Sufferer I'm 64y.o. And Finally Addressing My Ptsd Thru Emdr.

[Ivan the Elder]

Very interesting Mary. It sounds like overall it went well for you. I hope that continues in the future. I am going to follow you on this forum because I want to see how well you are doing.

Next week I start a 9 week series of weekly group sessions, two hours each evening. I have no clue what it will be like but am looking forward to it. Anything will be better than the way I feel now, especially in the evenings.

I am caught in a tight loop where I cannot stop thinking of all the things that have gone so badly wrong in the last five months. I was incredibly badly maltreated by the psychiatrist assigned to me at the psych ward. I am very sure he is a fraud and to make that even more certain he is Nigerian. In Nigeria it is estimated that over half the so called "Doctors" practice on fraudulent credentials. At our last meeting in which there were two witnesses he had the incredible stupidity to actually threaten me. He directly said to me: "If we see you down here again it won't be nearly as nice for you as it was this time".

I think he was catching on to me suspecting him as a fraud and slipped back into the mentality of a scammer. He thought I had beat him at his own scam by convincing everyone else that I was fully sane. So he threatened me because he saw me as a threat. My psychiatrist and regular doctor couldn't believe he did that. I have also found evidence that he is not licensed. It is actually negative evidence since there is no record of him ever graduating anywhere as a doctor. I am very good at that sort of investigation. I have been on line on the net since it was invented. I worked for the company that developed it in the first place, Xerox. I worked in the Computer division, Engineering and Reprographics.for 23 years.

He was right, I am a threat. Little did he know that my regular doctor is the chairman of the qualifications committee for the entire area including the psych ward. He is now being investigated.

 

[greenleaf]

While the exact details of what happened may be unknown, focusing on an idea that what you are remembering may be "false" seems unlikely to be helpful, in my opinion. You're not in a court of law, you're trying to heal. Most people in the trauma field I've read do say it's very likely that something very like what you are remembering happened; more importantly, it's clear those events still need to be processed -- and disbelieving their details won't help that!

I have a very different reaction to hearing that you got snippets back during acupuncture; I think such times may be precisely when you are likely to get a bit of old trauma memories. That sounds much like my experience with memory bits that have been gone for a long time; I was having a massage yesterday, and was getting back pieces of my life surrounding the period in which lots of violence was occurring. There are definitely real, as much as any memories are accurate! -- my whole emotional/"I was there" memory of much of childhood has been reduced, for years, to a vague sort of general narrative... sort of like my brain put me on a "need to know" basis, and it decided I didn't... :cautious:

Have you read any of the posts here that mention the "reptile brain"? It deals with life-or-death stuff for us, and is very involved in ptsd, though ptsd is probably not what it "evolved to create"... not that evolution is goal-oriented exactly, but that's a whole field of study...

Getting a good trauma therapist is really really helpful. The fact that snippets are floating up during acupuncture tells me that maybe the part of your brain that has squelched the memories to keep you safe, felt safe enough finally to let you start to remember. Feeling safe and getting support is what can help you slowly get enough of the memories to form a better picture. The repression happens because of lack of safety to start with -- lack of support as a child means that you could not experience the terrible emotions, most likely... it can be even harder to remember why we didn't feel safe talking to people back then, in my experience, because I think sometimes that was due to details in how adults reacted to us...

In any event... my view of this stuff is, the "reptile brain" part of our minds can act as a sort of preserve-our-life Gatekeeper. It takes lots of energy to keep memories away, and we can be more complete and experience life in many more dimensions once whole sections aren't being kept behind a "gate" due to safety concerns of our "Gatekeeper"... But to me it sounds like the acupuncture and hopefully the EMDR person help you feel safe talking about this stuff?

Really, don't worry about the precise detail issue right now!!! -- work on how you feel safe, hopefully the therapist also has you practicing "grounding" and other coping skills for feeling safe during emotional experiences... ?

My T keeps telling me to have "gentle curiosity" about these memories, which is being really helpful. For years I would get scared of the fear, leading to more squashing of the fear and no normal resolution; I couldn't even work on how to get support for the feelings, which seems to be important in them changing and lessening... fear of the feelings would short-circuit that.

So, "gentle curiosity" about your snippets, and keep learning how to feel safer, are helping for me, perhaps they would for you...?

 

[Ivan the Elder]

It is necessary to deal with false memories as if they are real. There is no way to determine from the person that holds the memories if memories are false or real, unless the false memories are obviously impossible or illogical. Often they seem very possible and could have happened. In those cases there is no way to determine the degree of truth they represent, especially when they accompany very similar memories that have been corroborated, especially child abuse. However, if it can be determined that the memories are false, and most important, to the satisfaction of the person holding the memory, then treatment becomes much easier.

