Childhood Is it more common to remember or not?

[T2L]

I'll try to make a long story short. Deep deep down, I never forgot the abuse. I used to be able to avoid and detach on cue, or I'd dissociate (not by choice). I was emotionally numb either as a natural response or using negative coping behaviors/substances to become numb and forget. It's like it was always in the back of my mind, but I didn't want to face it. Unfortunately as time marched on, my brain no longer allowed me to keep it in the back of my mind and I started having flashbacks and everything intensified. I had to do more and more to block or numb my thoughts, the images, the triggers...

I finally have a therapist I trust. Although we barely scratched the surface, I think I'll be able to start processing some of this. Last year I was able to write down multiple memories and flashbacks in vivid detail, but it's like I'm telling someone else's story... No emotions attached at all when I read or write them. Of course, I feel them later, just not in the moment (that confused me and we're working on lining the two up). I have memories of child on child sexual abuse from 3-6, then ongoing sexual abuse 6-20 from the main abuser (which more memories have been resurfacing), and some incidents of sexual abuse in an abusive relationship (though I found journal entries I wrote describing more incidents that occurred, yet I blocked those out).

Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is my therapist indicated it's more common clients come in and don't remember their abuse so vividly like I do. Is that common or just her personal experience with her set of clients? Unfortunately my active short term memory is shot, yet I can't stop remembering the abuse. It's kind my memory is like a bank and most of it was used up on the abuse incidents instead of life here and now. I wish I didn't remember and they'd stop running through my head like a loop (she said having OCD/pure-O could impact this).

I'm rambling now, I'm sorry... Her comment just confused me and I'm just trying to work through things.

 

[Innordinate]

I have very vivid memories of my abuse.
It seems actually the worse the abuse the more details I remember.

I don't know if it's common or not but I've wondered if it might be because I am a visual thinker. I store and recall information in picture format.
I've also heard a theory that our memories are actually memories of our thinking about our memories. If that makes sense to you?
So the more you've thought about a particular memory the more clear it will be when you recall it again.
The abuse memories going around in loops in the back of your head might just be keeping them fresher.

 

[T2L]

That makes sense. I'm also a visual thinker/learner. I never thought of that contributing but i can see how it could.

 

[Rumors]

I'll try to make a long story short. Deep deep down, I never forgot the abuse. I used to be able to avoid a...

Literally I could have written this myself down to the looping and OCD. I engaged in several sessions of emdr and it has helped with the story lines I have worked on. It took me FOREVER to get there but I a, so grateful I did. I have more to work on but my visual memory is pretty clear almost a bit like a photographic memory and I would focus on each detail of the loop to search for indiscrepancies so that I could discredit the entire story. Then I would fall in to the "what kind of sick person would think this shit up in their head?" and the loop would start all over. Miserable. I went days without sleep. EMDR helped a lot but damn it was hard.

 

[WishfulThinking123]

Last year I was able to write down multiple memories and flashbacks in vivid detail, but it's like I'm telling someone else's story... No emotions attached at all when I read or write them.

I cant comment too much on your main question. I do know its common to forget or block out the abuse but, I dont know which is more common. I am really sorry what you have gone through! I just wanted to comment on the above quote- I completely understand this. When I journal I am not attached at all sometimes I even think oh this is so insignificant or stupid and other times I'm just writing it because I want to remember my thoughts later for T. I will often block out what I think/thought processes really frequently. However, a day or two later- the emotions flood me and put me in such a spot that I actually am limiting my journaling drastically. I really can relate to what you said.

 

[Deleted member 8714]

it's more common clients come in and don't remember their abuse

I've been told the same thing.

Part of my abuse, that by my brother, I've always remembered. I believe that has more to do with dissociation than anything else. The reason I say this is that I never dissociated this abuse. Nor did I develop alters or parts to deal with it. At the same time, I was emotional/mentally abused by this brother and my mother. Like I said, I always remembered this part. It was a cloudy vellum over the abuse which my father perpetrated. It kept everything neat and tidy until the dam burst years into my therapy.

I can't say that is true for what happened with my father. I dissociated the whole thing. I developed alters and parts and pieces. First off, it took me years to accept I had a different father than my siblings. Second, it took me years, 6 more after that, to finally connect a repressed memory to my father. When my mother died in 2010 Pandora's Box was opened up and repressed memories of my father's abuse came flooding through. Had I lived with the knowledge of my father's abuse on a daily basis, I believe I would've gone crazy with that knowledge. Instead I dissociated it so I could go on living without it in my mind constantly.

I'm also a visual thinker/learner. I never thought of that contributing but i can see how it could.

I'm a visual thinker/learner as well. I don't think that has anything to do with me remembering or not remembering as I stated above.

 

[msjanetxtreme]

I completely relate to the beginning of your story. I remembered certain events but they were a lot like "mental furniture" -- pieces that took up cognitive space but events that just sort of happened (devoid of any emotion.) Sometimes I remembered things from the perspective of an observer. I don't remember much of my childhood and most of it has been white-washed. As for my traumatic memories, they are still lacking full cohesion even after more than a year in trauma therapy.

The Body Keeps the Score noted that memory for the abuse has much to do with age of onset, support from a primary caregiver (mother usually) and if the perpetrator was a family member. It's my understanding that if you're younger, lack support from a primary caregiver and receive abuse from a family member, then it's more likely that you will forget the abuse --at least for a period of time. Safety and survival is paramount and children have limited resources aside from dissociation.

Sending positive thoughts and compassion.

 

[piratelady]

I gave recently started to remember bits of abuse I think I experienced when I was younger. All my life I’ve had no memories of my first step-dad. He was present, I just don’t have any memories of him. I have incredibly strong feelings of hatred though.

Then recently I had what seemed to be a flashback of an incident with my cousin from when I was in 3rd grade or so. I’ve tried to convince myself it didn’t happen and I just made it up, I still try to. It’s hard to know what aspects of your memory you can trust when you’ve gone so many years without any memory of it.

 

[Mach123]

I think repressed memories are common I was happy to learn I was doing it things were so confused and I couldn't explain anything before. IDK if it's more common. I think people experience it differently.

I knew things and I didn't and I knew things I couldn't understand and there were things I didn't know because I'd never say them so nobody would ever know. That made it not real. Im sure there's more still I don't know. Part of me was always re enacting though, the pleasure parts so that's really vivid and reliving it all the time. Had to connect the dots.

 

[EveHarrington]

I think it’s more common to remember in general, than to repress the memories. I have almost a full recollection of my CSA which may not be all that common?

 

[shimmerz]

I think the way it works with me is that if I have forgotten (repressed) memories completely, that is my fragmentation coming to the surface. I have found for me that the flashbacks are my brains way of trying to help me recognize that there is shit locked away there that is coming to the surface.

I think if I have images in my head of things but can't figure out a timeline, then that is a trauma, but not a completely dissociated one as is described above.

I guess what I am trying to say is that the more dissociation was used to deal with the abuse or catastrophic event, the less likely I was to remember it.

 

[Emotional girl]

I had no recognition of CSA until 4 months ago.I always remembered the physical abuse from my childhood but it wasn't until I had a major trigger that I started to remember CSA.
My psychologist has said to me that it is not uncommon for people to have repressed memories but CSA can affect you in different ways through out your life.
Like for me I have always felt different from others,I used to walk around in a daze at school,my relationships with other people are very complicated,I have a core belief that I am a bad person,I have very low self esteem and I have always felt that I should keep quiet .
As soon as I started to remember my CSA everything started to make sense to me now.