How do I start to reconstruct my past? I need to figure out what I do remember, put it into some sort of chronological order and then see where my memory gaps are.
I was molested by my father when I was a child. I finally told my mother a week before my 13th birthday. She was absolutely horrid to me. I ended my sexual abuse but opened myself up to a tremendous amount of emotional abuse. I've NEVER been able to remember how long my father molested me. My memories about the molestation fall into one of three categories:
I have this memory snippet that falls into Category #2. I'm not sure if I've always had this memory or if it returned to me somewhere along my journey. I do know that sometime in the past year I remembered an additional detail. I very clearly remembered what I was wearing when the event happened. Since I have a fairly clear memory of buying that article of clothing while visiting my aunt during my spring break when I was in sixth grade, I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that my father must have already been molesting me when I was 10-years-old or at least he was already being extremely inappropriate and making me feel humiliated.
I should probably add that I know the molestation couldn't have started before I was probably about 6-years-old (not 100% certain of the age, but somewhere around then). Anytime I say father, dad, daddy, etc. I am referring to what most would refer to as my step-father. My mom remarried when I was about 7-years-old. I was immediately required to refer to him has my dad and no longer allowed to call him by his first name. Sometime later he adopted me and he is the one I've always (and still do) looked to as being my father. I'm not certain how old I was when he adopted me (memory gap). I do have legal documents in my possession that date the event, and I've pulled them out before to give myself that knowledge but somewhere along the line my memory lost that information again. That sounds ridiculous but it's true. I think I may have been around 9-years-old but I'm not sure if I'm just confusing myself because that is also when my (maternal) grandfather passed away and that was a very pivotal time in my childhood. I'm not even certain if my dad adopted me before or after my grandfather passed away (November 13, 1984...remember that very clearly). Perhaps if I continue to pursue this attempt at reconstructing and sorting out my memories I'll pull those documents out again so I can use my age of adoption as one anchor on my time line.
There are other times from my adult life that I have jumbled up memories from. I made a suicide attempt in my early-20's. Sometime after that (not sure how long) I started engaging in some pretty risky behaviors and was eventually raped (think my mid-20's). I'm not sure if there are gaps in my memory or if I'm just not able to put things in a clear chronological order. Everything seems so mixed up.
I really do think of my life and memories as a time line like the type you would find in a history book. I've tried before to jot out all of the major events over my lifetime that I can remember, place them in their proper place on a time line and then see what, if any blanks, I could fill in. I think I've approached it this way because it still allows me to remain somewhat disconnected from it all. I've always ended up with clusters of years when I could fill in lots of things and then clusters of years where I struggle to fill in much if anything at all. Very frustrating.
If anyone has any ideas on a better way to go about sorting out the details of my memories and time line, I'm open to suggestions. If I'm writing about this in the wrong area of the forum, just let me know and I'll stop.
Crissy
I was molested by my father when I was a child. I finally told my mother a week before my 13th birthday. She was absolutely horrid to me. I ended my sexual abuse but opened myself up to a tremendous amount of emotional abuse. I've NEVER been able to remember how long my father molested me. My memories about the molestation fall into one of three categories:
- Things that I remember and can recount to (a select few) people, but I do so in a very factual sort of way with little or no feeling attached.
- Things that I remember but have never been able to share with anyone. These are things that I've never said out loud to another soul or even written down for myself. These are things that just the thought of saying them or sharing them makes me physically ill. Most of these I wouldn't call completely intact memories but rather little snippets of things that make me feel humiliated, disgusting and confused about my role in everything that happened.
- Memories that don't exist. There are a lot of holes in my memory from my childhood. Things I do remember I'm not always sure where they fit on my time line and therefore I'm not sure where on my time line the memory gaps fall, or how small or large the memory gaps may be.
I have this memory snippet that falls into Category #2. I'm not sure if I've always had this memory or if it returned to me somewhere along my journey. I do know that sometime in the past year I remembered an additional detail. I very clearly remembered what I was wearing when the event happened. Since I have a fairly clear memory of buying that article of clothing while visiting my aunt during my spring break when I was in sixth grade, I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that my father must have already been molesting me when I was 10-years-old or at least he was already being extremely inappropriate and making me feel humiliated.
I should probably add that I know the molestation couldn't have started before I was probably about 6-years-old (not 100% certain of the age, but somewhere around then). Anytime I say father, dad, daddy, etc. I am referring to what most would refer to as my step-father. My mom remarried when I was about 7-years-old. I was immediately required to refer to him has my dad and no longer allowed to call him by his first name. Sometime later he adopted me and he is the one I've always (and still do) looked to as being my father. I'm not certain how old I was when he adopted me (memory gap). I do have legal documents in my possession that date the event, and I've pulled them out before to give myself that knowledge but somewhere along the line my memory lost that information again. That sounds ridiculous but it's true. I think I may have been around 9-years-old but I'm not sure if I'm just confusing myself because that is also when my (maternal) grandfather passed away and that was a very pivotal time in my childhood. I'm not even certain if my dad adopted me before or after my grandfather passed away (November 13, 1984...remember that very clearly). Perhaps if I continue to pursue this attempt at reconstructing and sorting out my memories I'll pull those documents out again so I can use my age of adoption as one anchor on my time line.
There are other times from my adult life that I have jumbled up memories from. I made a suicide attempt in my early-20's. Sometime after that (not sure how long) I started engaging in some pretty risky behaviors and was eventually raped (think my mid-20's). I'm not sure if there are gaps in my memory or if I'm just not able to put things in a clear chronological order. Everything seems so mixed up.
I really do think of my life and memories as a time line like the type you would find in a history book. I've tried before to jot out all of the major events over my lifetime that I can remember, place them in their proper place on a time line and then see what, if any blanks, I could fill in. I think I've approached it this way because it still allows me to remain somewhat disconnected from it all. I've always ended up with clusters of years when I could fill in lots of things and then clusters of years where I struggle to fill in much if anything at all. Very frustrating.
If anyone has any ideas on a better way to go about sorting out the details of my memories and time line, I'm open to suggestions. If I'm writing about this in the wrong area of the forum, just let me know and I'll stop.
Crissy
