Very concerned i am repressing memories

[Hush92]

The other night I had a very dark nightmare.

In it I was working on some sort of project with my uncle. This ended up turning into us having sex for some reason?! As the sex happened the dream changed and I suddenly became a child. Then it changed again and became an old timey cartoon and I changed from a human child into a lamb. My uncle was a wolf. I was both watching this and participating at the same time.

After the sex I discovered I was a magical lamb. After sex I would lay eggs that were amazingly delicious to eat. When people found out about this they would come and try to sleep with me/the lamb, and my lamb self was very naieve as she was only little and thought that sex meant those people really liked her and wanted to be close to her so she felt really special and loved during it. But then at the end the men would always deceive her and she would end up heartbroken because she realized they only wanted to have sex with her for her eggs.

Then the dream paused for a bit and I was no longer the lamb, I was going around inside different old cartoons and tv shows with my brothers and talking about them. Then we came back to the lamb show and were looking at the 3rd episode. The wolf uncle opened up an amusement park ride that said ages 4-12 or something like that. So we were like that's sketchy because we knew he was a pedophile as he had slept with the lamb. But it turns out he was using the machine as a way to steal youth from children and give it to himself. The episode description read "The wolf becomes a demon." As in he absorbed so much youth he became immortal and powerful. That was the end of the dream.

I have no idea where this dream came from. I was not doing anything the night before or even the entire day before that could have prompted it. These nightmares are not uncommon for me, in fact they are even common. It heavily HEAVILY implies that I have experienced some form of incestous child abuse but I never have to my knowledge. What terrifies me is I know I delete unpleasant things from my memory, it has happened several times before like when I completely forgot I had terrible eczema on my legs in middle school or forgot I had a splinter so bad in hs I had to go to the doctor for it. A lot of other stuff too. In fact my memory is so messed up I have to email my therapist during the week about what I'm experiencing because otherwise I block it all out and end up saying I'm fine and the week was normal and then she'll have me look at the emails and I'll remember all the crap that happened.

Basically I am very scared, and have had this fear for a while, that I was sexually abused as a child and then repressed the memories. It would explain SO MUCH. But I know complete repression of memories like that is very rare so I don't really know what to think.

 

[Justmehere]

I used to have dreams of wild animals chasing means purposefully putting myself in cages...

I have never actually been chased by a wild animal or been in a cage. I was trying to deal with an abuser at the at the time who was invading boundaries. Our brains can take all kinds of fears and realities and play them out in our dreams in ways we would never expect.

Different therapists have different opinions on how to interpret and handle nightmares. For me, I focused on what I could remember during waking hours as the biggest clues to what I couldn't remember.

We can heal from the impact of trauma even when we don't fully remember what happened.

 

[joeylittle]

It heavily HEAVILY implies that I have experienced some form of incestous child abuse but I never have to my knowledge

Well, I'd argue that it only heavily implies that this question about whether or not you were abused is very present in your subconscious mind.

Does your therapist know the scope of your issues with dissociative amnesia/selective memory?

 

[Suzetig]

What terrifies me is I know I delete unpleasant things from my memory, it has happened several times before like when I completely forgot I had terrible eczema on my legs in middle school or forgot I had a splinter so bad in hs I had to go to the doctor for it.

Except you didn't delete it, because you can remember it and recount it now. There are lots of reasons that things don't come to mind and then suddenly reappear when something gets jogged or someone asks the right questions.

There's nothing in what you've said that points 100% to sexual abuse - indicators are rarely that clear and dreams in particular can be quite tenuous in how their actual content relates to real life, dream contents tend to be more symbolic that that. I dreamt my teeth all fell out, and yet they're still in my mouth - the dream symbolised a very real anxiety that had nothing to do with my dental health. A simplistic example but you get the drift.

You may be blocking stuff, you may when you get to therapy honestly feel ok - it could be that the act of sending the email to your T allows you to let the "thing" go and you don't need to give it more space. It may be that your unconsciously avoiding stuff - but work on what you do know and if there is anything else there it'll come in it's own time.

 

[Hush92]

Well, I'd argue that it only heavily implies that this question about whether or not you were abused...

Yes she knows it's an issue I have. That is a good point about it implies I've been wondering. However I had not been thinking about that that day it was not anywhere in my mind. I was not under stress, I was doing very well. I was watching nothing that could have set it off. Really just baffling. I guess dreams can just be weird.

Except you didn't delete it, because you can remember it and recount it now. There are lots of reasons...

I don't remember many of the things people told me I did or experiences I had. Like that splinter thing? Still have no memory of it. But that happens with good things too people will bring up funny things I did or good memories and I will not be able to recall them. I guess this is the case for everyone though. My memory is especially messed up though but I think it's because mental illness damaged my brain so it's practically like a have a mild form of dementia at this point.

I still have so many questions but I guess I will never find answers and have to accept that.

 

[Vidistus]

I know of an abuse that happened very early in childhood that is definitely a large layer of trauma and probably the initial trauma (CPTSD). But I have a suspicion that it happened earlier, and I don't know what it could be. I've resigned myself to the fact that I may never know, but if something did happen I want to know. I'm so curious. I'm so freaking curious.