How Long Can It Take To Get Memory Back?

[Dymphna]

Hi, I recently had a flashback that is related to sexual abuse although the memory is very brief and there isn't even anything in this memory to distinguish it as a sexual memory. I have been dealing with these fragmented memories for years and have been able to figure out one instance of abuse by a babysitter's husband and another one as well. I had a flashback the other day which was very intense, but the only thing I saw was a table, floor and wall - that's it! I am certain however that it is sexual abuse related. After all this time I am still getting new memories?? How long has it taken other people to piece together memories and face them? Everytime light is shed on a memory I am so anxious to figure it out, get all the pieces and put them together, but my brain just won't let me!

 

[Abrasky]

13 years : ( so far.

But every piece put back together is amazing and makes life a bit better.

 

[ClairBear226]

You find that to be the case, Maze? That getting new bits makes it better? The reaction I'm having is to run like hell, and hope they don't catch up with me. I'd be really, really happy if I could stop it all, and go back to the place I was before.

 

[LawPhotos]

.. run like hell, and hope they don't catch up with me. I'd be really, really happy if I could stop it all, and go back to the place I was before.

I agree with you 100% ClairBear. I live in terror of the next memory breaking through. I fight like hell to keep them at bay. I "know" far too much already, I don't want to know anything else. Yes I've had PTSD symptoms my whole life but I was oblivious to them and their cause. I never took a moment to think about how I was or why I was that way. Until that first massive flashback that started this whole thing I was much happier. Yes denial is fraught with issues but basically my ignorance was bliss compared to this. I'll take the problems that go with denial and repression over the awareness of my hypervigilance, my fears, my phobia, my flashbacks, nightmares, dissociation, panic etc.. Sure most of this stuff was present before but they existed somewhere faintly in the background, in the periphery of an otherwise comparatively happier life. Now life just absolutely sucks. I would love to stop it all and go back as well. Forget putting the puzzle pieces together I'd like to throw all of the pieces in the fire.

 

[ClairBear226]

Forget putting the puzzle pieces together I'd like to throw all of the pieces in the fire.

Really good to hear somebody around here that thinks the same way I do. Have been figuring I was the odd duck out. ;) I keep reading about people that go back to places from their childhood in an effort to remember things, or work to get all the little pieces to match up. WHAT? WHY? If I could stuff it all back into the box it came from and file it back there under "D" for DO NOT OPEN, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Yea, I get that it's not healthy. So what, I'll deal with not being healthy then. Who the hell is, anyway? As it is, I'm trying to just figure out what to do with the fallout.

 

[BloomInWinter]

I agree with you, (((((Maze)))))).

I's not better because I remember it, but rather that because I no longer am maintaining that 'mental wall' holding that fragment out. The wall then no longer is permeable and the trauma bits begin to be less 'intrusive.'

 

[Abrasky]

For example, I had a memory of my mum being yelled at and attacked for being 5 minutes late. After I got this memory back, I could travel on the bus and go out without having panic attacks just before I arrived home again. Every bit helps in a little way for me. : ) Some more than others. That catching a bus thing was a victory for me.

Agree the process of memory processing before the memories come back is like swallowing a bitter pill. But I don't focus on that. I focus on what good comes of it including not having to take antideprressants anymore (6 years free now).

 

[Heather]

I'm trying to just figure out what to do with the fallout.

I'm with you on this one Clair. I had a horrendous flashback and trying to deal with the fallout was almost to much to deal with. I couldn't stop crying, the depression was horrible and the anxiety.....

I think the stress from everything is what ultimately ended with me going inpatient last summer.

 

[Venusian]

It was 42 years before the worst memories came back. It started from a comment on a thread I had posted on another forum and then it seemed like a dam burst and the memory led to another and another. They are still coming back and it has been about 8 months since I first posted the little bit I had known. Like the others, I wish I could have boxed it all up again, put it all back behind that wall and find mortar and bricks. But I can't, I have to deal with everything I know now. In the past there were small details that came back that fell into place and phobias I had no longer scared me because I knew where the phobia was rooted and I was able to look at the object as the object it was, it wasn't scary anymore. They were only the tools used by the person that really scares me.

 

[anthony]

[DLMURL]https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/threads/never-associated-memories.23557/#post-335000[/DLMURL]