vague memories of possible abuse

I have some quirks in my personality and some vague memories from childhood and one as an adult.

So personality quirks are:

- I don't like touching people (hugging, shaking hands, pat on the back). I like people, but it makes me cringe whenever I get touched by them.

- I feel panic whenever it seems like people want to know me as a friend. Regardless of male or female, if I get the feeling this person likes me or wants to know me better than I panic and try to keep my distance. I feel worthless and pathetic, so I don't want to disappoint the person and embarrass myself by letting them know me... But it's a reflexive reaction of panic. I've never had a girlfriend because I instinctively push people away whenever they show an interest, and I have almost no close friends.

- Life-long depression and one short psychotic episode recently

The memories are:

- A young woman that I didn't know (like a babysitter) arousing me while giving me a bath as a toddler.

- An incomplete memory of something sexually inappropriate when I was around 6 years old that I hate to talk about because the memory doesn't make sense. The person in my memory made a comment once that something might have happened but hopefully I was too young to remember. I didn't ask what was meant, because if anything happened then there was no harm done, no malice, and best forgotten IMO.

- A couple of incidents where I felt aroused from adults touching me and became wary of them.

- Possibly was drugged and raped by my friend a few years ago who I suspect is bisexual. We had separate rooms in a hotel. I was in his room drinking. I remember getting very sleepy all of the sudden which was strange. (At that time I had a high tolerance for alcohol and drank almost constantly.) He walked me back to my hotel room and made some weird comments. The next day I had a psychotic episode when I got home. (Actually I started feeling weird a couple of days before the suspected drugging when I first arrived at the hotel to meet my friend.)

So there is nothing conclusive - just suspicions. BTW A therapist a few years ago said I might have a mild type of psychosis, so my memories are probably inaccurate.

Your therapist should not have said that to you. Its quite possible that you are right which would explain a lot of what you said such as not wanting physical contact and not wanting to get close to you. It might be worth changing therspists. Its wrong of your therspist to doubt you, you need to be able to have trust.

Thanks. I stopped seeing that therapist a few years ago and haven't seen anybody else. I tried to start again with a new therapist, but I had a panic or anxiety attack after the first meeting and cancelled the next.

I probably did experience psychosis briefly after visiting my friend (as the original therapist diagnosed). But I suspect the psychosis was triggered by something such as being date raped by my friend or hypnotized or something supernatural. (I try to be an atheist, but deep down I believe in supernatural.)

Another theory is that my worries about visiting my friend (who I suspect was bisexual and attracted to me) caused me to have psychosis. That is much more in the realm of reality I guess. I was probably beginning to have psychosis as soon as I arrived at the motel to meet my friend. For some reason it hit really hard on the flight home. I thought some mysterious group was out to get me, and I had some hallucinations.

HOWEVER, six months later my friend came to visit where I live. I started feeling like weird coincidences kept happening (supernatural I guess). I went to my friend's hotel room briefly and we were flipping through TV channels. He came over and sat beside me on the bed with his arm behind me. We were sharing an energy drink that he had brought. It made me uncomfortable and I worried that he had drugged the drink, so I stood up and tried to politely poor my drink down the sink. Probably nothing there either.

In some ways, I would rather not know if I was abused as a child. Probably I'm imagining problems that don't exist.

(Sorry to post silly rambling worries.)

^ Sorry to waste people's time with dumb stuff like this.

Sometimes I read things I've written and realize how ridiculous it sounds later.

Its not dumb and dont be sorry. I also suffer with anxiety and panic attacks and have to cancel appointnents.
I also have vague memories of sexual abuse when i was 6. Also im convinced i was abused more often and by more peole one because my parents didnt look after us propely and we was always with ramdom people sleeping in thier houses and secondly a spoke to a psycic and he told me the abuse was ongoing. Even tho i dont rememer properly i am comvinced these things happened to me because some of my memories strongly suggest i was and the reoccuring nightmare of the man in the toilet with the light off with knife coming after me and memories of the man telling me if i tell he will kill my mum and dad.

Thanks. It must be bad to have that nightmare. There is a lot of abuse unfortunately it seems. I hope you are able to improve the nightmares and any other problems. It seems to cause a lot of psychological problems for people.

