quite torn at the moment between thinking we do need to remember and fill in the holes so there is a sense of coherence to our lives and an understanding about why we are the way we are, and not digging it all up because at my age (67) I'm just tired of the trauma.  I want to move forward and live without all of it hanging over me but I'm not sure I can do that.  It just seems appealing not to do any more looking backward, especially to areas of my life I don't have great recall.  I can't remember my teachers BTW, but I feel like at 67 that's OK.

Not a definitive answer I know Chaos but thought I'd chime in as someone who also wonders about remembering.

[Papa Coco]

I share in the frustration of suddenly seeing new memories that I can't place. Not knowing why I forgot something used to drive me crazy. Not knowing how to chronologically recall it used to be soooooo frustrating. For me, I was trying to prove to my cognitive brain that it was real and that it had a reason for happening.

The disorganized state of our scattered memories is probably pretty normal. Trauma does that to us. We are normal people who deal with abnormal situations.  According to the experts who write the books like The Body Keeps the Score, having this disorganized fragmentation of disconnected memories that come and go and hide and surprise us is very common. Somehow our brains file the memories by impact rather than chronology. And a lot of what we've been through was so catastrophically beyond our ability to comprehend while it was happening that the chronology is far less important than the impact. We remember the feelings more than the story line. Some trauma therapists teach that that's okay. Remembering how it felt and how it triggers us today is what's important.

In The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk teaches that story lines and chronology are not accurate in even the healthiest of brains. Police know that the more often they make a witness recall a recent event, the more inaccurate their stories become. Our brains really aren't tape recorders. We remember things based on how we experienced them. For example, to the fear that people are having memories planted in their minds by therapists, he says that when the body remembers the feelings, those memories are 100% real. When the brain remembers something based on its details, but the body doesn't feel it, those memories aren't as sure a thing.  For many of us, we recall trauma events because our bodies remember them before our brains do. We smell or feel or taste something.

My own personal memories about my CSA are filled with the aroma of the linen of a man's clothing, the pressure of his body weight, seeing the thick black hair all over his body and feeling the unusually high temperature of his body on mine. For some reason I know it was Holiday season and I was 7. On some days I recall words he said to me. Threats. Then the next day I don't remember any words spoken. those memories continue to flicker in and out for me. But not the body temp, thick hair or smell of his linen. I don't know the exact date. I don't know why I was in his control. I don't remember anything except feeling the abuse. I've come to accept that as okay. My brain memories aren't as important to me anymore now that I've accepted that it happened. I don't know for sure when or why or how he got me alone. But trusting that my body has kept that score for my brain has become okay with me. It took a while for me to accept this. The memories still haunt, but the anxiety of wishing I knew why, how and where it all happened have finally dropped away. I think that, for me, I was trying to put the story together so that I could believe it to be true and could talk about it without feeling like I was making it up.

Accepting that it just simply happened and that I deserve healing for it, is what's truly important to me now.

I guess my point is that healing is possible without recalling everything with cognitive accuracy. How it felt, how we reacted, and how it triggers us today is really where the healing is.

Would I like to know what really happened, and why? Yes. But only to satisfy my curiosity now. I want to know, but thanks to the books and to my therapist, I no longer feel like I need to know.