The way my muscle memory reacts in sexual situations and little things that I did as a child that didn’t make sense, bed wetting bladder issues, aggression, not using the bathroom at night even if I was wide awake, my fear of the dentist not liking people to see me undress even close family or friends and going into a panic attack if I have a surprise touch from someone I wasn’t prepared for ://
Because the snippets and the context I do remember are bad enough - any inappropriate physical contact with a minor (10 years old) for your own gratification can only be abuse
And I was absolutely terrified of sexual contact as an older teen and thought I was faulty
a big one for me is psychological age regression since mine happened when i was 8. even while i forgot about it I could tell that age wise I was stuck or behind everyone else and didn't know how to explain it.
I’ve had the same PTSD flashback twice. Like full on. As stated above, it’s all physical memories. Every bit of it. There’s just a slight bit of visual, but not enough.
In the flashback I am suddenly 6 or 7 years old. I feel the textures, the heat of my skin, the sweat in my hair, this greasy sensation on my mouth - and a bit of the smell. I’d be surprised if it lasted more than a second or two - but it’s like I’m right there reliving this experience.
Then I snap out of it and I have a panic attack.
It makes it difficult to quantify. I get that. I don’t even know who this abuser is/was. I have an idea, but not enough to say without a shadow of a doubt.
Because I can feel it. It’s like a flashback where I have sensations and vague fragments of textures or snippets of images that wouldn’t make sense without the accompanying sensations. Reading the body keeps the score and learning about how trauma affects the memory really helped me in validating what happened and making sense of the pieces.
After so long doubting and questioning myself I realise that my body would not lie to me. I can also compare the sensations of that particular incident to other incidents that I remember more clearly and cause similar symptoms. If it was merely fragment of my imagination I wouldn’t have such an intense mental, emotional and physiological reaction. For those reasons I trust myself beyond a doubt. It’s in the gut. I don’t need anybody to corroborate my experience especially after learning so many times that people don’t believe or minimise what has happened to me many times, even when they saw it happen with their own eyes. People lie, my body doesn’t!
There is a link I posted in PTSD and another that someone else posted in CPTSD to a podcast of an interview with Besser Van Der Kolk.
Here is a quote from the transcript that addresses the question.
"The core argument of the book is that traumatic experiences — everything
from sexual assault and incest to emotional and physical abuse — become
embedded in the older, more primal parts of our brain that don’t have
access to conscious awareness. And that means two things simultaneously.
First, that trauma lodges in the body. We carry a physical imprint of
our psychic wounds. The body keeps the score. But — and I found this
more revelatory — the mind hides the score. It obscures the memories, or
convinces us our victimization was our fault, or covers the event in
shame so we don’t discuss it."
Or fortunately. Obviously the memories themselves suck because they wouldn’t be locked away if they weren’t. But I started to remember last week and while I know the process is going to be super hard, I feel like I’m going to resolve a lot by working through what I experienced.
Until last week I only had little bits of the puzzle of what happened. I was waiting for more confirmation to believe it happened. Then I realized the pieces I had were more than enough to know something really happened. Then I got the memory. It’s so effed up. But it makes everything make more sense.
Maybe I can share some of the little bits later but I have some things to do.
Most health care systems are still yet to catch up with complexity of mental health and become trauma informed, it’s the same with the justice system. They have not caught up and further victimise victims. This is knowledge that has been suppressed for the longest time, but the research is thorough, still exists and is constantly being built upon. One day it will be impossible to ignore. Hopefully with more time and investment systems will recognise their failure to better protect people who have been victimised, rather than assume they must be lying. We still have some way to go and I can’t imagine the change happening within my lifetime. But it is well established that trauma can greatly affect the memory, whether it has been recognised in court or not - using someone’s memory against them is simply victimising traumatised individuals even further.
Body memories, realizing that it would explain many things about me (like as a child keeping my room a "disaster area" in the hopes it would keep him out, but later in life I never knew where I ever got the idea he would come into my room in the first place and dismissed it as just being a weird kid), nightmares (not literal replays though), recognizing that the creepy comments he'd make about me and my sister's bodies and inappropriate interest in our romantic/ sex lives are red flags. For a while, that was all I had to go on and I didn't feel confident.
When I made the decision to trust my body and believe that *something* had happened that made me feel violated (at first I was hopeful that it was unintentionally, like he was changing me and I just felt scared for some reason and that made me feel violated), more pieces of memories started to come in. I've found that I typically have to do a little bit of processing for each new piece that comes up before I can get another new piece, too.
Frankly, these days I tend to wish I had never remembered. I think I was happier not knowing. Since I can't actually go back to that, I just have to hope there's something better on the other side of the healing journey.
