Post Trauma Memory Loss

[popeye]

I noticed the last few days that I am missing alot of memories that should be kind of important. Such as when my youngest daughter learned to crawl, or walk. Even anything about the time she was in infants clothing. I don't remember much for almost a year and a half. I remember some important things like the day she was born and things. But trying to remember things like who woke up with her in the middle of the night when she was crying I have no idea. I don't remember a whole lot.

There are so many things I don't remember that today I brought it up to my wife and she was trying to fill in the holes for me. As she was filling in details that are apparently important I started to feel sick to my stomach. I still feel extremely sad right now and overwhelmed. How could I forget so much? Where did the memory go? How come I can remember almost every single thing that happened the day of the trauma but almost nothing about the year that followed?

I tried reading some info about this from the site but I can't seem to find much. So if anyone has any suggestions I am all ears.

 

[ISupportHer]

Popeye, I am at work and can't go into a long response but I just wanted you to know that I saw your post and am sorry you are having problems today. I just wanted you to know someone saw this and cared!

ISH

 

[Michel]

First, let me say how sorry I am that you are feeling so sad right now. I'm afraid I am very tired myself after a pretty difficult day but wanted to at least suggest that, if you have not done so, you have a look at the posts on dissociation. Is it possible you can't remember the year following the trauma because you dissociated quite a lot during it? I really don't know the answer to this question, but if you are not very familiar with ideas about dissociative phenomena, you might look for some reading on it. Someone here will have suggestions.

Please forgive me if I'm way off the mark.

 

[SpringRain]

Popeye, I'm really sorry that this is troubling you and making you so sad. This is something that I have actually been working on. I too have big gaps in my memory in connection with trauma. My T has suggested, like Michel did, that I simply "went away" in order to cope. I have also noticed that there are times when things are particularly stressful, or my memories are especially haunting, that I'm forgetting simple everyday things. I now have a phone with a calendar on it and I can set reminders to do certain things. Don't always need it, but it's helpful for when my brain is fuzzy.

I don't think I can offer a good idea of why this happens since it's something I'm working on in T right now and don't fully understand myself. However, like ISH I wanted to let you know that I have seen your post as well and that I care that this is happening to you. I also wanted to share something that I've been trying to work on lately: I have a tendency to beat myself up about the ways I cope with my trauma, ptsd etc. I can feel guilty about certain symptoms, certain ways I've coped, certain feelings I have. Instead I am trying to look at those feelings and reassure myself that I should not feel guilty that I feel sad, or angry, or ... fill in the blank. And that I shouldn't feel guilty about my mind's and body's reaction to intense stress. I am trying to recognize that yes, I feel this way but I'm not going to add to my pain by feeling guilty about feeling that way. It has allowed me to recognize my feelings and work on healing some of them. Not an easy process, but I'm trying really hard to take some of the pressure off myself - we have enough of that.

I don't know if this helps at all. Basically, I think memory issues are common and while they are painful I don't think you should feel guilty about it or put pressure on yourself. You are a wonderful father and husband who is present for his family, even if not always for himself. As you go through this part of your healing, please give yourself a break and realize the amazing work you do for yourself and your family, and the victories that you are accomplishing - and that recognizing this and addressing it is another victory in the making.

Wishing you peace,

Be Well,

Rain

 

[Deleted member 541]

There are periods in my *trauma years* that I have little or no memory either. Very common, very frustrating, with PTSD......One of my T's said that during the trauma, a person is just trying to stay alive. Afterward just trying to forget....Sometimes I think that our brains can only take so much, and whatever it feels that isn't that important at the time, we forget.

I am NOT saying that your daughters memories are not important, but you may have been dealing with so much stress during the time, that you had all of your focus on you, and trying to survive at the time....

 

[Grama-Herc]

Popeye

Don't know if you have read any of my diary, but I do know how you feel. I don't remember most of my life. I don't remember having my daughter, getting married, being in high school, graduating.

I wish I had an answer for you, but I am still trying to figure this out for myself. I just wanted you to know that youj are not alone. I have lost a lot of the important memories in my life to and therefore, I do know what you are feeling right now.

I will be glad to answer any questions you might like to ask or just pm me with emotions, whatever.

