Can you have a whole fake memory as a dissociative event?

[SeekingAfrica]

I do not know how to explain this better. I had been only recently dealing with some traumas from my childhood. For the most part I just avoided thinking about it for a loooong time. But the memories from it are mostly regular memories with me thinking of completely random stuff while the bad things were happening...and almost feeling out-of-body...this is the regular part of this.

But there is one memory that I'll never get and can't get past sometimes. I had left for a walk with the person that caused the trauma and it was odd-somewhat- that it was just us, as usually if we were going for walks my brother would come too. But he didn't this time. So we went to climb this hill(it is a hill that does exist in that city and we used to go climb it regularly. there is a path with lots of stairs going up and at the top there is a statue). So we went on to climb the hill again. And then it gets odd. I remember us getting to a new place I've never seen. Suddenly there was a train passing through there and it turned out it was a mini-train that was making a circle around the hill and no adults were allowed on it, so the person I was with let me go for a circle alone. I talked to few children in it, we completed the circle, it was nice, looking at nature and all that. I remember wanting to do another circle and somehow being told you can only do it once and eventually you have to get off. The memory was very bright and detailed in that point. Then I don't remember much else about the day, but I remember that a day later I asked the person I was with that day to do to that place again, and he had no idea what I was talking about.

I never asked again. Years later when I started digging in the bad memories, this memory kept popping up very vividly too for no reason. It's usually not something I discuss because for a long time it made me feel like I was crazy. I was so sure I had been in that place with the train, it was so vivid and detailed that I even later on tried to look it up, to prove that there is such a place in that city. I couldn't. So I usually don't talk about it, even with T out of fear of sounding insane and figuring out I am somehow. I hope someone here can tell me what this is and that I didn't actually lose my mind. Of course I was a child at the time(6-7) so you can probably blame this on bad memory or lots of imagination or who knows what. It just doesn't feel that way.

 

[Friday]

It sounds like either a dream or a travelling carnival.

As a dream it’s pretty profound, and smack dab right in the middle of the age most kids start understanding life/death their own mortality.

But a travelling carnival makes just as much sense, especially if the first ride was free, and your abuser would have had to pay for any more rides // or if it was a community thing, one train ride for the kids and then pay-for stuff for the adults further on, or churchy / political thing, with one ride free & sermons/petitions further on, etc.

 

[SeekingAfrica]

It sounds like either a dream or a travelling carnival.

As a dream it’s pretty profound, and smack dab right in the middle of the age most kids start understanding life/death their own mortality.

But a travelling carnival makes just as much sense, especially if the first ride was free, and your abuser would have had to pay for any more rides // or if it was a community thing, one train ride for the kids and then pay-for stuff for the adults further on, or churchy / political thing, with one ride free & sermons/petitions further on, etc.

Definitely wasn't a dream, that I'm sure of. At that age I use to have very long and developed dreams every night(like full stories and really vivid) and I would always remember them in the morning. Also used to talk or sleepwalk briefly...and kick people a lot if anyone was sleeping in the same bed as me...anyway, the point is, even with really realistic dreams I know the feeling they left and this was not it. I can tell the difference between those and memories, and the train thing feels like a memory. And also I'm not only finding it strange now in retrospect, it was something I've on occasion wondered about over the years as I could never make sense of it.

 

[Nessa7]

When I dissociated as a kid, I did not understand time at all. I remember being confused when I was a kid because I thought something had just happened but it had actually been an entire year. Is it possible that there might have been more time between going on a walk with your abuser and not being sure where you were, taking the train ride, and asking about it?

 

[shimmerz]

I asked the person I was with that day to do to that place again, and he had no idea what I was talking about.

Was this a trusted person? Someone who was an adult?

 

[SeekingAfrica]

When I dissociated as a kid, I did not understand time at all. I remember being confused when I was a kid because I thought something had just happened but it had actually been an entire year. Is it possible that there might have been more time between going on a walk with your abuser and not being sure where you were, taking the train ride, and asking about it?

I know that the walk and the train ride were all one event, one day, this I'm sure of. And I remember I asked about going again really soon after because I really wanted to go again. So yes, fairly certain. Maybe it could have been few days before I asked to go again, this part could be wrong, who knows, I was a child...but the rest is pretty vivid as far as memories go.

Was this a trusted person? Someone who was an adult?

An adult yes. Trusted, at the time, yes. Although in retrospect, he was also my abuser, so should have been the last person I trusted...But I know that now, when I was 6, I don't think I even knew to classify what was happening at all.

 

[susannahsays]

I think it is possible.

