questioning myself

How do you know when the memories are real or not? I feel like sometimes I just made these things up, or that maybe I did not make them up, but that they did not occur as often as I "remember" or even that it was not that bad of a thing, that what happened was really pretty normal? My T says that is not true, that what I went through was horrible, illegal, immoral etc...but I still question. It was my Dad who abused me and he and my grandmother have since stopped talking to me and essentially disowned me when I confronted them about the abuse. How do I learn to trust myself? Are they doing this just to try and manipulate me again???

They seem to be doing it to protect themselves and/or to avoid taking responsibility. If you remember something happened (abuse), then it doesn't really matter if you can't remember exactly how often. It shouldn't even have happened that once.

And no, abuse under any guise is *not*, and never will be, normal. They overstepped a sacrosanct boundary, and this is morally reprehensible. A parent is there to love and care and *protect* their child.

If you know something happened, you should trust yourself. Not them.

Yes..... what you are going thru is normal.... it is your bodies energy and memory trying to place the jig saw puzzle of your life back together.... and while some of the memories may not be totally true in the form you are seeing them, they are your emotions mixed with your wounds and they are trying to heal in the best way they know how.

And YES.... Always was right when she said that it does not matter if they are all true or not - - - for it should have never happened in the first place.

((((((( HUGS ))))))) ~ ~ ~ ~ ((((((( HUGS ))))))))


LoVe,
Rhapsody -

Thank you Always and Rhapsody, sometimes I forget that no matter how often it occured, abuse is abuse...

Hi All,

Isn't abuse one of the main contributors to self-doubt?

EJ

I struggled for years with similar problems. Instinctually you know the truth, but when the truth is ugly it's really hard to accept. It certainly doesn't help if other family members deny that it ever happened. I have four brothers and a sister and none of them were abused in the manner I was, nor do they acknowledge that I was abused. I now am confident in my memories, though I still often wish that I did not have to accept them as part of my reality.

I can tell when my memories are real versus what someone has told me because the real ones have a sense of realness to them. hard to explain.

like for instance some telling me about a car accident I can know the basics but not the actual feelness of the emotions, textures, sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and so on - example I know the car was red and it crashed and abulance came and so on in the words of someone else.

realness. seeing the other driver coming at me. the fear and adrenalyn as I realized the car was going to hit me, the part of the car that my eyes were drawn to, the smell of the rain on the street, the sound of the car hitting me, the sounds my body made when I hit the street, the feeling of the bruises and cuts, The feeling of being floaty and dream like as I got up and pushed my bike off the street, the static in my head as the woman was asking me if I was alright ...... the list goes on.

If the memory is made up there will not be any sense of automatic realness to it.

I can feel the realness...certain sounds and whatnot are what trigger a lot of the memories...its just hard to decide sometimes if what happened was really "that bad" I hear such other horrible stories and mine sounds lame, no that big of a deal. You know, its like I'm not Sybil, it could have been worse so why does any one care....Its hard to convince myself that my bad times were bad enough to justify my issues (depression, SI, fear of intimacy)

I used to get upset if I thought people thought I was a sybil. Watching that movie scared the crap out of me. but now it doesn't bother me. After alot of research I found out that in the making of that movie situations were changed to add dramatics and that new manuscripts, paintings, journals and so on by Shirley Mason (sybil) were found and now the book and movie are in the midst of controversy because the things newly found do not match what was written in the book and put in the movie. The same with The Three faces of Eve - that alter death scene scared the crap out of me as did her alters taking over her body like she was possessed. Then I did loads of research and found out that alters can't just come out and take over for memorys are trigger related and the person only acts out that memory as long as they are still upset by that trigger. and you can't kill off a memory. The only way a person can physically lose their memory is if they have been hit in the head and have physical brain damage.

As for why everyone cares? Well they like and love you and they don't want you to be in pain.

When a person has DID they act out memorys without being aware that they are doing that.

Think about how you would feel if you were on the bus with your best friend and suddenly he/she curled up in pain because the memory of getting punched is replaying in his or her mind. Or you are in a shopping mall with your best friend and they suddenly lay down on the floor and masterbate because the memory of their having to do so during an abuse situation is replaying in their mind.

These are the same feelings that people around you are experiencing and want to help you with.

I gave up trying to justify how bad or good my issues and feeling are. To me it doesn't matter. one wrong touch creates the same feelings of depression and so on that a lifetime of wrong touches does so how bad does not matter. what matters is that I see the problems and want them to no longer be a problem so I do what needs to be done to take care of that problem be it medication, therapy and so on. by taking care of the problem I will have a better life because I will no longer be acting out memorys when not aware and I will be able to funtion better in my day to day life.

If you are having touble justifying then throw the justifying out the window and just focus on the probems - depression, and so on. You can take care of depression with medication, and classes and therapy without getting into how bad the situations that caused it was.

(((((Katie)))))))

I understand where you are coming from. What you have been through matters.

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KatesShadow said:
I can feel the realness...certain sounds and whatnot are what trigger a lot of the memories...its just hard to decide sometimes if what happened was really "that bad" I hear such other horrible stories and mine sounds lame, no that big of a deal. You know, its like I'm not Sybil, it could have been worse so why does any one care....Its hard to convince myself that my bad times were bad enough to justify my issues (depression, SI, fear of intimacy)

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I know what you mean. When I was younger I found it hard to believe that I was being abused because being abused meant some kind of physical abuse, not neglect or emtional abuse.

Perhaps your experiences could have been worse but that doesn't mean you weren't abused.

Yeah...once again, again I can relate because the cases you hear of abuse are usually the ones at its worse.

I'd like to think that abuse is not determined by the bruises one recieves, but by the scars it can leave.

Keep in mind that everything could always be worse, but thats not the point.

(((((((((KatesShadow)))))))))

The easy way is denial. Your father defensiveness proves he is guilty. If he wasn't guilty, then he'd help you by getting you counseling. I'm sorry you lost support from your grandmother.

One way I know certain abuse events happened to me is by examining the details. For instance, I remember dialog my abuser said to me during abuse that didn't make sense to me when I was a child. But as the memory surfaced, looking back with adult perspective, I know he said and did those horrible things to me because I understand the adult language.

I wish I could go back to the easy path of denying the abuse. But I can't. I am who I am because of my past experiences. To "know thyself" requires honesty with self.

I pray you find serenity in your journey of self-discovery.