Sufferer Is It Normal To Not Remember Details Of Being Molested?

[aimeegreen]

I am 21 and have BPD, and have been in hospital for severe Depression at the age of 15. I posted yesterday but need some clarification on a question.

I have never told anyone, but I have a memory of molestation. I have never told because I only have one extremely vague memory and I cannot actually identify where it took place or who did it. And NO, it is NOT a repressed memory, I always had this memory. IT was only when I was 16 I realised it was molestation, before that I never knew it was wrong. So this is not a repressed memory.


My question is this, is it common for people to remember being molested, but unable to recall details like who did it and where it happened? The reason I have never told a doctor and asked for help for this event is because I'm scared no one will believe me or they will think I made it up due to the vagueness of the memory and lack of details. It's destroying my life right now and I cannot move forward. I can't even have sex or a relationship because of repulsion to intimacy and fear of men.

 

[jaccat]

I have a lot of missing memories. I had a violent mother, I know she was violent, I remember hiding from the sound of her voice, but other than one particularly traumatic incident I can't recall any details of her violence, nor do I know what it was she used to scream at us when she was mad (which I know was a daily occurrence). In fact my memories of my mother are very vague altogether, even though I lived with her for 11 years.

I blocked out those memories through fear. It was a survival mechanism. Over time bits have come back to me but there's still a lot of holes. I think it's pretty normal when you've been through something so traumatic.

 

[scout86]

My experience was/is a lot like that. Except the perp was someone I knew and I remember who he is. I recall some bits and pieces vividly, but only bits and pieces. I doubt that's unusual. It happens with a lot of childhood memories.

I also didn't get that that was "being molested" until I was an adult. Actually, not until a friend thought I might have a "problem" and got me to try to talk about it. Could have defined the term for you, remembered enough of what was done to me, but somehow that wasn't in the same category.... Weird the things our minds can do to try to protect us!

Get the help you need! A competent professional will believe you. You have symptoms. They are real. They came from somewhere. They ought to be addresses. You deserve to have them addressed.

You're not making this up and it's definitely not just you. Get some help ASAP. And welcome to the forum!

 

[Seagreen]

Most of my childhood memories are just fragments. Even significant ones. Its normal not to remember all of the details of anything that happened while you were very young. You dont need to tell your doctor any details. Just explain your symptoms and you suspect it may be related to something that happened to you as a child. Doctors understand that people often find it difficult to talk about these things. They also understand that people cant always remember.

 

[Deleted member 20280]

In a single word yes. I did exactly that with numerous trauma's from a very very young age. The cognitive mind does not kick in in the very early formative years and therefore the memory becomes fragmented.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Yep, completely normal. I think many people can't remember all the details of their trauma. But think about it, do you remember every detail about any of your memories? I'd say no, as that's not how the mind works.

 

[The Albatross]

Memories like Swiss cheese here as well. I have come to see it as my psyche protecting itself. Confusing at times, but necessary considering my environment and what was happening to me at the times of traumatization.

 

[MissKB]

Yes, you can forget and have missing holes. I didn't remember a whole 2 years of constant sexual abuse until 40 years later when the abuser died. As soon as I heard they had died, it all came flooding back into my memory. I think it is our brain trying to protect us or give us what we can handle - when we can handle it.

 

[Deleted member 20280]

Basically the unconscious mind stores all latent memories from pre-birth. Sounds are held arguments between the fetuses parents are recorded and kept forever. It has shown in Royal College of Nursing studies that a baby born to argumentative parents during gestation will be more stressed at birth than those born into a family where gestation contained no arguments. The child's cognitive mind stores all sensations, sights and sounds in the right rear cerebral cortex of the brain.

When the unconscious mind feels the person is ready to start processing trauma. It pops that memory strain into the conscious mind, the two then conflict and there are gaps in the memories because the human conscious only uses 21 % of its total capacity to process the information taken in at the point of trauma by the awake senses.

Because of this conflict our conscious mind tries to fill in the gaps.

We re traumatise ourselves because of this conflict and the fact that the human mind of the victim in particular is repulsed by the actions of abusers as a whole, as 90% of the population are repulsed by the actions of abusers, in particular those abusers who molest children.

During processing of these traumas our emotional cup kicks in and overflows because of the repulsion at the thought that these images conjured up in our awake minds are usually vivid and we are the central focal point of that image, or flashback to the past. The realisation that is is in fact ourselves who were abused/molested emotionally scares and terrifies us to the point of collapse in numerous cases. (Similarly in dementia patients when they regress to childhood and walk for miles and miles at the age of say 80-90 years old wanting to go home to where they grew up at the age of 5-7 yrs of age. That memory has been stored and when the dementia sets in it represents itself as fact to the conscious mind, making the person believe that the address they are looking for is the current one, A dementia patient will more often than not want to see their mum and dad. ( I worked with long term critical dementia patients for three years back in the early 90's which is where I base my knowledge of this fact from.)


My own right rear cerebral cortex has been severely damaged due to the abuses I suffered to the point that many if not most of my memory is one great big black hole. Visually I see nothing but can hear and smell, taste the experience only, my mind therefore puts the pictures in for me and jumbles itself up on faces in particular and the masks my abusers wore are the scariest part because they are surreal as my mind has made them up. Through EMDR and other therapies I have had to use I can rationalize who the abuser is and replace the mask with a real person now.

I hope this is helpful and helps to explain the workings of the human brain !!

 

[intothelight]

Welcome to the forum! I hope the feedback and the information you find here gives you some peace.

 

[shell]

Lots of people don't have all the memories, I have large amounts of missing memories, many incidents told to me by family members, and pieces of memories where I have fragments, and lots of knowledge because it happened so often. I know that it happened, just as I know how to read and count, but actually remembering individual instances, I have limited recollections. My body, and the way I react, and relate to others are a result of my constant abuse as a child, when things are too overwhelming incidents don't necessarily get encoded correctly, and maybe not even there to completely to recall. It certainly doesn't mean it never happened.

 

[Deleted member 28403]

It's common on here that peiple don't remember stuff, it's in a way brain's way of protecting itself, it keeps bad stuff away a fair bit.

I don't remember most of my life, so there are giant holes in all I remember. Also I suffer from constant bit by bit memory loss, asy brain earses chunks of bad stuff happening, and keeps only pure information, as in, things I learned.

During serious bullying I had dissociative memory loss, I'd be dissociated and everyoneade fun of me because I couldn't remember what happened to me after 5-10 seconds :(

Now I basically forget most stuff that happens to me, and what I remember is a mush, I have no idea what happened first and so on.

Welcome to the forums! :) :hug:s