Do You Avoid Willingly Accessing And 'Thinking Across' Fragmented Traumatic Memory?

[Lisa]

I'm just wondering if anybody else finds that they can't 'think across' their trauma? A 'this then that happened' knowledge that amounts to being able to automatically 'know' in shortlisted version? Only being able to think in singular fragments of the trauma? I'm just curious to see if anybody else is similar to me in this respect...

To be clearer about what I mean, I'll give an example: A few years back, I was asked if I had ever been abused in the past and I couldn't answer the question. I couldn't hold all my memories in one place to search across to them to equate an answer. They were all in pieces and I could only hold one at a time. And I found even that difficult. If the question was 'Did X [abusers name] murder you and are you now dead?' I'd have still been unable to answer. Not on the basis of memory anyway - I would have just checked out if at that moment I was alive, and answered it that way instead. I just notice that if I get unexpected specific questions about abuse thrown at me, I suddenly find I can't think back and across to find the answer. I'm wondering if this is PTSD-related or just me-related.

I guess I'm talking about times where you may (or may not) avoid accessing memory that otherwise comes up in flashbacks and would require you to consciously think about that flashback, or set of flashbacks -- to then report back a 'knowledge' based on those memories?

 

[dust]

Hi Lisa,

interesting thread... I'm not sure if my response is the same, but when I first went to my therapist I had a list of traumas (I could not remember or talk about them without the list.) Most importantly, the most significant traumas were not even on the list! Now, on occasion (mainly when I'm PTSD'd) I have to go through the list in my brain to work over what happened when.

I'm much less fragmented now though.

'I just notice that if I get unexpected specific questions about abuse thrown at me, I suddenly find I can't think back and across to find the answer. I'm wondering if this is PTSD-related or just me-related.'

I relate to this question. Sometimes I can be very specific with my answer, sometimes, the specifics just aren't there, as there is no 'solid' memory, just arousal.

dust

 

[Cindy]

Each trauma is like a video tape playing.

Lisa:

My trauma's seem to be like video tapes. They stop and start at all different points depending on the trigger. When asked a specific question sometimes in order to find the answer I have to mentally watch the tape in sequence. And because my abuse occurred from different people and at different ages in my life it can get pretty 'crowded' with confusion/flooding.

I also think that as time passes and you get more of a global view of the events it doesn't seem as fragmented. During my initial stages of flooding and memory retrieval it was all pieces of broken glass that seemed to be me. I couldn't even figure out how to put them together. I didn't even know who me was anymore. There did not seem to be any pattern of thought or did it make any sense to me.

Cindy

 

[LosFrida]

What a fascinating question.

I cna really relate to what you're saying. My memories have been extremely fragmented for most of my life. Based on my behavior as a child, I was asked numerous times over the years whether I had been abused. My answer was always "no" because I had no memories. It wasn't until I was 16 that I had a memory of abuse- and for the next 4 years that was my only memory.

When I entered therapy at age 20 I had 5 years worth of memories erupt in about 8 months. But even then it was very haphazard- I would remember very small pieces and was never sure if they were connected or seperate. or I would be sure I knew what happened during a given incident only ot have more details come up months later.

 

[Tinyflame]

I find that getting a "little bit better" plus the presence of a really safe environment I can now- for once- fill in some "holes" that come to me in my memory.
I can't really force them, but they come to me. But when they do now they are more peaceful, informative, matter-of-fact. They aren't really triggering.

 

[Mercy]

Lisa,
I can really identify with your experience with memory. My first T said remembering would be like doing a jigsaw puzzle, turning over one or a couple of pieces at a time. Eventually we'd find a group of pieces that fit together here and there. When the puzzle was finished as much as possible, things would make sense in my life that had never made sense before.:Hug_emoticon:

Maybe this puzzle piece will be as funny to you as it is to me. My husband and I were driving directly west near sunset. The sun was huge and light orange. A little girl voice popped right out of me and said, "Looky, looky, a full sun." My husband took it as a joke. :rofl: Now, I know that the little girl was shut down in the daytime and only knew about the night. She knew the moon had cycles so she assumed the sun did too.... So sweet and sad at the same time. Pretty smart kid, huh?

