mouse,

I can relate to your feelings and your reactions. My best advice is to accept your feelings and not deny them or question whether they are real. That's the thing about feelings, they are real. The information you are remembering may be incomplete or distorted, but feelings about the hidden past can come out faster than complete memories. For many abused children, feelings are supressed along with the memories. This is why I would tell you to accept your feelings and instincts for what they are -- they could be trying to tell you something now that it is safe to do so. They may be distorted at first, but they will likely clear up over time. The man in the chat room seems to me to be a catalyst to bring more of your experiences and memories to the surface. It sounds like you reacted to him in defense of the child. In your psyche, that child could very well represent you when you were younger. In a way, you could have been defending your right to speak your truth just as much as you were defending hers -- without being told you must be making it up.

In my experience, for so many years, I had persistent memories of what was done to me as a child. I denied them every time they came up. "I must be making this up," I said again and again and again. And then the memories got more and more intense until I could no longer deny them, not to mention all the other signs. I knew so many things as a child that I could only have learned from abuse. I said and did things that matched the abuse. A cellar -- I was abused horrifically in a cellar. As an adult, I couldn't (and still can't) stand to be in a room with no windows (like that cellar), and that pale shade of gray on the walls would make me ill and afraid and want to run.

The amazing thing is, I volunteered for years -- thousands of hours -- working with abuse survivors, never admitting why it was so important to me to help them and never admitting why I could relate so well to them. Perhaps this sounds a bit like you standing up for that girl whose father you met in the chat room? You would have to look at your feelings to know the answer.

It is frustrating not to be able to bring all the memory up when you want to. Memories will return, but in my experience, being patient with it and allowing myself to heal along the way is important or I just keep shutting down and shoving the memories away again -- each time becoming more and more dysfunctional in my daily life. Memories and recovery from them unfold when people are ready. My advice to anyone in this process is to be gentle with yourself and know that you are courageous to even face any horrors of the past.

Hope this helps.

be well,

mtd