 

[Cin]

I don't have PTSD, that I know of anyway, but I don't remember most of the first 3 years of my daughters life but then again, that whole experience was traumatic in itself, so maybe that's why...

 

[ams]

Hey,

Like everyone else here, I feel your pain. I struggle with the memory issue majorly, too. I don't remember much of my life, at all. Bits and pieces, but nothing significant. An example is yesterday my doctor mentioned how I had x-rays of my back in 2004, (we were addressing my chronic back pain). I told him I didn't even remember having back pain then. And I didn't recall any accidents or anything from that time, nor even having x-rays taken around that time.

It's incredibly frustrating, overwhelming and makes you feel tiny and just all-around miserable.

The closest thing that would explain this is (like mentioned earlier) dissociative amnesia. It occurs when you basically "zone out" a lot during a stressful time in your life. If you're chronically stressed out because of a trauma, you usually are so fixated on that trauma that you really don't soak in everything around you, and you dissociate a lot. Even if you acknowledge what's going on around you, that information goes into your long-term memory but it's locked up.

However, those memories might surface when triggered by something environmental.

While it's frustrating, I try to keep the mindset that when I'm ready, my memories will come back. It just takes time.

Someone once told me, you can't process old traumas when you're constantly being traumatized now.

Maybe you can pick up the DSM-IV-TR and look up dissociative amnesia? the diagnostic criteria is easy enough to read, and if you think you might have it, go talk to a professional so they can confirm.

Try to be patient with yourself, and compassionate for yourself! It will get better.

 

[QuietNow]

Hi Popeye,
It's going to be natural for us PTSD folk to have trouble remembering things during stressful times. I know that your child's first year was important and probably a happy year for you, but you don't get much sleep that first year. And the crying. And the stress of "OH MY GOD, WHAT DOES THIS KID NEED? WHERE'S THE FREAKIN' MANUAL??!! WHY DIDN'T THE MATERNITY WARD GIVE ME ONE??!!!"

Yeah. It's stressful. And when PTSD'ers stress, they 'lose' things. I lost my wedding. I lost most of my daughter's first year. I hear about things from the first couple of years and get a bit antsy myself because I don't remember them. I have a window of about two years and if I don't hear from you or see you in those two years, you drop off my memory radar and I forget you.

I think of myself kind of like a dog: dogs live in the 'Now.' So do I. Dogs may not remember things, though with enough repetition they will.

I think it's less the dissociative state in these cases than the decreased hypothalmus size in our brains. The hypothalmus is the seahorse-shaped organ that handles the mapping of memories. PTSD folk have smaller hypothalmus size on average. And that means that the connections made are precious, so stressful ones just may not be mapped. The memories are there somewhere, but the roadmap to get to them is lost.

 

[shadowlight]

I have a LOT of missing memories. Apparently it;s to do with something called "state specific learning", basically when you're in a situration of extreme trauma people often dissociate and so they then cnnot remember those eents unless they are dissociaited again. I hope that made sense, it made more sense before I typed it.


Personally I have a dissociation disorder, I am 22 years old but all my memories combined only add up to 6 years of my life. It is infuriating, makes you question those memories that you do have. But it's a natural reaction of the mind which in time can be reversed (to a degree)

 

[Tinyflame]

Dear shadowlight,

That's right, but dissociation is different (possibly?) from state specific learning; if I remember correctly, state specific learning means that the emotions you were experiencing when the memory was encoded, those extreme emotions when experienced again trigger the memory. For example, horror or extreme sadness, when they occur again you will recall aspects of the trauma, that you will 'forget' (again) when you are not feeling/ experiencing horror/ extreme sadness. (-Same reason they say, for example, if you are studying when you are 'hungry' you will more likely recall the answers when you are 'hungry'.)

Dissociation is on a continuum but to me sort of involves your mind 'leaving' to a 'safe' place (even if your body can't), if you know what I mean.
Ohoh- clear as mud, lol.

 

[Grama-Herc]

QuietNow,

Love the explanation and for the 1st time this memory loss thing actually makes sense to me. According to my mother I was an extremely nervous child, shy child and also terrified of my father. So there is the stress on a constant basis which would account for the huge gaps in memory.