Repressed memories

Hi everyone... I was wondering if anyone could share with me their experience of bringing forward repressed memories. Yesterday in session my t brought up a person from my childhood and all of a sudden I couldn't breathe, couldn't feel my hands, and started getting chills. Idk why I had such a strong reaction besides the fact that I don't really talk about them and only have started to in therapy.

My t then mentioned that maybe there are things buried deep that I don't remember but that may come forward as we continue. So my question is, for those who have had memories come back, how did it happen? What was the experience like?

Thanks!

Just wanted you to know that I read your post and will respond more fully when I have access to a real computer and not just my phone. You are not alone.

What comes back to me is intense emotions. I can't remember what caused it, but I've been re-experiencing childhood emotions.

For me, I would have dreams and wake up realizing the dreams were of things that actually happened. It was sort of like it was something I always knew but just never thought about. In terms of the physical sensations, I still have times of having a sudden physical sensation, or smelling something, or a huge emotional response to something weird (like a panic attack over a set of sheets) and have no idea why. Some things I just think I don't want to know.

For me I would be numb whilst speaking the words. The biggest part of it was when i got to the part - a while after the memories first surfaced - where I saw my Innocence and T narrated how I was feeling any that. How as small and innocent as si was, bad things could possibly happen. That in itself was more shocking than Talking any of the details

To be honest, it causes a lot of panic and can send you into shock. When repressed memories come up (though honestly, for me, I don't think I'd call them repressed memories as much as stuff I put on the backburner), after you write them down (or before you write them down, whatever works for you) take good care of yourself. You deserve it. And in terms of uncovering...just write down what you can remember. Look for anything in your life that seems unexplained. Talking to family members might also help, just to fill in the blanks. Write down your dreams. Stuff like that.

That's my take, at least.

Mine started while I was watching a video on the topic - it was a slow churning in the back of my mind, a weight in my chest that was slowly pushing me outside of my body (dissociation), until it became, "this is relevant to me... this is a thing that happened..." and then the emotions I'd been hiding about it for two years trying to all crowd their way in at the same time. When I "remembered," it wasn't a sudden recollection of a memory I didn't have before, it was the gradual realization that I'd had the memory the entire time, and I was just now allowing myself to remember it. It had been hiding, I had trained myself not to think about it, but it had always been there. It wasn't that the memory itself was recovered, but rather the ability to think about it.