I was also in a similar situation.

Only it was my male cousin. I have vague flashes of what happened when I was 6 or so. I guess I'm mildly psychotic as a result.

I've only just recently gotten over it tho. Prior to this, I used to get nightmares that I did something unspeakably terrible but that I wasn't quite sure what it was, coupled with me running away from it. Like I did something akin to killing someone (which I have NOT done).

What helped me resolve the issue was when I connected the feeling I had in my nightmare to the feeling I get when I recall the abuse. The feelings were close enough that it somehow cancelled out the nightmare and I stopped having it.

That left me with a very real ache that I knew the root of. It's a kind of loss that I feel, a loss of childhood that I know I'm badly trying to relive or recover even in my old age (my wife thinks I'm terribly immature and make fun all too often). I think now that's part of it.

With regards to my cousin well, I've sort of forgiven him. I haven't comfronted him. I don't feel the need to. Maybe it was done to him? Maybe he was terribly insecure and wanted to exert dominance? Who knows. All I know is I'm over it, I'm much stronger for getting over it.

I hope you are able to resolve the issues that trouble you. My advice is, don't be afraid. You are strong. Try to tackle the issues one at a time. And as crying mentioned, try to find a therapist who you can feel comfortable with.

I have a memory or dream that I remember of being sexually abused. I don't know if it actually happened or if I was dreaming because it felt so real. I was probably at the age of 13-16. But I remember it was being in bed sleeping and being slightly awoken by the penetration that pleased me and confused because of the relative doing it. I went back to sleep and woke up not knowing if it was a lucid dream or felt uncomfortable for even having the dream if that's what it really was.

The immaturity is interesting, because I am very immature for my age (47).

I'm just not sure if these are real memories. It's like they have always been in my memory, but the context of events before and after is missing and the memories don't make sense. Why would I have carried these weird memories (mainly just two) all my life and never realized that they are a mystery? I wonder if they are dreams that I have confused with memories?

I'm also confused if my memories are actually memories or dreams or partial memories that I have distorted over time

Abusers toy with the minds of those they abuse ... It makes it easier for them to keep the evil stuff they're doing a secret if they can make us doubt our own feelings and intuition.

Trust your feelings & intuition on this, and above all be extra patient, gentle & kind with yourself as things reveal themselves to you ... Deep down you know what is and isn't true, and so does your inner child.

Honor this child by allowing them to feel their feelings and to have the voice they weren't permitted to have when the abuses actually happened.

X123, I have vague memories of sexual stuff. I never knew what to do about it.

........

Trust yourself

Hmm...I can imagine how difficult it will be to verify memories from that young an age. When did these memories start surfacing?

I don't know how accurate they are but maybe hypnotherapy could help?

Thanks. Sorry for the delayed response. For some reason I don't get emails when people reply to me except once in a while randomly.

These memories have always been there, but I've never given them much thought for some reason. There are mainly two memories. One of them in particular is so bizarre. It's like this other person and I know a history explaining why this is happening, but I don't have that history. All I have is this brief scene that makes no sense.

If something happened I would rather not remember. If nothing happened I would rather not remember.

The issue with not wanting to be touched and not feeling worthy of friendship seemed odd.

I don't feel comfortable with hypnosis - especially for retrieving lost memories. I've heard this can create false memories.

I will stop thinking about this question for now, because I would hate to remember things, and I would hate to imagine things.

Speaking of bizarre, my memories are also quite bizarre. Like I was watching myself like an observer. Like I was floating above the incident(s).

I know for sure that I've had a kind of block on the memory till maybe a decade or so ago. I think the resurfacing is kind of the mind telling me I'm ready to face the reality.

I'm thinking a similar process happens to most people. We repress damaging memories but they resurface. And it's up to us to take on those memories and break them down in our own time.

Anyway, I'm not a 100% believer in hypnosis either. I just thought I'd put it out there. Never tried it myself. But I have heard of the memory implant issue. So you're probably right avoiding it.

What I generally say is that if it's vague, even if it's barely there - it's right. Something happened. The human brain is a powerful thing.