Sexual Assault does anyone understand me? new cocsa memories

[foxrye]

I'm wondering if anyone else has had new memories pop up on top of existing trauma?

Basically I've been speaking about being sexually assaulted by my cousin for years. I've been to therapy - ended up not helping much but I did go for my alotted number of sessions and I'm working on it but still struggling tbh, though I'm not having frequent nightmares anymore. I kinda thought that was all there was to my sexual trauma specifically though. I usually just dismissed any thoughts of forgotten memories.

Last week or so I remembered some other things that happened even earlier. Like, I was probably 8 or something. I don't really feel comfortable posting too deep into detail but I had a classmate who made me watch her do things by springing it on me without warning which I remember hating, and who also then at least asked me to do some things with her (this is when it all gets fuzzy and confusing, I don't remember any emotion or much of anything at all). After that, I started doing this thing by myself and it developed into a strong habit/kink? Not what the post is about, just to illustrate how deep it goes.

But I didn't even remember any of this happened somehow, I've been idly wondering since forever when I became into that. It's a surprise, to say the least. Seemingly randomly one day, the memories just appeared in my head. And this might be one of the places my issues setting boundaries and later hypersexuality developed (and my resulting rapid flipping between that and sex repulsed that ruined my latest relationship).

I'm not really asking for advice on what to do. I went to therapy before 3 times and it was mostly just a person looking at me and asking how I felt, barely even remembering what I said ten seconds ago even with their notes. I don't even have the time for that when I need to work. I'm really just thinking that I can't be alone but I still feel really alone - it's hard to even ever open up to someone enough to find someone that might understand my experiences on this, especially when it's personal to my adult life as well.

I hope someone else in the world has my weird experience of new memories that explain a hell of a lot after previously having memories of things that happened later on. It seems like this has just impacted my entire life without me having a single clue any part of it happened. It's both wildly confusing and not confusing at all, which just makes it more confusing!

 

[Friday]

It’s an incredibly common thing with childhood trauma, and not uncommon with adult traumas. So much so that “inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma.” used to be part of the diagnostic criteria.

Like many specific examples in the DSMIV (sense of foreshortened future, restricted range of affect, etc.) that have been umbrella’d under larger symptom categories in the DSM5? Inability to recall an important aspect of trauma is still part of what a great many people deal with… they’re just gone into detail over the course of 700pages, (the science & practice of PTSD) instead of a quick bullet list of less than half a page (diagnostic criteria).

 

[arfie]

I hope someone else in the world has my weird experience of new memories that explain a hell of a lot after previously having memories of things that happened later on. It seems like this has just impacted my entire life without me having a single clue any part of it happened. It's both wildly confusing and not confusing at all, which just makes it more confusing!

i started recovery in 1972 with trauma induced amnesia and new memories emerging remains business as usual for me. the good news is that the trauma has been dealt with and the memories emerging these days are the more useful/pleasant memories which were buried in the mindslides of trauma.

yes, the repressed memories will continue to impact your entire life, whether you are mindful of them, or knot. in my own case, i grow ever more convinced that the more i repress and deny, the more power those repressed memories have to take control. just believing. . .

 

[Rose White]

the more i repress and deny, the more power those repressed memories have to take control. just believing. . .

I very much found this to be true. It was really hard to accept them but when I did I had relief of lifelong strange and uncomfortable sensations (which were the ghostly body memories) as well as shifts in my level of anxiety, or as you like to say, the tangles of my “psycho snot knot.”

 

[arfie]

It was really hard to accept them but when I did I had relief of lifelong strange and uncomfortable sensations

well said, rose. these days i like to analogize that i have reduced those once repressed memories to stains on the sidewalk. they are still ugly as sin and far from my favorite small talk, but i can step over them without tripping. at least, that's my prayer and i'm sticking to it, until the healing mysteries guide me elsewhere.