Processing Trauma Without Remembering Details

[kris]

How is someone to process their trauma, if they don't know specific details of what happened. I know that I was molested, obviously and can tell you vague details of what happened, but like to tell someone sights and smells or sounds from the incidents I could not tell you. I know why this is, because I have blocked all these memories, as they were happening I blanked out and pretended I wasn't been forced upon and that I was somewhere else. So if to get it all out so to speak and to process your trauma your suppose to recall all these details is it a waste to go to therapy? How is someone suppose to remember things like that? If the details aren't there I just don't really see how they ever could come about.

 

[Mina]

Sometimes it's not so much about recalling and reiterating the details as it is about letting the feelings you suppressed at the time come through, and owning them as valid feelings and letting yourself feel them. If you only have vague information, maybe focusing on how what happened made you feel at the time would be something to consider?

 

[Michel]

I haven't gotten very far with this book yet but the book Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine was recommended by someone in this forum. According to Levine, it is possible to learn to pay attention to the feelings of the body and possible to work with them toward healing, even if a person never remembers what caused some strong feelings in the first place. The idea is that PTSD is an injury of the body as well as of the mind and that the body can be healed on its own terms. So maybe even if you can't remember what you felt at the time, at least not as what you can recognize to be what you felt at the time, you can find related feelings and work directly with them. But, as I say, I have just started reading this book and am not certain I've got its ideas right.

 

[TLight]

I'm having a hard time with this also, as I don't remember details. I just know it was horrific, violent, sick and terrifing.

I had a therapist ask me one time to 'just feel my feelings'.........well, the only feeling I feel is complete and utter terror........too overwhelming.

I have moments with my boyfriend when I seem to, not have a flashback, but just wail and scream and cry.......he says my eyes are in another place. I feel that some of these times I felt like I've 'released' something.......Do I feel better afterwards? I don't know........tired, that's for sure. Is the triggering better? I don't think so..........still distressing as heck.

At this point, I'm searching for another therapist and wondering what is exactly the point. When I'm triggered, I'm doing my best to tell myself that I'm in a different time, a different place and that I'm not going to die.............but it's still really hard.

Go back to therapy and force myself to go there? Well, I've had two therapist tell me now that the best I should hope for is coping. I think I know those 'techniques' and why should I pay $100/week out of my pocket to learn what I already know.

I'm at a lost. The best I can do is when I have 'episodes' of intense feelings with my partner........to try to feel I guess and not let the terror come too much at once. ..........I don't really know if its truly possible to heal..........better life.........yes, definately. But heal from it? I just don't know.

Sorry, hope I'm not being negative............just doing day to day.

 

[kris]

TLight I understand what your saying and don't find it negative as that's how I feel for the most part as well. Before I started going to therapy to "heal my mind" as the one doctor told me, I wasn't having suicidal thoughts and flashbacks and panic attacks and all the other stuff that goes with ptsd. I had these thoughts years ago when the abuse was going on, but I had been doing "ok" mentally before I started therapy. It is hard for me to pay money for something I think that has been making things worse.


Granted I do believe therapy has helped a little bit, but that is to recover from being retraumatized by the first therapist that I went to. I was dealing with the abuse the only way I knew how, and although my life wasn't great I was getting by. So to have to leave work early and pay money to talk to someone when I know I was coping with the abuse before hand is hard. As I said I know I wasn't coping in the right ways but I was getting by.

Also to just "feel your feelings', well for me there is no feelings, atleast I don't know how to find or distinguish them if they are there. I know anger, sadness, disappointment, and fear and that to me is all that's there. Theres is no healthy or happy feelings that I know of, some things make me smile, but I can't really think of anything that makes me happy, that feeling is just not there.

Michel-Thanks for the advice about that book, I have seen it in some book stores and wondered about it being helpful, after reading your take on the book it sounds like it's worth the read.

 

[Healing Survivor]

I don't know what else to say other than I completely understand. I'm thinking of trying EMDR....
I feel crazy half the time....