 

[Marlene]

My trauma's seem to be like video tapes. They stop and start at all different points depending on the trigger. When asked a specific question sometimes in order to find the answer I have to mentally watch the tape in sequence.

This is how my traumas feel. Especially when I being the 'take apart' section of dealing with them. The current trauma I'm dealing with is sexual abuse from my brother. When my therapist and I first talked in length about it, most of his questions were answered with 'I don't know' or 'I can't remember'. It was like I had these pieces here and there and I couldn't find the answers he was looking for. I've found a few of them, but a lot of them still fall into the 'unknown for now' category.

Lisa

 

[TLight]

I don't seem to remember crap......just little bits and pieces that come up in nightmares, horrific stuff........I think I was so young for the really bad stuff that I just completely dissociated from it.............till I went crazy repeatedly, hallacinating, etc.
I remember him hitting me as a teenager prior to leaving, and a bunch of stuff the perverted neighbor kids did........but as far as the 'real' stuff that the nightmares indicate........not a clue really. It's like it was too horrific. Just nightmares............still get them, but not like I've been tortured with my whole life........

 

[Luthien]

I've never thought about this clearly enough to have asked a question about it, but in reading this thread I think I have done exactly what you're talking about.

I only remember my assault (at age 17) in small bits and pieces that I remember as if I am seeing snapshots, or small bits of video. I was tied up for 3 days, but don't remember anywhere near that much time passing.

Sometimes I will get flashbacks of things I didn't remember at all. Things I guess my mind wasn't able to handle (frig, as if I can handle it now)

The most recent one was a very vivid flashback of one of them almost biting my nipple completely off. I did not remember this at all. Had no inkling of it (oddly enough because there should have been an injury that I would remember) but when I looked, the scar is there to prove it really did happen.

I think I experienced a major period of dissociation at the time, and after the fact as well, because I have many scars that happened as a result if that attack, and have no clue how they got there.

I don't want to remember and I definitely avoid trying to think too much about it.

I think if I am unable to remember, it must be because I can't handle it, and I am thankful for the lapse of memory in this case.

 

[patrick]

There is so much I can't remember, and I go back and forth with the question - Do I need or even want to remember what happened? Can I recover if I don't remember? I recently read a manuscript of a friend's book that was written from the perspective of an 11 year old boy, and as I read it I realized that I could not remember what it was like to be eleven years old. I asked my friend, who is ten years older than me how much of his book was based on memory, and he said all of it. I've always thought that not being able to remember my childhood was normal, but it seems it's not normal at all. My other areas of memory loss have to do with my Army experiences, and that memory loss makes more sense to me. I can remember events up to a point, and then absolutely nothing after that point. This is a good thread...how important is it to remember everything in the recovery process? I've been struggling with this for the last few months. Am I willingly avoiding remembering? I don't know. If I could have all those memories back clearly would I want them? I don't know that either. There is so damn much I don't know.

 

[dust]

Patrick,

like you and many people on this forum, I too thought that my recall abilities were normal, until I realised that other people remembered more about me than I did.

I'm not sure that it is necessary to follow the holy grail of remembering everything. Speaking of my experience with EMDR, I think that the way it works is to cluster traumas together, and that similar or related traumas do not have to be consciously remembered to be processed.

I also have had pockets of memory loss as an adult, and have had more recent and conscious experiences of blanking out. So I understand how this can happen and what if feels like for there to be no memory there at all.

My recovered memories have presented me with an identity crisis... which, quite frankly, is hard to bear somedays. But, that is weighed against an unexplicable joy at feeling integrated and in contact with the self that I blocked off all those years ago. The PTSD symptoms started to diminished rapidly as soon as I recalled that final, most deeply buried traumatic event.

dust

 

[patrick]

Thank you, Dust,

From what I read and hear, most, but not all people stress the importance of remembering the trauma in order to heal. I'm glad to hear your experience with it. I think I am willing to try almost anything to experience that "unexplicable joy at feeling integrated and in contact with the self that I blocked off all those years ago." Now I just have to figure out how to get some of those memories back.