Doubting The Memories

[radicalgratitude]

After all these years, I still sometimes find myself doubting that my dad molested me. In my mind at the moment, my dad matches his charismatic public image. The creative teacher, the devout Christian, the outgoing "punny" guy who is always quoting joke books and coming up with his own bad ones that are so awful you laugh anyway.

The sexual abuse was done in secret, so that's easy to doubt, but I even doubt the emotional abuse that plagued our family before the divorce. There were plenty of witnesses to this and my aunts and uncles even did a successful "intervention" on my mom, complete with an ultimatum that if she didn't take herself and us kids away from him, her family would cut her off. I even doubt after hearing about my mom's nurses at the hospital (when she was giving birth to my brother) trying to get her to go to a shelter.

My dad only neglected us kids because he didn't realize we didn't understand how to find and prepare food. We should have done this.

I even doubt despite the flashbacks, dissociation, and everything: I have PTSD, but no Criterion A.

 

[Seasounds]

Trust them, work them through as if they are true, as they are YOUR memories (i.e. don't expect your abuser or family members to remember them or believe you.).

This way, you get the benefit of trusting yourself and working through how you experienced reality. Finally, no matter what any one else says, you come through it all, standing with yourself. A big healing!

 

[Justmehere]

Actual or threatened sexual violence is an event that meets criterion A.

One of my traumas was caught on tape. I still doubt that it happened at times. I think it's a defense mechanism to feel like maybe it wasn't real...

 

[Hope4Now]

I understand the doubting part well. It's a part of you, probably mapped into you early on. I wish I had advice for how to deal with it, other than to recognize it's a part that is intending to protect you from the pain of what other parts of you know is true. I've been trying to learn how not to fight with the doubting part of myself...to engage it with compassion and gentleness...to let it know that "I" can handle the pain of what actually happened.

 

[y5L]

I also struggle with doubting my memories. The hardest thing for me is that I blocked out my primary trauma until years later, so I thought maybe I had just made it up- surely I wouldn't forget something so big, and even if I did, I wouldn't be able to remember it later!

Then I learned more about how PTSD and trauma work. Now I know this is fairly common. I still do question myself sometimes, for sure.

 

[radicalgratitude]

Thank you very much everyone! It was comforting and affirming to read your replies.

@Hope4Now, you must do Internal Family Systems therapy. I do as well. Thank you for alerting me to this part as a protective part. I will dialogue with her.