I thought I would post more about my experience of memory recovery, and how it worked for me.

First I will touch on the fact that repression of memories doesn’t happen on its own. It happens because care givers around you are neglectful, and often disclosures go ignored. Also being of younger age group can impact how you process information about in events of abuse. So these things among other things like immediate survival, often play there part. In creating an environment where repression is the most healthiest way to survive.

When I first started to recover memories, it was lots of still images, that did not make much sense. They made no sense because I had no memory of the events, but they were very real. The still images lasted for around 4 months for one event of abuse, and they were terrifyingly real. Eventually the images as if remembered snippet by snippet, played backwards, like a video in rewind. Once my mind processed the images, and it was put in order backwards, it played forward. I relived the event of abuse, to the point it felt like I was there in person. It was not nice at the time. But it needed to happen, and I gained a lot of evidence while reliving the memories. As information is vivid, and in a detail, unlike other memories. One in which you can almost look around in your memory, and collect information. Because even though a child when it happened, when in recovery, you have adult sense to help you.

Although one can forget the images, and memories of events. There are cues, and physical memories that cause impacts. For example, I was scared of the dark, and had trouble closing my eyes, even to wash my face. It felt like I needed to keep my eyes open to protect myself, while I was in the bath. Closing my eyes, my anxiety goes high very quickly. So I learned to wash my face with one eye partially open (hahaha), or wash it when I get out. It is still a work in progress, and I do not beat myself up for not feeling safe, when bathing. My logical mind knows nothing will happen, but my autopilot, and auto-memory has my last nerve not taking a chance. With the cue being the dark, and me being physically exposed, it triggers the autopilot memory. Often social cues at the time of events can have a forefront impact regardless of any memory repression. For me being abused in my bed at night, and waking up during the abuse. It did something to my senses in terms of closing my eyes, and it being dangerous to my immediate survival. Its ingrained within my autopilot memory.

In terms of your thinking mind, and processing that you are having recovered memories. For me I went through stages of shock, in that how does a person forget such horrific events. It took me a long time to wrap my head around it, and find words to explain it. Then seeking evidence, and feeling my trust for people plummet. I felt lied to about my reality, even though, it was not directly. I recovered memories mainly between 2006, and 2015. It covered a large part of my existence, and took up time I should have been spending of something else. Managing recovered memories, and the consequences that come with finding evidence, is exhausting, and detrimental to well-being. Once my memories were mostly retrieved, processed and analyzed. I felt more stabilized, and learned to trust myself and my own analysis of my experience first and foremost.

In thinking about recovered memories, and how there are stages of retrieval. I do think victims of CSA are let down, because crucial times that should be used to gather evidence. Is not really utilized, because there is a lack of structure to accommodate that in society. Partially because there was a long-term bias, towards the nature of recovered memories in itself. Limited work has been done in terms of how recovery can be utilized, to aid evidence collecting. Than retrieval of memories being seen as a potential flaw to the legal process, and weapon for the opposing team. I hope in the future things get better, and people start seeing the potential in the detailed memory retrieval provides. There are crucial windows being missed, and new infrastructure to accommodate these windows needs to made. Specialist therapists need to be available long-term, to record things as it happens.

What was your experience of recovering memory like? Were there any similarities to my own experience?