Repressed Memories

Hi,

Long story short - I have reason to believe that something traumatic happened to me when I was a small child and that the memory (or memories) are repressed. My therapist seems to agree based on things I've told her and the advice of three separate medical professionals who have asked me if I was a victim of trauma before.

We tried EMDR therapy but I wasn't able to remember anything at all. The therapist thought those and other memories might be too painful for me to recall through that type of therapy.

I just recently started thinking about hypnotherapy as a solution. I don't even know of anyone in my area who practices it, nor do I know if it's covered by insurance. I'm wondering if anyone has experience with this type of therapy in uncovering possible repressed memories and also what type of pricing/insurance coverage, length of treatment, etc. is involved in hypnotherapy.

Thanks in advance for any advice and - most importantly - your support.

How small? If you don't have very many words, you don't "remember" much because there's no way to store it. Everything in our head that we can remember, is in words and the words bring up pictures. Sometimes we can get vague pictures or feelings without words but if you want to "see" what it is the pricture is about, you have to be able to put it into words! A bit catch-22 but that's why little kids don't remember much, because they don't have very many thought processes at the time that use words or very many words.

Do you have an older aunt or relative you could talk to about your childhood and what they know or remember?

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Perna said:

Do you have an older aunt or relative you could talk to about your childhood and what they know or remember?

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Well, here's the tricky thing. When I was younger, my mother told me that there was a secret about me that I wasn't old enough to deal with - that she would tell me when she thought I could handle it. She said my sister also knew this "secret". Well, when I turned 30 I thought I was far past old enough to deal with whatever it was. When I asked my mother, she denied ever telling me that. When I asked my sister, she claims to have no knowledge either. My mother's not a good liar, but she does have issues of her own (went through shock therapy back in the 60s and has issues with memory) so maybe she really doesn't remember telling me. My sister is sneaky and could very well be lying to me now. I am not on speaking terms with my aunt (mother's sister) and really don't know what, if anything, she might know. My dad is a very closed person - I've hinted to him before, but nothing. So I've almost exhausted all of the logical avenues. Anyone else who might know anything is dead (grandmother, grandfather, etc.)

I'm guessing that this would have occurred at some point before I turned 8 years old, which is the time my parents divorced. From what I understand, I was partially the reason for the divorce (this supposed event anyway), but I'm thinking I was far younger than that - maybe even as young as 2-4 years old.

I never though of the fact of being too young to even uncover the memories. I just assumed that if something happened to you, that you would remember it eventually with the right circumstances. Valid point, Perna. Although someone disheartening thinking I may never know what really happened.

Can one truly put something like this behind them and stop letting it rule your life if you know that you can't ever know the truth?

My mother died when I was 3 and I don't remember her at all and that was really hard for me. She was having grand mal seizures all my life so I know I witnessed them, etc. but who knows (other than my aunt telling me about my early life, thank goodness) what my life was like? But I have several mysteries like that.

I have a friend who didn't find out she was adopted until she was in her 30's and then by some mean aunt or someone spilling the beans, trying to hurt her. Could it be something like that "about" you but not you personally; like that you were adopted or illegitimate or something?

My father and stepmother use to argue about me when I was 5-7 and one day in my 20's my stepmother said that I had almost caused their divorce. However, if you think about that as an adult in therapy, it's easier to understand that the child is not part of the marriage and the parents problems with their marriage doesn't have anything to do with the child. Maybe there was something one parent or someone didn't "like" that got them arguing like my parents use to argue about me and that is why you think the divorce had to do with you. Remember too, all these memories are memories of a child that can only partially understand no matter how hard they try. An adult could have seen or said something that set off the other adult who then says or does something that a child isn't going to know the difference about. So, if your mother just thought your father's brother might have abused you, for example (and let's say he didn't), she's going to tell you or imply that your uncle abused you and there's not going to be any memory there unless one "wants" what they think is there so bad they imagine one.

Did you ever read I Never Promised You a Rose Garden? I identify with one of the ending scenes where she figures out that the bars across her vision were only the bars from a baby crib. Our minds can do "fantastic" things storing, retrieving, and interpreting. You don't know any of your father's relatives? Just living all your life with a sense of secrecy is going to do ugly things to you, I'd think too. We didn't ever talk about or mention my mother and my stepmother kept going on about how we were "normal" when she got us and there was nothing wrong, etc. but I did spent from roughly 1970 to 2005 in therapy :-) I'd hardly say that was "nothing". I'm sure I paid out-of-pocket a good $100,000-150,000 or more for therapy over the years.

