Do You Ever Question Your Trauma?

[deleted]

I know this might be a weird question but lately I've been thinking about this a lot.

I read something recently about false memories and it me me really anxious and start to question everything about my trauma. Like what if my mind made it all up? What if this is all fake?

I can't get these questions out of my mind until another panic attack or similar event comes along and then I'm like "nope it was 100% real" until it passes and I go back to questioning again.

I guess I wouldn't know what to do if my trauma wasn't real. I mean I can only remember bits a pieces of it. What if I made this whole thing up! :(

 

[Deleted member 20280]

The cognitive memory only stores 18 % of the surroundings it experiences, the sub-cognitive mind records the remaining 82 %. The human psyche can only process a fraction of what it is experiencing at any one given moment.

What you are remembering is that 82 % sub-cognitive memory recording. Trust in your memory

 

[LittleMrsAntisocial]

I read about those a few years ago when I first found out I had PTSD. I occasionally will question what I remember and why but I've found the most faith in my dreams. Those are about the only thing I trust. So don't over think it, you will be just fine and your memories are VERY real.

 

[Sideways]

Unfortunately, there is the very rare occasion where circumstances (eg. over-zealous suggestive therapy) has resulted in inaccurate memory recovery.

I've read a chunk of stuff about this, because it had me questioning my own mind, and I'm no expert, but 2 things stood out for me in the literature. First, "false memory syndrome" was created by a bunch of people with less of the medical experience, and more of the motivation to debunk recovered memories. There are unspoken motivations fuelling a lot of that movement, and not all of it is coming from an accurately informed headspace.

Second, we (factually) know quite a lot about the accuracy of recovered memories. Studies of recovered memories from cases where it can be confirmed (witnesses, hospital & police records, etc) consistently show that sadly, recovered memories, even from very early childhood are overwhelmingly very accurate. Recovered trauma memories are routinely more accurate than untraumatic, everyday memories that you have always had access to.

Keep reading, because it may help you learn to trust your mind. But for every piece of "false memory" literature you read, question the science, and why the person might be pushing the theory.

 

[sun seeker]

I know this might be a weird question

Not at all. It's a very common question. Lots of threads about this.

Have you read anything about the history and founders of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation? (Something not written by the foundation itself). For one thing, there is no scientific evidence for such a thing as false memory syndrome. Can recovered memories be inaccurate? Sure. So can other kinds of memory. Here is the clincher though: the symptoms of trauma cannot be faked. See "Memory and Abuse" by Charles Whitfield, MD for detail on this. If you have PTSD, there is a reason why. There is no way you made it up. You may not have it accurate in 100% detail, but something happened.

I don't know if this is the case for you, but I went through a long time of questioning whether what I already remembered was enough to explain the severity of my symptoms. It took several people insisting that it wasn't, for me to look deeper. What helped me the most was working with my body. The body holds the memory of unresolved trauma (meaning if we didn't get to complete the fight or flight instinct at the time of the trauma, or weren't able to shake and cry and otherwise release the energy right after it) until we do resolve it. Sometimes, something triggers those buried memories and the body starts reacting, as mine did. Some of the movements I would go into (still do to some extent) without thinking about it, when triggered, were my body's attempts, over and over, to resolve particular traumas. There were somatic symptoms I repeated for ages before knowing what they mean, and some I'm still not clear on, though they have gotten much less frequent as I work on releasing the trauma. Again, there is no way you can fake this.

I highly recommend working with a somatic practitioner of some kind as you work through this. Not only will they help you release the trauma, they will help you work through the doubt. And be patient... it can be a two steps forward, one step back kind of process. I still have times of thinking I have to be making up the whole thing, but way less than I used to.

 

[Sideways]

Not at all. It's a very common question. Lots of threads about this.

Have you read anything about...

Any books you recommend about somatic therapy? I'm reaching flashpoint keeping the 4y-o stuff at bay, but I'd like to know how to release it safely...

 

[Seasounds]

Hi, I'm with the others in this thread. Memories are real. I tried to think they weren't real, and it only made me worse. And come to find out, once I 'stood with my memories', bit by bit over the years they were confirmed by others.

Books that had a strong impact on me:
Thou Shalt Not Be Aware
Drama of the Gifted Child
Waking the Tiger

Therapies:
-there are lots of ways to go about this.
-mindfulness meditation is helpful; it makes space for the memories to open.
-You can release the emotions through many different therapies: verbal, art, movement.
-Sensorimotor release work comes in different forms: what seems helpful, and affordable.
-I used Craniosacral somoto-emotional release, a creative visualization form of hypnotherapy, gestalt therapy, support groups, writing, self-defense classes, deep tissue and regular massage, the Alexander Technique, exercise where I would release bits of anger, while releasing small (sometimes only noticeable to me (to loud sounds on my exhales
- here is a link from a specific sensorimotor technique. https://www.sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org

I think the important elements of doing the work are working slowly (too fast can be way traumatic) , being comfortable with whom you work with; no matter what, say "I need to stop, or slow down" if you get uncomfortable or get flooded with memories; have a kind and patient close circle of friends; have some medical providers who believe you and can help with meds-if needed.

