*may Trigger* - What

[x-Bliss-x]

I hope this post makes sense.

I'm seeing a therapist at the moment and I've recently been talking to him about how I find being around men uncomfortable etc. My Mum was in an abusive relationship and obviously I was young when everything was happening but I do remember a lot of it. Thing is...when I'm asked what it is that effects me so much, I feel like there's something else. Something else I can't talk about. When I try and talk about my feelings I get REALLY emotional. I want to cry and get very anxious.

It doesn't feel like me being a witness to what happened with my Mum should have effected me so much. I don't understand it. Anyone have similar feelings or situations?

x-Bliss-x

[hummm_mabbe]

I hope this post makes sense.

I'm seeing a therapist at the moment and I've recently been talking to him about how I find being around men uncomfortable etc. My Mum was in an abusive relationship and obviously I was young when everything was happening but I do remember a lot of it. Thing is...when I'm asked what it is that effects me so much, I feel like there's something else. Something else I can't talk about. When I try and talk about my feelings I get REALLY emotional. I want to cry and get very anxious.

It doesn't feel like me being a witness to what happened with my Mum should have effected me so much. I don't understand it. Anyone have similar feelings or situations?

x-Bliss-x

Yes I do, and it makes me wonder if there are things that happened to me before I was old enough to remember. Before the age of 4, the brain has not fully formed the apparatus of learning that we rely on as adults (linkages between hippocampus, amygdala and frontal cortex) - it uses a type of 'semantic learning' - built of feelings and sensations - that is not easy to access consciously. The only time the memories (if you can call them that) come back is when a sensation or event triggers the buried memory. They are feeling / body memories - not picture or sound memories like we are used to having in daily life.

At some point, these sensations can give way to 'recovered memories' which may suddenly come to you. This has been the basis of the very controversial Repressed Memory Syndrome, also termed False Memory Syndrome by its critics (neither are 'official' diagnoses). Its unlikely you will find a therspist willing to work with repressed memories (if you have no concrete memories to go on) as the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) in the US began putting therapists who did it in court.

Howwver memories can come up after time spent in therapy, when the body feels comfortable enough to do so. I too have a feeling that 'something' happened to me, but cannot concretely remember anything.

You may like to read a book called "Repressed Memories" by Renee Fredrickson. She was the therapist who got legally nailed for $200,000 damages in the US for helping someone retrieve memories of sexual abuse in a patient, who then decided that Fredrickson had put them there via suggestion. There are other movements springing up with evidence that suppressed memoeries do exist, and psychiatry even has a known method via which it can happen (similar to dissociation), but due to the legal action that took place its unlikely anyone will touch recovered memory therapy ever again. Allowing them to come back naturally is currently the only way.

At the same time, it is common to be deeply subconsciously affected by things we witnessed, but feel nothing when we recall them, due to the process of dissociation. To think of it in brain terms, the hippocampus stores the mental image, but there is no corresponding 'file' in the amygdala. The emotional memory is filed away under "Top Secret" and leaks out, causing your seemingly unconnected emotional pain. It is very common that people recall traumatic memories and say "but it doesnt upset me to think about it". As therapy progresses, and the emotions connected to the incident surface, the person can be suddenly freed from the hold the subconsiocus memory had over them. It may be that what you rermember IS the source of your troubles but your feelings about it are still locked away, dissociated to protect you but causing your depression and anxiety.

If there ARE things you remember, but you cannot yet talk about them, then suggest this may be the case to your therapist. You do not have to reveal all, and if you ever do it should be on YOUR timetable. However, be aware that these memories are highly likely to be at the centre of your worst difficulties, and processing them is likely to be a highway to recovery. If you are lead through a remembering process it should be done by someone with a great deal of experience and understanding because remembering in this way can cause highly distressing flashbacks and even retraumatisiation.

Other good titles worth reading are "The body never lies" by Alice Miller and "Betrayal Trauma" by Jennifer Freyd. The latter is even more interesting and controversial because the authors mother - Pamela Freyd - was one of the people who (ironically?) set up the FMSF after her daughter wrote the book.

[x-Bliss-x]

Thank you. That post was really helpful. I guess only time will tell what is the real cause. I had to smile when I read the bit about saying "but it doesn't upset me to think about it".... it's EXACTLY what I said to my therapist when he first saw me. I was asked about childhood and denied having any issues. It was an attitude of "Yeah all that happened but if it's not a problem now, it's not a problem and I'm over it".

The Recovered Memory Theory would scare me a bit. I'm not sure if I'd trust it either. It's very easy with people in an already fragile state to 'help' them remember things that may never have happened. Sometimes your just so distressed by your emotions that you want a reason for them.

Thanks again.

x-Bliss-x

[joysmelody]

Talk therapy is VERY limited in what it can offer you and how much of your Truth it can uncover. See if you can find someone who does Art Therapy and has experience working with abuse survivors. IMHO it will help uncover some sealed over experiences that you have blacked out of your consciousness and in the therapeutic environment you can help heal some of those wounds in a more varied and hands on way.

j

I hope this post makes sense.

I'm seeing a therapist at the moment and I've recently been talking to him about how I find being around men uncomfortable etc. My Mum was in an abusive relationship and obviously I was young when everything was happening but I do remember a lot of it. Thing is...when I'm asked what it is that effects me so much, I feel like there's something else. Something else I can't talk about. When I try and talk about my feelings I get REALLY emotional. I want to cry and get very anxious.

It doesn't feel like me being a witness to what happened with my Mum should have effected me so much. I don't understand it. Anyone have similar feelings or situations?

x-Bliss-x

[InnerPeace]

I don't know if this is a similar thing or not Bliss but your post reminded me of it...I am very sensitive to the thought of a mother not believing her daughter saying that she has been sexually abused, but this is not something that I've experienced although you'd think I would have done given how sensitive I am about it. I don't think it's a blacked out memory in my case but I do believe in past lives and think it may be a memory I've carried forward with me.

[hummm_mabbe]

The Recovered Memory Theory would scare me a bit. I'm not sure if I'd trust it either. It's very easy with people in an already fragile state to 'help' them remember things that may never have happened. Sometimes your just so distressed by your emotions that you want a reason for them.

Thanks again.

x-Bliss-x

As Joysmelody has said, Art Therapy is one tool that can be used to regain buried memories. Its a technique suggested in the Fredrickson book and was also used by Alice Miller to help her regain the details of her childhood. JM is right though that you should find someone skilled in this.

Its nothing like regression therapy (the more controversial type) - art therapy lets you take memory fragments and expand them, triggering that same image and feeling memory I was talking about in my post.