 

[greenleaf]

@Evan -- I would be happier if you phrased that, "Generally it's good to deal with peoples' memories as if they are real" in the context of getting back abuse! ...at least, "It is necessary to deal with potentially false memories as if they were real".

"Reality" vs. our memories: it's a lot more complicated than a memory just being "false", in spite of the desire of part of society to try to discredit peoples' entire trauma histories if a few details turn out incorrect (happened in the media recently in the U.S. -- a woman got some dates wrong, therefore nothing ever happened)...

The results on Google that one will get from phrases like "false memories of abuse" seems to relate mostly to a certain group in the 1990s that focused on a few examples (old examples!) where the clients weren't properly dealt with, usually by therapists who hadn't been aware of more recent memory research. Yes, with some extensive work, one can apparently "lead" people into believing unreal things to be their own memories. However that bunch (E. Loftus et al.) don't seem to want to read the exploding field of trauma research, including the stuff on dissociation, the effect on memory of trauma... unfortunately those seem to get quoted way, way more than they merit based on their contributions, maybe because the media likes to have "two sides"... well here are two sides: the earth is round, no! the earth is flat! Better present both sides anytime a photo of the planet from space is shown! The media don't often like to present "one can never totally know, but X is likely to be related to what happened, and the person has loads of effects in their current life that match traumatic stress/dissociative disorders/whatever"... way too complex for a headline!

If I try to remember what I did on Sept. 1st of my second year in college 35 years ago, it's likely that I'll get it wrong... however if I get it wrong, it does not mean that I never went to college; I remember years of going to lots of classes. Probably can't tell you names of many teachers, days of the week I took which classes, who came into which rooms in which order... not many details left at all! In fact I can't tell you that about this morning hardly either. I remember lots of general "sorts of things" that my abuser did, a few precise details with no date or time attached, and my body has loads of problems that match what researchers are (finally) discovering to be related to chronic physical abuse. Among those: a very bad memory! Very unhelpful now, but the "pushing things away" feeling was in fact very helpful then. I'm glad I can problem solve, and I have a decent visual/spatial memory at least!

Sorry if my response is slightly askew from what you intended to communicate; part your wording hit one of my buttons (the Loftus gang issue), but other aspects of your wording I had no trouble with.

 

[Ivan the Elder]

I happen to have witnessed the creation of a false memory by my wife. One February 15 this year she changed personality to somebody I did not recognize. I am now of the opinion that she may have had a "silent stroke" the previous night/ She has a high risk of stroke for medical reasons. Whatever happened, it was very sudden and extreme. Without going into a lot of detail we had a very difficult and upsetting discussion, not an argument though. Later that morning I wrote two pages in my journal describing what I witnessed and my thoughts on it.

I gave it to her to read. Somewhat later we discussed it and she immediately accused me of wanting a divorce because I had written about it in my journal. I never wrote anything in that journal regarding divorce or separation or anything directly related to it. I had printed the pages for her to read so I gave them back to her to read again. She was forced to acknowledge that I had not mentioned the subject.

That is an example of just how easy it can be to create a false memory. She was most likely thinking about that when she was reading my journal. Somehow she incorporated it into what she remembered as my writing, not her thinking. Later she left me without telling me that was her plan.

False memories are very easy to create in certain circumstances, especially when the real memories have been somehow weakened. It doesn't require a stroke to provide that. Just being very tired is sufficient.

I must go out right now or I would address the wording issue but this is all I have time for right now.

Later

 

[greenleaf]

I happen to have witnessed the creation of a false memory by my wife. One February 15 this year she changed...

I don't know what strokes tend to do; re. personality changes exactly; I'm sorry for the difficulties that has created. Scary stuff.

In general, though, an issue of whether one certain thing such as divorce -- an upsetting thing for most of us-- was mentioned or thought or written in a particular argument under stress... people get that stuff wrong all the time... she could have thought you wanted one during the argument, then later it got into the writing in her mind. We all know that. Details of conversations are impossible to reconstruct accurately after one day for many of us!

This isn't what people are talking about when they decide that a kid made up being chronically abused for 10 years... very different situation... you mention that you yourself were abused for many years; if someone said your memories were false, you might just possibly be upset...? yes, it's really hard to be sure of details of any one memory, but the pattern if it's chronic and the effects on us are a lot harder to get confused about for many folks...

The OP has many memories that she's never forgotten, she says; the issue seems to be re. these other memories, which are sexual abuse it sounds like. She's in therapy, getting acupuncture too -- she's hopefully feeling safer now! I believe that it's very possible that she did not remember things that felt possibly "shameful" to her as a kid; the violence, she needed to remember perhaps to stay safe from. I think that I read that sexual abuse is particularly likely to be dissociated away, i.e. "forgotten".