This is a tough one. My first ever visit to a psychiatrist involved a regression exercise that I regret to this day. It was a horrible memory that would have been better left in the fog of my brain. Better for me and for family members who were hurt by my part memories and misidentifications.

Be careful where you tread. Ask yourself why you need to know and see if there is another way to address that need without digging through foggy interpretations.

Children of divorce always look for a reason to blame themselves for the divorce. Keep that reality in perspective when you consider if there is any thing to be gained from unwrapping an old story. Some things really are best left unwrapped.

Wishing you peace........

Here's one more theory: Our memory isn't as good as we think. There have been studies to validate this. My sister and I have compared notes and found that things we thought happened either didn't, or happened to the other person. I had a memory of my father throwing a coffee table out the door that I "discovered" during therapy, which proved my dad was trying to protect me after I fell on it and broke the glass. It turned out to have happened to my sister, and it was a mattress that he was struggling to get out the door at a different time.

There's the possibility that your mother never said that.

I'd be very wary of hypnotherapy as a means of attempting to recover a "lost" memory. A lot of the false memory stuff came out of hypnotherapy, because you are in a suggestible state that even an innocent suggestion by the therapist might trigger a false memory. Or like other people have said, if something that did happen to you when you were really small you might not even have the words to describe it. My own experience with memory is that it's a weird place. I have some very strange memories that suggest something bad happened to me, but no context for them and no means of verifying them - so I choose to ignore them. Then on the other hand I have absolutely no memory of my mother's funeral. I know objectively that I was there, but have complete memory loss from the day I was told she died until about 7 days later. Just shows you the power of dissociation.

--splitimage

Thanks for the replies everyone!

I know that I was not adopted or anything like that. I resemble both of my parents and my grandparents far too much. I remember when I was about 16 asking my mother how bad this secret could be - I named off several things I thought it may be and she denied them all. She herself went through shock therapy in the 60s and a lot of her memory is shot so maybe she really doesn't remember now that she's elderly. My sister, who supposedly also knew, is a mean and manipulative person. I wouldn't put it past her to just keep lying to me. I have a brother and several aunts and uncles on both sides, but have no relationship with any of them and haven't spoken in years.

The part that disturbs me the most is that two gynecelogical specialists asked me if I had been traumatized - specifically saying that they had seen signs of what usually is the result of an old trauma - won't go into specifics out of decency - but given the nature of their practice, I think you can figure it out.

I can remember bits and pieces of my childhood from the time I was 3. Then there are years after that that are completely gone - I can't remember a single thing. I do remember that we had two - would have been in their late teens/early twenties - men who were friends of the family that lived with us. Don't remember why, how long, why they left, etc. Maybe that's totally irrelevent but just something that pops into mind.

I guess when it all comes down to it, it's a question of whether the memory itself would be more painful if you knew the truth vs. living with the uncertainty for the rest of your life. That was my husband's question to me when I first started talking about this. Perhaps it's best to talk with my therapist about letting go of this memory and learning to understand and possibly even forgive whoever might have been responsible - if anything even happened at all. Maybe that's the safest way to move forward??

Thank you all for the advice and concern. It's hard to find people to talk to about these things that understand.

I was going to ask since the memory was "about" you, if maybe you were born hermaphrodite or something. The way you worded what you mother said, I felt like it was "you" rather than something that happened "to" you like sexual abuse that was part of the secret? Maybe you had a twin that got trapped inside of you, that sort of medical thing just becoming known and understood these days but really upsetting back just a few years ago.

It sounds too, like it's not something you are expected to remember? I don't think your mother would have said anything unless it was something that you had no hope of discovering on your own. Do you remember any of the circumstances around when she said it? Was there a doctor's visit or, how did the subject come up? If you aren't aware of anything, you couldn't have raised the subject yourself.

Like Doh said too, it's possible there was some secrecy somewhere, you saw your mother and sister whispering, possibly around the time of the divorce, and you created a story around it to make the divorce and any partially heard conversations make sense to you. I remember how when parents would specifically say, "It's not about you; it's not your fault" those kinds of things, it could often alarm rather than reassure because I wouldn't have thought it was my fault in the first place but now I wasn't so sure :-) There's the whole, "why did they say that?" reaction that children can have because they don't have enough resources to get good information and understanding.