Personally, I learned that I could claim and heal my wounds without direct confrontation with my abusers; for mine, it would've incited more violence.

Others will have more. You may use, be drawn to different therapies at different times. Trust yourself-that is a gift of the process!

 

[Hush92]

Unfortunately, there is the very rare occasion where circumstances (eg. over-zealous suggestive t...

The being able to remember repressed memories more accurately than ordinary every day memories you always have access to could be due to how memory works. Whenever you remember something, you are not remembering the event itself but the last time you remembered the event! This can create a "telephone" like memory effect. However to a memory that is repressed and has never been brought up it would have less chances to be altered or remembered incorrectly.

 

[sun seeker]

Any books you recommend about somatic therapy?

Anything by Peter Levine, though he writes more about single-event trauma than complex or developmental trauma, so just go into it realizing that. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk. The Trauma Spectrum by Robert Scaer.

However, since you say it is trauma from an early age that is getting to you the most, my strongest recommendation for a book would be Healing Developmental Trauma by Laurence Heller. He has a really good interview on youtube that you can watch, too. I read this book a couple of years ago and was both inspired by how all the information fit and what symptoms I never understood explained about my trauma, then discouraged because I knew of no one using his methods. I also thought some of them sounded like if I could use them, they would make a big difference, but I couldn't imagine getting over my fear enough to use them! Since then, I have found a therapist with much more skill and training in working with trauma than any I ever worked with before, and it is making a huge difference. It's like a night-and-day difference when compared with talk therapy. I'm actually getting through stuff. It's not easy, but I do see progress and hope.

Those are some book recommendations. But you also need a therapist trained in somatic therapy for early trauma. This isn't something you can do alone.

 

[sun seeker]

I can't get these questions out of my mind until another panic attack or similar event comes along and then I'm like "nope it was 100% real" until it passes and I go back to questioning again.

Just wanted to add that this is familiar to me. When your body and mind are flooded with the feeling of the trauma, it is real to you; then the flooding passes and it feels almost as if it happened to someone else. This is normal, and it does get so you feel more integrated - in time, and with lots of support. My most traumatic memories, though, still don't feel "real" in the usual sense.

Some characteristics common of recovered traumatic memory (and note I said "common," not that you have to have all of these for your memories to be real):

It comes in fragments. An episodic memory here, a fear associated with a certain place there, a smell somewhere else... in time, they add up, but each fragment alone can be confusing.

It is consistent over time. Maybe not 100%, but in theme.

You might, some of the time, feel as if you are experiencing the memory from inside the body of the child you were at the time, and other times, as if observing the scene from above. If it was very traumatic, sometimes we leave our bodies. Also normal.

When inside the child body, things around you seem correspondingly bigger, as they did at the time.

I keep coming back to the body. If you can find someone to work with who knows how to help you read your body's signals, that is where the most accurate memory resides. Connecting with the body is also essential to release the trauma. This has helped me so much, I can't emphasize it enough.

I sound as if I had all this resolved, and I don't. Frequently I still ask my therapist whether I could be making up the whole thing. It's a sort of double bind: I don't want it to be true that such horrible things happened to me, and yet, I also don't want it to be true that I would have made up such horrible things. I guess there is a good reason why believing ourselves takes time. It's so we can hold on to our sanity in the process...

 

[Panda Bear]

I find the closer I get to being free from my trauma, the more likely I am to find myself back pedaling from what is in fact TRUE.

That internal voice that was bred into my tiny soul, that I deserve, we are normal, others are wrong and what I got and saw was justified by my caregivers. Anyways, it just screams louder and causes me to question reality, the closer I get to feeling it. This is where my T comes into play, if I question what is abuse and trauma, I just ask him to reassure me.

 

[Anarchy]

The two main people pushing the "false memories" stuff, are the parents of a researcher into dissociative amnesia, who has accused them of abuse.

Right the way through the history of trauma, there have been attempts to paint the victims as mad or defective and unreliable, and the abusers as innocent and well meaning.

Whether it was Freud, recanting his work with traumatised women, and then claiming that the abuse never happened, it was childish fantasy, and they secretly desired incest.

Or " it's a chemical imbalance in your brain, here are some pills, now Stfu"

Or, it's a false memory.

Trauma memories are amazingly accurate and unchanging. Even if there is no conscious memory.
Judith Herman gives the example of a child who had no conscious memory of abuse or the abuser, but when given anatomically correct dolls, acted out the scenes in a video that the abusive babysitter had recorded of the abuse.