How Can You Accept A Memory?

[greenleaf]

@NovemberStar -- I have had a therapist tell me that the memory can't hurt me too. I think that what she was trying to communicate is that the abuser is no longer actually physically in the room, and that the danger to my life from the abuser is no longer present; that type of physical (or emotional) current hurt. This T wasn't trying to say that one's mind doesn't still have most of the same reactions as at the time in some cases!

My sense is that it's a cognitive thing, to tell oneself sensible things that help integrate the parts of one's life while trying to get through the emotional reactions etc. in the present. It can feel confusing, since part of oneself is sort of frozen back there, and some of us can really go into those parts -- which makes that context feel more like current reality (though hopefully not totally). This could be a way for a cognitive "part" to talk to the scared, younger "part". Although I'm don't have DID, I do seem to have some frozen emotional contexts, and this approach has been helping.

 

[amy4k]

As another one with DID I often feel emotions that do belong to "me", they are the emotions of another part. For example today I have alternating bouts of extreme anger and sadness that do not really belong to me today. Could this memory be causing a lot of anxiety for another part(s) that you are feeling? Since you said you journal with your parts can you find out which one(s) could be so upset by this emerging memory and try to comfort them? That seems to help me the most.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

@NovemberStar - I totally agree with you that even though the actual event isn't happening, there is pain and it does hurt. I have had the same kind of flashback you are describing and I know the feeling that you are describing when you come back from it. I don't have the memory that goes with what I am feeling so it's kind of different. It's hard for me to explain.

@greenleaf - I get the sense that my therapist is trying to remind me that the absuer isn't in the room and that is what she is trying to get me to realize by saying the memory cannot hurt me, but I can't convince myself of that because I do not see it that way. I know that my life seems to fall apart every time I learn of a memory. Maybe someday I can convince myself.

@amy4k - Thanks for sharing that, that makes sense and I think that happens to me sometimes, too. I think it is a combination for me right now. Two of my parts are strongly focused on the memory right now so some of what I am feeling is probably their anxiety. Some is my own fear of the unknown. My therapist reminded me to be kind to the parts so I have given my young part a stuffed animal and playtime with my boys when I can. For now I am hanging in there - I think the change of scenery of camping is helping with that.

 

[NovemberStar]

@JEKBreatheandBelieve I'm sorry things are so hard right now. I relate to not always having a memory with the flashbacks - I don't either sometimes. Often I'll just have a glimpse, or a vague blurry 'flicker' of an image. But I am definitely 'back there'. I think I don't have a sequence happen because it's too traumatic to remember. But over the course of months last year I was able to piece together what happened on the one day.

@greenleaf I do realise some Ts use that approach and I can see how it might be useful for a lot of people - but I think when you're having flashbacks and haven't yet been able to remember or process the traumatic memory, it's next to useless to try to 'think' your way out of it by saying 'it's only a flashback' - sure, you can tell yourself that afterwards (as I do) but the reality is while you're IN the flashback, the exact same terror, of feeling you will die, of feeling your life is very much under threat, you really ARE re-living it.

My flashbacks are so seamless, and are triggered by anything and everything - I am not able to use any cognitive skills to 'control' them. I imagine IF I'd been in a car accident and being in a car triggered flashbacks, it might work - but I don't think it can work in the same way when life itself is one big trigger. (Example being - I can be driving along the road, not even thinking anything about my past, and SUDDENLY, the way the clouds or light lies low in the sky can trigger me straight back to childhood and the trauma - my childhood was one almost constant trauma so the triggers are endless).

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

@NovemberStar - It doesn't work for me even on the trigger of a car accident. If I am totally in the flashback I can't tell myself it is not happening now. I have learned to recognize some specific triggers and it has been easier with that than my other traumas, but that is probably because I can actually remember that. The car accident was the catalyst for my discovering DID and that there was more to my past than I remembered. What you have said makes me feel much better about my own situation.