It doesn't really get totally forgotten according to the Structural Dissociation model, if you read about that; it's still active in dissociated "parts" of us... that's where the DDNOS, DID research helps...

This "forgetting" is very specific in its function, it is different from our more "normal" memory issues -- which can be difficult too. Although... dissociation apparently is apparently part of the "normal" functioning of "normal" people too, just milder, parts are not as totally separated... well it's pretty new research but I'm really glad for it.

Please read about Structural Dissociation, I'd be interested to hear what folks on this thread think about it -- there are several other extensive threads on it too here.

 

[Marymickaela]

I don't know what strokes tend to do; re. personality changes exactly; I'm sorry for the difficulties...

Greenleaf, thank you for all the information. You've given me a lot of information and affirmation to support the possible abuse. Like I said, when I had this memory of being gang raped at approximately age 6 I was trying to remember happy memories. When this memory popped into my brain what shocked me was my body's reaction. Heart pounding in terror, tears streaming down my face, begging for help, etc. Again, the memory and my body's reaction would return during other times when in a relaxed state, such as hypnosis. I never tried to force this memory and in fact tried to avoid it. It slowly faded from my memory after a couple weeks and hasn't returned. That was 2005. I put the incident totally out of my memory until the trial of the college football players raping a unconscious girl, and the story only came out because one of the players had recorded the rape. I thought OMG, that's what happened to me. I still have no recollection. I do remember that after the players were convicted one of the players tearfully apologized to the girl, saying that he knew he had ruined her life.

After talking to my older brother a few weeks ago about my dad choking him and he said he didn't remember that ever happening I thought "how could he not remember something so horrific". I spoke to my younger brother a couple days ago and he brought the choking incident up. It was such a relief to have validation that he too remembered the same details of what happened to my older brother, and my older brother was probably 18 or 19 years old when this happened. I thought if he could have repressed a memory at that age I guess I could have too, esp at the young age of 6. I do remember having personality changes around age 7 and no real memories of school, although I remember loving 1st grade, which was at age 5. My older brother is supposed to call me in the next couple days as I want to discuss some other incidents from when I was young, like my dad kicking and breaking my mom's ribs.

It will be interesting to see where this EMDR therapy leads me. During our 1st EMDR session on Thursday I felt no emotions while talking about incidents of having to confront authority figures. It was like I was a robot talking about these painful incidents/experiences. Some of my suppression of emotions may be related to medications. I'll look into "reptile brain" as I've never heard of that before. It's also only been the past couple years my diagnosis of PTSD is being addressed.

 

[greenleaf]

Hi @Marymickaela -- many hugs if that is helpful to you; that is so much but I am very glad that you are working on healing.

A lot of us who are a bit over 29 didn't have the benefit of a world where understanding of this stuff existed when we were younger, so we have done the best we could. On the other hand, most people throughout history didn't have such a world, and most people now still don't have access to trained trauma therapists. I do wish you the best! The robot thing is very familiar to me though it's really only in retrospect, as it's hard to realize that you're doing that when you're totally just doing that.

The "reptile brain" thing is more a layperson's lingo thing I think, but then I'm a layperson...

Feeling safer seems a really crucial key. I have been getting massage that is amazingly helpful (and reasonably positive memory snippets were coming up when my neck was getting more relaxed yesterday), ... I'm really interested also in how you like the acupuncture, is it a specialized person?

Well I am glad I have stretchy happy cats here. One just almost got the keyboard under him. Hah, foiled him.

 

[Ivan the Elder]

I am not a good example to use when discussing memories. I have a very unusual form of eidetic memory, known as hyper biographical memory, aka hyperthemesia. I remember virtually every day of my life with some of it beginning when I was less than 1 year old. The memories include my abuse but they also include every day completely normal activites such as going to the bathroom, eating or many other perfectly ordinary things. My hyperthemesia isn't quite as good as some because I do not usually remember exact dates and times, only some. While that might sound impossible it isn't at all. At my age it represents only about 24,000 days. My vocabulary is much larger than that as I speak a number of languages and it must include spelling and meaning. I have only one memory that I question. It seems just as real as all the others but doesn't make sense as it totally conflicts with my self image.

