Blocked trauma

[Pauline]

How can you heal from a severe trauma if you don't know what happened to you. I've come to the conclusion that my partial memory loss that happened to me at 16 was a protection from something that happened to me in my childhood. How can I face and heal my trauma when I don't even know what it is all my mind is just one big jumbled mess. I've started to go to therapy but I want to find out how to heal myself more.

 

[Freida]

Trauma is healed in baby steps on its own timeline. You can try to push it to go faster but....nope.it won't cooperate. You need time to build your coping skills so you are ready to handle whatever "it" is. When your brain says you are prepared it will start letting it out.

 

[shimmerz]

How can I face and heal my trauma when I don't even know what it is

You don't actually need to know what happened to you is what my shaman used to say. I didn't know either but I had some great documentation from children's aid that let me know what I needed to.

In the meanwhile, you want to learn tools for feeling safe within yourself, to manage dissociative issues, and to reassess lifestyles that may have had the walls crash down around you.

 

[Abstract]

I used to drive myself to try to remember my blanked out years but really it didn't work and just added to my distress. My normal modus operandi is to ruthlessly charge at things but this has taught me that it doesn't work. with some stuff. I charged relentlessly for a while but it just backfired. After much advice here from others I have spent recent years trying to work with my brain rather than dominate it. It definitely has made life easier. Still don't have the solution to that but can say I have definitely made a lot of progress by dealing with what my brain will give me. Enormously. In the way Shimmerz mentions.

I was advised that my brain would only go wherever when it felt safe enough, if it can go there. I have worked on making my brain safer. In my life, in myself, in the way I handle my symptoms.

Radical Acceptance is my friend too.

 

[Abstract]

PS. Just remembering your story now that you have a history of medical trauma . Can you start by working on that? What processing or work have you done so far? What does your t say?

 

[yellow rose]

Hello. I am sorry that you have experienced severe trauma . I too have experienced severe trauma and I know how deeply it can affect you
I would say be kind to yourself treat yourself with compassion if you can. I know yoga can be very healing. Maybe doing yoga and meditation will affect you. I guess being kind to youself in general may help. And as everyone else says there is a reason i guess that you have blanked it out. I guess sometimes our minds want to blank things out when they are too difficult or too painful
Take care

 

[Friday]

Start with what you do know.

Whether that’s trauma or symptoms, in my experience, doesn’t really matter much. Whatever is actually a problem in your day to day life? Start there.

20 years ago I basically made a list of everything that was pissing me off, or that I didn’t like about myself, and set about changing them. From what annoyed me the most, downward. By the time I was done, I was asymptomatic / PTSD managed like a motherf*ckef, liked myself just fine, and hadn’t touched any of my -very well known- traumas with a 10 foot pole. There’s a risk in doing it that way, and stopping when life gets amazing instead of also sorting out known trauma bullshit, but you don’t have to stop just because life is brilliant. And you don’t have not Not Start just because you’ve only got a partial list. Start with what you know.

 

[Pauline]

Thank you for all your help and support I had partial amnesia during my teenage years so looking back on those years all I remember is not remembering people but recognising their faces this happened after I couldn't breathe for three hours but now I get flashbacks of that the horror of being around people you love and not remembering them only their faces I wished I wasn't the only one in my family who went through it but talking on here really helps so thank you for listening to me and supporting me

 

[Abstract]

You are welcome. What treatment are you receiving? Have you spoken and worked through what you describe above with a trauma therapist? In my not very extensive experience of talking about trauma I found dealing with one thing sometimes opens up the next. Emotions seen to thread things together sometimes in my experience. Those more experienced than I am may be able to say more.

 

[Stephani8o]

I don't remember a lot either. I have some partial memories that are scary to face. But my therapist said that I might never remember. It took me some time to accept but then I was grateful I didn't have the memories. I'm starting emdr so now I don't know what to expect.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I know from my experience in the 90's I first disclosed the vague details I can remember of my CSA, until was not until 2016 when I started developing flashbacks that I remembered more detail. In 2016 my cousin told me that what I remembered actually happened, cleared up some memories that were unclear, and added my older sister was molested too. Then I ended up at Sheppard Pratt's Trauma Disorders Unit. It was when I was there that my sister confirmed she was molested as well.

To date I have learned an awful lot from my relatives, and what I have discovered is that almost all of what I remembered happened the way I remembered, with the exception of early on there were pieces I only had vague remembrances that I could not trust.

My experience seems to be that the more vague the memories are, the more likely our brain will try to fill in the gaps which may or may not reflect reality. And the more anchors you get from other sources (like my cousin validating what I remembered and giving more details) the clearer the memories become. That's my experience, I don't know about any one else.

 

[Stephani8o]

I know my abuse happened because my dad was arrested for it. My mom has confirmed some of these events. We both remember that we were in the shower when she caught him but then we don't remember what happened next. I know we left to visit family but we had to go back so I could be examined by a doctor but I don't know what happened from there. I know there was something about court but I don't remember what happened with that. So my mom confirmed my partial memories but couldn't fill in the blanks. Then she decided that he is reformed, gets back with him, and it was only a couple years later that the abuse started again. There is no one to confirm that. Just what I remember.