Therapist says I’m unlikely to have a repressed memory come up with EMDR and I don’t know whether I should be relieved, disappointed, or frustrated…

I’m getting closer and closer to being ready to undergo EMDR. I think what frustrates me is that I don’t know where the trauma originates from since I’ve lived with symptoms of childhood PTSD my whole life. I wouldn’t know how to target any big T traumas when I don’t have a definitive memory to focus on in therapy. How do you heal from something when you barely have a memory? Sexual arousal is what leads to flashbacks for me but I have no recollection of sexual abuse. I had to be around 4 or 5 when I developed PTSD but wasn’t officially diagnosed until I was 28. I have a feeling my parents brushed it off and pretended that it was ADHD, which was constantly mistaken as that by my pediatricians and therapists growing up. Now that I am practicing DBT skills I show no symptoms of ADHD, which makes sense because I was recently diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder after my PTSD diagnosis.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I feel like a repressed memory coming to the surface would give me more closure, but instead I have to live with the fact that I may not ever know what transpired all this and that bothers me. At the same time, I’m also afraid of having false memories pop up should they rise to the surface. It’s happened before when I dreamed that it was 9 am in the morning and thought it was that in real time. It wasn’t until I woke up and looked at my clock before realizing it was 7 am. What if these memories jump out like that?

She tells me it’s unlikely to happen, and while my fears are subsided I’d still like to know what happened.

I have done a few emdr sessions and I found them helpful. I did not have any memories come back during the sessions but afterwards some things came back. I am going to be doing more in the near future.

Lost in the Woods said:

I have done a few emdr sessions and I found them helpful. I did not have any memories come back during the sessions but afterwards some things came back. I am going to be doing more in the near future.

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How could you tell if they were real or fake?

Also did they come back after a session or after all the sessions were done?

the magic* of EMDR is that you don't have to know your traumas to be able to benefit from it. Symptoms and responses are enough knowledge to begin processing something. Ive done elements of EMDR for a while now and Ive found that information comes up as a byproduct anyway, not necessarily in session, and not in the clarity that you want... but maybe in the intensity you actually need, where a memory would be too much.

Luna_Moth said:

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I feel like a repressed memory coming to the surface would give me more closure, but instead I have to live with the fact that I may not ever know what transpired all this and that bothers me.

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I completely understand this. It is very hard to be okay with uncertainty with trauma. I want memories too, but at the same time, processing mere information about them is proving to be a Lot to bear for me... so maybe it's for the best that I'm learning about my trauma awareness/knowledge first.
You can know/remember a lot without a visual memory. and it is painful not having a visual memory, because we put a lot of value on those, but it does get easier to cope with once you learn to put value on the other stuff, as legitimate.

Luna_Moth said:

It’s happened before when I dreamed that it was 9 am in the morning and thought it was that in real time. It wasn’t until I woke up and looked at my clock before realizing it was 7 am.

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I have false awakening dreams all the time, I don't think those say anything about memories... most people think dreams are real before waking up and checking things, especially if they're mundane/believable life stuff.

Luna_Moth said:

How could you tell if they were real or fake?

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struggled a lot with this. I'm a dissociative system, lots of parts have their own versions of history that are very removed from reality but to them are real... I'm learning and slowly accepting that although not real verbatim, the elements they're made up of do come from real events, and when it comes to trauma, the way stuff makes you feel and what you do about that is much more important and real than the fine details of any imagery that may or may not come with it.
going off of a "felt sense" is probably one of the most infuriating things that Ive learnt (or am learning) to get used to.

the difficult thing is that memories aren't exactly real either. I don't think a visual memory is any more real than a felt sense, as distressing as that might be.
memories have inaccuracies all the time, where we try to fill in the gaps automatically, but trauma is stored in the body. If you're reacting a certain, strong way to something, that is legitimate.
Similarly, a bunch of my parts have distinct "memories" about women abusing them, in a range of different circumstances, from them being adopted children, partners, strangers, pets even. the settings and people are 99% fictional, and I used to see them as nothing really. But they would not be unable to sleep from these memories, feel physically sick with fear and have consistent specific triggers related to irl situations around women, without an actual cause. Trauma is trauma, it might be shown to me in a weird way but it is trauma. And now information is surfacing in my mind about real places and people, now that I've started to address this aspect of my trauma.
the memories I mentioned are extremely dissociated and distorted, but they do hold information that is true. they wouldn't consume me otherwise if my nervous system didn't have a reason to care. trying to pick it all apart is not helpful, but being curious and noticing is. the more grasping and forceful and desperate you are the slower things go, it's really inhibitive which is very frustrating because it's completely natural to want to explicitly know your own life history.. but practicing to be okay with uncertainty, and be okay with where you're at currently, with what you know, is very helpful.