My memories are not like a so called "photographic memory", they are much more like a very detailed movie several minutes long with highly compressed time. They include details down to level of written words. If I pick up a book without seeing the cover or title and flip to any page I can tell if I have read it by reading a sentence or two. I can also remember numbers extremely well such as the value of pi to 20 digits and most of the hundreds of phone numbers that I have used over time. This memory is still fully functional. My strokes have only affected the white matter and the connections between lobes. For example, if you were to draw a random shape on paper while I was watching right now I would be able to describe it a week later down to the detail of which direction the pencil was moving as each part was drawn. My memory is a curse now as it is making it very hard to deal with PTSD. I can't block or forget anything that happened. It is in minute detail and reviewing it makes it worse, not better. That is most probably due to my hemispheric disconnection syndrome from my second stroke and previous traumatic brain damage. The more I remember the faster it floods in and it rapidly becomes overwhelming. I am not able to control my emotional response. The right side of my brain is poorly connected to the left side.

For the average person memory is very flexible and easily changed. Just speaking to another person with a memory of the same event will result in both people changing their individual memories to some degree. In highly stressed situation wholesale changes to memories are possible and do happen to many people. It has been determined that this most often results in the changes being toward the negative, not positive. Of course, that is understandable when a person is under extreme stress.

Feeling safe is a very big problem for me too. I also think I have a stronger female persona than most men. My automatic response to any threat is to flee, not fight and if I cannot flee I then cry. I am very heterosexual but that isn't all there is to your internal self image. I love animals of every kind and I have never abused any living creature (with the possible exception of the memory I doubt, at age 4). I get along with females much better than males just as friends and always have. Being married put a large crimp in that as it isn't often seen as acceptable for a husband to have female friends. At least now that can change and already is. A this point I am most definitely not looking for intimacy as just the thought scares me of being hurt so badly again.

I really don't and can't know how this applies to the OP. Everyone is different and that very much includes the tendency to form false memories. I most certainly do not and I cannot be hypnotized either. What I have said about this subject is based on very general average behaviour. Hypnosis and false memories are very closely associated. If one can be easily hypnotized then it is much more likely that person will also form false memories.

 

[Marymickaela]

Evan, why are you so insistent that my memory has to be false, when in reality we don't and probably will never know for sure? Please stop dismissing my acupuncture experience. You seem to be running my experience and feelings into the ground, dismissing me, and constantly bring up how knowledgeable you are with your eidetic memory. While all of this is interesting I’m not sure how important education is when it comes to PTSD. And your family’s education and vocations certainly aren’t related. All of our PTSD problems are individual to each person’s life experiences and you can’t necessarily rationalize everything. As I’ve already said, 4 of my previous therapists (one being a psychologist I had been in therapy with for over 7 years) said in all likelihood this did happen, and I even gave the example of my brother not remembering his being choked by my father, although I vividly remember this incident, something that happened over 40 years ago, as did my younger brother. And no, we don’t have great memories, but I do remember many traumas. My purpose in exploring my PTSD thru EMDR is to get in touch with my feelings. I feel if I can learn to come to terms with the traumas I do remember. I can let go of all my anger, grinding and breaking my teeth due to stress, numerous health problems and much more. I need to do this for my children and grandchildren. I don’t want to continue stuffing my feelings. I came to this site to get and give support and am happy to be here to give you that.

Mary

 

[Ivan the Elder]

I am very sorry and I sincerely apologise for offending you. I am not meaning to give you the impression that I insist your memories are false. I guess what I said about hypnosis is what may have given you that idea. Part of my problem is that false memories is what I am trying to deal with in the ongoing struggle with my ex wife. My memory in no way makes me somehow smarter or better than anybody else. It is an auto biographical memory and right now it is huge deficit. It means I remember everything that has happened to me and cannot forget it. It is just how my brain works and has nothing to do with intelligence. It is making my PTSD worse

I do know a lot about medicine since I have been studying it for most of my life. It is what I do. I don't watch TV, I don't drink beer and I am unable to participate in sports of any kind. I am seriously disabled and have been for many years. At least I am much better than I was last year. For a good part of last year I was unable to stand for more than five to ten minutes. I have been to some degree disabled for the last 30 years and had to quit working entirely in 1998. I spend most of my waking hours in front of my computer and study. It is the one thing I can still do. I finally lost enough weight to be able to get up and around a lot better. I am 6' 2" and now weigh 150 lbs. My blood pressure no longer falls to 70 or even 60 systolic as soon as I stand up.

As for the memories, nobody is qualified to tell you if they are real or not. It isn't possible to tell unless they are false and totally illogical or impossible. There are no tests that really work and very little is known about how the brain forms and keeps memories. That is an area of science that still has a long way to go.

I sure wish I could get in touch with my own feelings. That is now mostly cut off by brain damage and a disconnection between my left and right brain. It also probably affects how and what I write here and again I apologise for upsetting you. That is the very last thing I want to do to anyone.