Retrieving Musical Skills Acquired During Dissociative Amnesia

[Deleted member 35429]

I have dissociative amnesia from a traumatic time period and have been in therapy dealing with it for about 9 months. I had a very powerful trigger about a year ago that caused me to feel like I NEEDED to play piano again. I hadn't played since this trauma(20yrs). I've been playing daily since then. Most of the pieces I knew slowly came back to me and I practiced constantly because t was the only thing that would give me a respite from PTSD symptoms. Many memories came back during this year as well. Then last week I heard a piece by Chopin that stirred up very intense emotions. I downloaded the sheet music and within minutes I could play the piece. It wasn't that I could play by sight reading, this was clearly learned during that traumatic period and I have no recollection of learning it. None at all. My hands remember this but my mind has no memory.

Can anyone else relate? At times so feel like two people, traumatized me and then healthy normal me. There are moments like this when traumatized me takes over my body and I just watch it happen. Crazy stuff.

 

[Friday]

Can anyone else relate?

Very much so.

 

[Ronin]

Can anyone else relate?

Quite a bit. These days things come back pretty crossed wires, though, so I've got to re-learn other pieces & how one learns the whole thing from the basics, even though I'm not needing to pick up the whole thing.