I really understand where you're at because I have been / am there. but non-explicit memory is important to value as well. Waiting for a clear as day memory to finally validate your trauma so you can take it seriously, is like waiting until you see the clogged artery in-person before treating your heart attack.

this probably won't be your experience but I think I should share it anyway; I understand now that I was raped as a child, I don't have any memories of it, but I have a group of very young parts who in their memories, are small animals, who are abused and die, they die from the abuse. it kills them. And it has followed me, very much, into my day to day life, the way it feels to be them, and what brings it back up again.
Sometimes you have to ask yourself if you really need the explicit memory, or if the implicit memories can actually be enough. You can want it a lot but not need it. And if it is trauma, in my experience at least, you will learn more, you will get more information... but be prepared for it to be implicit, or slow, or both. And to have to work to trust things that aren't explicit memories, as important and worth helping to feel better, and worth giving consideration. And learning to only scrutinize new things for so long before letting them be and seeing what happens.
the priority is to feel better, not know exactly what happens, focussing on the latter first will make things harder, focussing on the former can help it come along naturally, and you will be in a better position to handle it if you do.

Luna_Moth said:

She tells me it’s unlikely to happen,

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ya.... not the way it worked for me. EMDR ripped open a couple boxes that I had locked for decades and it was awful simply because I didn't remember the events at all. I kept insisting I was delusional and needed to be committed because there was no way that happened to me.

Nope - I had just learned at a very early age how to dissociate, so it wasn't that hard when my life depended on my ability to keep going.

But. even as awful as it was EMDR was also how I healed because it doesn't erase the events, it changes how you see them. So instead of being horrific events that make you want to throw up they become sad events from your past that you can remember and not physically respond to

And that physical part is the key between a memory and a delusion because memories show up in your body as well as your mind. My t stops and asks - where do you feel it in your body? And if something hurts we know we are on a "real" memory. For many years it was my hands -- a real memory made them hurt, a fake one didn't. And yep, I tested it by throwing out a couple things that I knew weren't real and there was zero physical reaction

Yep - I said years. EMDR is fabulous for it's ability to solve the trauma with just 8 to 12 sessions. But that is for "simple" or "one time" traumas. When you've got a total dumpster fire in your head it can take years because you have to use it to build a window of tolerance so that you can even begin to work on the memories. When I first started if I made it 90 seconds into a memory it was a win. I've even been known to throw the paddles LOL

But when it works it is AMAZING!. That feeling of terror or pictures or whatever is plaguing you just stop mattering. They go from always in your mind to something that just, happened.

Freida said:

ya.... not the way it worked for me. EMDR ripped open a couple boxes that I had locked for decades and it was awful simply because I didn't remember the events at all. I kept insisting I was delusional and needed to be committed because there was no way that happened to me.

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Yeah, exactly that. A couple months in and boom, stuff exploded.

Unlikely isn't impossible.

Whatever it is you do, buy in. 100% buy in. "I'm going to try" is the song of 'it really wont work' and if you go at it like that, it will not work.

Luna_Moth said:

How could you tell if they were real or fake?

Also did they come back after a session or after all the sessions were done?

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I am very careful in regards to accepting memories as being real so I always look at the details and try to verify them. Below are a few.

I remember leaving on a trip across country to a convention my faith’s company was exhibiting products at. I went and found a history of the organization and where their conferences were. That dated the memory at 5 months. It is hard to believe that I had a memory from then but it checked out.

I have a memory of being in total terror in my crib. My mother was standing over me. I can see it from above but also I see her face clearly. I doubted this one for a long time because I was laying on a blue sheet. Back in the 50s almost all sheets were white. Then it dawned on me that I was laying on the blanket not the sheets so that would have been accurate. I also had a similar incident when I was 6 or 7.

I have a memory of getting on a ferry boat. I was born in mid 1955 and that ferry went out of service in 1957. I went an researched when the bridge opened that replaced the ferry. This the memory was from before I was 11/2 years old.

Whether memories come back from emdr or they are just early memories I do my best at verifying them.

Most of my childhood is blacked out. I never noticed I didn’t remember things until the 1980s when I was hanging out with friends and someone asked me how my family ate dinner. I couldn’t answer, that is when I realized much has been blacked out. After my first emdr session I drove home and I suddenly remembered how we ate dinner. It was weird because that isn’t what we talked about in the session. As the memory came back more details emerged in the next hour or so. It wasn’t forced at all, they just bubbled up to the surface. My memories around meals are still limited. Food has always been a struggle for me so it is a subject that I feel a fair amount of trauma around.

I hope this helps.