Childhood Confused on if my memories of abuse are real - How do I know if they’re real or not?

[Mama bear]

I have had these dream like memories of my older brother sexually abusing me for as long as I can remember. There are multiple memories of different times of being abused and different sexual acts. I am around 3-5 in these memories. They have came and gone all through out my life. I go through years of never thinking about it. Once when I was 16 I told my then boyfriend about it and he got me to ask my mom about it. When I did my mom said nothing had happened between me and my brother. I let it go but this confused me for the rest of my life because these memories are so real to me. I started to think it was something my brain made up.

Fast forward my daughter turned 3 in July and since then I started having flashbacks. Sometimes now it’s been so bad I’ve started to disassociate in the middle of conversations with my boyfriend and once while I was driving. I know my mental health is really struggling now and it’s affecting my family.

I’m asking how do I know if it’s real or not

 

[Lost in the Woods]

I try to verify things in such memories. One I was in a crib and I thought the memory was false because the sheet was blue and no one had blue sheets it the 50s. Then I realized the sheet wasn’t a sheet, it was the blanket thus the “memory” was consistent with that time period. I have another of me walking in on one of my mother’s suicide attempts. I knew the year and model of her car so I googled the exhaust system on the car and found my memory of the swimming pool vacuum hose running from the exhaust was consistent with the car design. I try to find details I can verify to see if the memory is more or less likely to be real. Writing this I am thinking this stuff is really awful for a child to experience.

 

[Movingforward10]

It's incredibly confusing when memories resurface and you'll find lots of similar threads with many of us trying to work this out.

Sometimes there is no external person to ask or another way to verify the memories as true or not. So the only way to figure it out is within yourself. Therapy can help a lot too, in exploring it all and helping you to work it out.
For me, there was a sense of 'knowing' about sexual abuse that I felt I had and that helped to solidify the memories for me. That my sense of 'knowing' developed. Also, I learnt that if something didn't feel real, I learnt that it meant it probably was real. And that helped to work things out too. Very confusing tjbstart with because if something doesn't feel real, how can it be? But I learnt that my mum would change reality at times so I was grown up with my feelings and reality being changed, and it then the feeling or things not feeling real when they are made sense.

It's a difficult process to go through.

For me, I don't see it as a coincidence that this is coming up as your daughter has turned 3, given this seems the age from when your memories start. That seems a very real connection and trigger.

 

[Sideways]

I’m asking how do I know if it’s real or not

It’s real enough in your mind, at the very least, that it causes very significant distress and is impacting your relationships.

If you don’t already, that is more than enough reason to get professional support. Life doesn’t need to include distress like this.