[ThisWayOut]

T and I were talking in session about my processed memories feeling "unreal" or like someone else's story. I told her I have no connection to them, and that they are foggy & distant, as if I had read them once in a book decades ago; I understand the overarching theme if someone reminds me, but that's as far as my understanding goes with them... I mentioned that i'm not sure they feel "processed" so much as either re-burried, or proven to have been made up.

T realized she had no real concept of how processed trauma memories should feel, despite having extensive experience with not only dissociative clients, but also clients who've supposedly proceed their traumas and healed. She is unsure if processing memories long after the event (in my case, we'll over 20 years later, and from an adult space rather than the child space in which they happened) would feel different than memories processed in the order they happened, and relatively immediately. She said she'd look into it from her end (assuming that means talk to other clients and trauma professionals),but I'm also curious.

Has anyone processed long-dissociated memories? How does it feel to access them after they have been processed? Can you access them, or does it feel blank, or hazy, or something else entirely?

Thanks in advance.

[elevatedsoul]

i wonder if that is like one of my near death experiences, i remember, but i doubt its processed..? whatever that means.. because im not attached to it so much, but i do remember...

its bad to think about

[Luce]

What a great question! That term is bandied around all the time, but I too don't think I've ever read of a concise, generally agreed upon definition of what it means.

I guess I have come up with my own understanding of what it means for me, which I can share. When I say "I have processed a memory" I generally mean this: I have worked through the dissociated elements and taken 'ownership' of it. So for me a 'processed' memory is one in which I own the narrative and accept it happened to me. I no longer have intrusive images or flashbacks about that particular memory and I have hold all the previously dissociated aspects of it in one place.
I know when I have fully 'processed' a memory because it no longer causes me any distress and there is nothing about it that causes me to dissociate any longer.... I can talk about it easily as an aspect of my own personal history, just like any other.

That is what a 'processed' memory looks like to me.

The ones I still need to work on ('process') are the ones that still cause me to dissociate.

[TrailRunner14]

I read this earlier today and it's been on my mind.

It's so late. I just wanted to post a comment so I could come back to it tomorrow.

[amandalouise]

processing a memory feels different to everyone. short version the brain takes in information through the senses and stores it in the brain. thats a processed memory.

example I am going to eat a slice of apple pie...

my brain processing this...

brown crust, golden apples covered with cinnamon and sugar. (sight)
sniffing and smelling the mixture of crust, apples and cinnamon and sugar (Smell)
dry, flakey, tart, sweet,.... (taste)

eating this apple pie makes me feel warm, happy full, satisfied, ... (emotions)

now the apple pie is gone but I can think and remember that pie because its now a processed memory in my brain not a tangible object sitting on my plate.

my neighbor who hates apple pie her processed memory of eating an apple pie would be different based on everything that she experiences through eating an apple pie.

my point your T cant tell you what it feels like for your processed memories because only you can tell her about your memories. you describe your memories as feeling unreal thats what your brain has processed it to feel like so thats what your processed memory feels like. someday maybe you will be able to feel differently about the things your brain has processed.