Can you trust body memories

[Pauline]

Hi guys sorry for postinbon here again I currently can't afford therapy and this is the best place I can kind of talk about these things.

I just wanted to ask if you good trust your body with memories. I have no memory of my abuse but my body feels it everywhere I know you said you can get better without remembering but this is really frustrating me because I sometimes feel like my body is going insane even though I am beginning to listen to it and trust it more.

Like I said previously in my posts about my father that he confessed he didn't do anything to me but my body still feels tense and uptight around him but with no real memories just strong feelings and fears I should believe him right?

Anyways I was just wondering how you can retrieve these memories do you have be in therapy for this to happen I am working on all the other stuff you suggested in the previous posts I'm taking supplements trying to do more things for my body without the talking therapy but I have my psychiatrist appointment this week and I wanted to discuss this with him but I don't know how to bring up the topic I also haven't self harmed in two weeks so I'm pretty more in control with that but should I trust my body

 

[Kubash16]

I wouldn’t try to dive into repressed memories without a stable therapy foundation, trust me, learned that the hard way.

Until you can afford therapy just focus on listening to your body, don’t try to decipher what certain feelings mean (as in previous trauma) but do what you can to help your body learn that it is safe now.

Yoga is really good for this. It helps to relax your body and makes you feel more grounded.

I know the dying need to know about everything you are feeling, but absolutely do not go at it alone.

 

[EveHarrington]

I wouldn’t call your reaction a body memory necessarily.

Being tense around a man doesn’t mean that man abused you.

 

[Anana]

Yes,like said before, wait till you can proceed with the therapy. As soon as your stabilasation phase is over you can go into supressed memories(if they are). And do not think we sound boring... just trying to warn you. i spent many months for stabilastaion and then for couple of EMDR sessions all work has gone and i discovered more traumas. hope in your case it wont go that way, but it is better to wait for sure

 

[Justmehere]

I would not trust tension in a body to be a sure sign of trauma. I get tense around IRS agents. Never been abused by one, but there is clearly another non-abusive reason I get tense around them. My head will hurt when I am at the post office, but no mailman has ever hurt me. The tension comes from another source. (The annoyance of long lines.)

I hope you bring up your concerns with your doc. This has been bothering you for some time, and they might be able to help you sort out what might or might not be related to trauma and the next steps.

 

[hithere]

yes you can trust body memories. however I do not believe you have to know what happened or remember in order to heal. just what are you feeling when your body is speaking and clear with the message your body is speakiing. worrying to much about what it's actually about is counter productive. your muscles have a memory and it needs to go out--experience it, witness it, and believe it. evenutally you will learn you are safe and that everything is ok

 

[NightSky]

Even if you were in therapy, I would steer really clear of trying to dig up memories. From my experience, if you do that, you may have some surface, and then wonder for the rest of your life if they’re true.
Body memories, for me, aren’t tension around people. They’re more like feeling something happening that isn’t at that moment. I have no memories, some flashes I’ll never know if they’re true, and a good amount of body memories like I described. I understand (believe me! I really do) the desperate need to know. But If memories are going to come up, they’ll probably come up spontaneously due to a trigger of some sort (or maybe during EMDR if you go that route.) they won’t surface because you’re trying hard to remember them. And even if they do emerge, details can be wrong. Timelines can be wrong. People in them can even be wrong. So forcing this just isn’t the way to go.
The tension you feel around him is there for a reason. It just might not be the reason you think. So trust your body that it’s telling you something, but try not to fill in the gaps. If that makes sense.

 

[Skywatcher]

My body memories are usually a sensation that I can connect to the obvious or may act as a trigger point to a repressed memory. For example, I’ll be recalling something that happened and I start feeling intense pain in my body where that thing happened. The other example just recently happened. My T rubbed my back like a mom might. It felt nice in the moment but led to days of intense fear shivers anytime I tried to recall the good feeling. So we did emdr specifically on it. It took me to another piece that I hadn’t remembered where my abuser rubbed my back nicely before he later turned into a monster. So... that would be more of a body memory becoming a trigger.

People used to tell me not to dig for answers. It’s so hard with my personality not to. I will say that now that I know what I know, I wish I hadn’t. I wish it would all go away. I had my moment of “crazy.” I would really like to just go back to
The old healthy me that didn’t think her trauma was that bad. The person who used to have empathy for the mentally ill but never believed I would be one of them.

 

[Pauline]

Thanks guys for all your help I spoke to my psychiatrist and told him about my issues with my dad it's weird because my childlike voice comes out when I spoke about him although when I was younger I had a lot of intrusive surgeries with doctors he agreed with that and he took on board what I said about my father I still don't feel comfortable about the situation because I still feel like something happened but I'm not going to push it because my inner child gets worked up I told him a lot

I am seeing him every month when I think about the issue with my dad it just makes me really sad I feel like I'm going crazy I know I was abused I just hate not having solid ground to work with he also said I had complex ptsd and about blocked memories it just sucks I hate this I just want to get better and get on with things and not feel so needy I've been trying to get better on my own but it's just not working anyway sorry for being annoying just had to get it off my chest X

 

[Friday]

There are 1,000 ways your dad could be connected to your trauma history without ever having laid a finger on you.

- He could have driven you to the place where your abuser was (preschool, school, friends house, sport, camp, doctors office, church, etc.). So you’re sitting there in the car staring at him the entire way there and entire way back, believing -like most kids- that he can read your mind or knows what happens out of his sight.

- Your abuser could have been one of your dad’s friends or coworkers

- Your abuser could have been one of your friends dads

- Your abuser could have made you call him Daddy

- You could have cried out for your daddy to save you while you were being abused.

Et cetera.

Associating your dad with your abuse, whilst believing he wasn’t the one who abused you? Isn’t actually a conflict.

Being tense around your dad? Also seems like a pretty natural reaction when you’ve recently asked/accused him of abusing you, or are even wondering if he could have.

 

[Pauline]

Thank you

i hate this so much i just want to heal and be able to trust people again it is so unfair i am not healing it's like i am at a stand still, and i have a bad relationship with my dad now because i am so scared of him, i realised that living on my own has lessend my hyper arousal around him, and also lessened my child like voice.

I notice it only happens when i am in family contact, i am also having odd nightmares of my dad acting one way and then threatinig me, i woke up crying last night at 4 in the morning in the dream my sister suspected something was wrong with me, and then she confessed that something happened to her to but thats just a dream so i dont know.

i have a trauma diary so whenever i switch into my child state i write it down it's literally a whole diary of being scared of my dad and loving my cuddly toys and feeling weird about family... this is so tiring im 26 and i havent even had a proper relationship yet, i am also trying to be my own person and detatch from my family because im too codependent on them and get to tense around my dad i am looking to make new friends and get a new job but this is proving to be hard living in london is not the friendlest of places.