As for being sure it wasn't a dream, I'm confused how you can be sure it wasn't that but not be sure it was actually real. I have had really vivid dreams of mundane things that I definitely would have denied were dreams if not for the fact that on close examination, they could not have happened. For example, the night before last, I had a dream that I was about to take one of my medications that was in my nightstand, only to realize it was a different medication I no longer take. I then panicked because I begin to feel ill if I don't this med, and I didn't know where it was. This was plausible on the face of it because they look similar. However, that other medication has not been kept in my nightstand for a while now, and when I looked after thinking about it the next day, I saw the correct medication was in my nightstand and the incorrect one was not. The incorrect one was just where I had last left it, on my desk. I also did not feel sick yesterday, so I just have taken the med as usual. So even though I was positive that this event had occurred, the evidence is that it did not and was just a dream.

But I'm not trying to convince you that this memory or whatever it is, is anything. I'm just trying to say that the mind is a tricky thing - and especially so if you're dealing with poor memory as an effect of abuse.

 

[grit]

I am finding from my own transference that sometimes I confuse real and wish together. For example, I really wanted to be alone as a child and this was my ultimate wish since maybe as an infant - just leave me alone!!!!!!
but I experienced a lot of intrusiveness in touching inappropriately (maybe pushing or shoving), hunger, no play but just in the presences etc.

my point is this I do not fight any feeling that comes up. I find the more I fight against anything (good, bad or the ugly) the more I will suffer and prolong any healing. My body knows better than I do and I will take whatever it brings up and will talk about it until it is so dissected that it has no power over me.

I do not know if this is real or a dream or a strong wish you had but it is repeating itself and to me that alone says, you should talk about it and risk of being thought crazy by therapist (that sounds crazy already...LOL a therapist is like gynecologists - they have seen enough crazies just like gynecologist seen enough vagina)...and let it all out and get it out of your systems so you can find what is behind it.

 

[Swift]

I'm not entirely sure...
There's a few possibilities that spring to mind. I do believe you, I really do. But I've had similar stuff myself...
Some of it, for me, is what I wish was happening while my child self was being abused.

I'm so sorry this abuse happened to you at that age from an adult who should have taken care of you.

I have dissociative amnesia, too, quite a lot. I've just been diagnosed with DID but I've probably had it all my life. I often question my own memories, and I like to...i dunno, make sure that they're "true"? Or something could have happened at the time my brain tells me it did?

I'm assuming that you posted this thread for advice, partly. I can share what works for me.

Having childhood trauma and dissociation is hard. I try to figure it out as best I can, I'll share what works for me and some possibilities that I examine for myself.

So - the possibilities, as I see them for myself and I see them here are:
1. Everything happened exactly as you remember it. One of the helpful things for me in determining this is - the internet. Is there likely to have been a train or a carnival or similar at that place, in that time? Most local papers can be searched on the net, or have archives. Carnivals on my country have particular "zones" where they can operate. Having PTSD and dissociation is like being your own detective, a bit. At least it is for me.
Possibility 2: this is a mishmash of memory. You were on that train, at some point, and you were with your abuser on that hill, at some point, and your brain has saved the wrong file. Like copy-pasting into the wrong document. You did catch that train, and your brain has pasted that over the memory of the abuse.

Possibility 3: your brain came up with the train and the other children to keep you safe from the reality you faced that day with your awful creepy abuser. There's nothing wrong with that - it's a coping mechanism. You were only six, your brain coped as best it could with what awful shit was going on. In this possibility, the train doesn't exist. It's a nice thing, though. You did a good job coming up with the scenario that made you feel safe.

So - can I tell you which one? No.
What I can tell you is whatever the case is, your memories and your abuse are valid.

 

[shimmerz]

Trusted, at the time, yes. Although in retrospect, he was also my abuser,

Yeah, so this is a big conflict taking space in your brain. Plus the judgement of 'I should have known' although you do qualify by stating you understand that your age didn't allow you to take it in the way you would have as say an adult would have.

It makes perfect sense to me that you wouldn't know the timeline of this because with such a conflict you would have had to have dissociated out with it.

I am just now getting to a timeline with an adult trauma that happened about 11 years ago for me. It is what started this PTSD symptom stuff for me.

I am going to suggest that this stuff takes its time. There are pieces that need to fit together, belief systems that need to be challenged, filters that need to be blown to bits before we can accept dissociated truths. And I have found that the timeline comes last when I am processing stuff. To me, a timeline adjustment tells me that I am filing pieces of the event in a non-traumatic way.

Patience is what I would suggest. It will come back to you. Just keep doing the work in the meanwhile.

 

[SeekingAfrica]

I do want to answer everyone and also explore this for a while, of course. I did want to talk about it, obviously, that's why I made a topic. But then today I was reading the new responses and something in thinking about it made me completely freak out and now I just do not feel ready...talking about when I was a child is still a hit and miss in terms of when I need it and when I am too scared to even touch on the subject. Now I'm in the second part and I need to take two steps back and take a moment before returning to the subject.

 

[Abstract]

Take your time and you will know what is what as best as you can. Most important is to work through how you feel.

The first thought that came to mind when I first read this was wondering if you rewrote/imagined what happened to help you cope.