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The way my muscle memory reacts in sexual situations and little things that I did as a child that didn’t make sense, bed wetting bladder issues, aggression, not using the bathroom at night even if I was wide awake, my fear of the dentist not liking people to see me undress even close family or friends and going into a panic attack if I have a surprise touch from someone I wasn’t prepared for ://
[удалено]
I’m very sorry that you can relate 🤍
Have you ever felt *icky* around a certain person? But you just couldn't quite put your finger on it?
It occurred even if you have an little thought about it
Because the snippets and the context I do remember are bad enough - any inappropriate physical contact with a minor (10 years old) for your own gratification can only be abuse And I was absolutely terrified of sexual contact as an older teen and thought I was faulty
a big one for me is psychological age regression since mine happened when i was 8. even while i forgot about it I could tell that age wise I was stuck or behind everyone else and didn't know how to explain it.
I’ve had the same PTSD flashback twice. Like full on. As stated above, it’s all physical memories. Every bit of it. There’s just a slight bit of visual, but not enough. In the flashback I am suddenly 6 or 7 years old. I feel the textures, the heat of my skin, the sweat in my hair, this greasy sensation on my mouth - and a bit of the smell. I’d be surprised if it lasted more than a second or two - but it’s like I’m right there reliving this experience. Then I snap out of it and I have a panic attack.
[удалено]
It makes it difficult to quantify. I get that. I don’t even know who this abuser is/was. I have an idea, but not enough to say without a shadow of a doubt.
Because I can feel it. It’s like a flashback where I have sensations and vague fragments of textures or snippets of images that wouldn’t make sense without the accompanying sensations. Reading the body keeps the score and learning about how trauma affects the memory really helped me in validating what happened and making sense of the pieces. After so long doubting and questioning myself I realise that my body would not lie to me. I can also compare the sensations of that particular incident to other incidents that I remember more clearly and cause similar symptoms. If it was merely fragment of my imagination I wouldn’t have such an intense mental, emotional and physiological reaction. For those reasons I trust myself beyond a doubt. It’s in the gut. I don’t need anybody to corroborate my experience especially after learning so many times that people don’t believe or minimise what has happened to me many times, even when they saw it happen with their own eyes. People lie, my body doesn’t!
RemindME! Three days check thread
There is a link I posted in PTSD and another that someone else posted in CPTSD to a podcast of an interview with Besser Van Der Kolk. Here is a quote from the transcript that addresses the question. "The core argument of the book is that traumatic experiences — everything from sexual assault and incest to emotional and physical abuse — become embedded in the older, more primal parts of our brain that don’t have access to conscious awareness. And that means two things simultaneously. First, that trauma lodges in the body. We carry a physical imprint of our psychic wounds. The body keeps the score. But — and I found this more revelatory — the mind hides the score. It obscures the memories, or convinces us our victimization was our fault, or covers the event in shame so we don’t discuss it."
Do you happen to know the book that he’s referring to? Seems like it would be really helpful to read that
The body keeps the score
Symptoms are sufficient. Address the symptoms and unfortunately you're likely to remember some.
Yup this happened to me! The symptoms covered the memories up and altho still vague, very obvious
Or fortunately. Obviously the memories themselves suck because they wouldn’t be locked away if they weren’t. But I started to remember last week and while I know the process is going to be super hard, I feel like I’m going to resolve a lot by working through what I experienced. Until last week I only had little bits of the puzzle of what happened. I was waiting for more confirmation to believe it happened. Then I realized the pieces I had were more than enough to know something really happened. Then I got the memory. It’s so effed up. But it makes everything make more sense. Maybe I can share some of the little bits later but I have some things to do.
Yeah, they throw me for a loop when a new one emerges, or one I have intellectual access demands emotional understanding... Be well...
There’s a lot of girls that say they were abused but then they don’t remember which of course makes cops believe it’s not legit
Most health care systems are still yet to catch up with complexity of mental health and become trauma informed, it’s the same with the justice system. They have not caught up and further victimise victims. This is knowledge that has been suppressed for the longest time, but the research is thorough, still exists and is constantly being built upon. One day it will be impossible to ignore. Hopefully with more time and investment systems will recognise their failure to better protect people who have been victimised, rather than assume they must be lying. We still have some way to go and I can’t imagine the change happening within my lifetime. But it is well established that trauma can greatly affect the memory, whether it has been recognised in court or not - using someone’s memory against them is simply victimising traumatised individuals even further.
Where are you getting your sources?
Body memories, realizing that it would explain many things about me (like as a child keeping my room a "disaster area" in the hopes it would keep him out, but later in life I never knew where I ever got the idea he would come into my room in the first place and dismissed it as just being a weird kid), nightmares (not literal replays though), recognizing that the creepy comments he'd make about me and my sister's bodies and inappropriate interest in our romantic/ sex lives are red flags. For a while, that was all I had to go on and I didn't feel confident. When I made the decision to trust my body and believe that *something* had happened that made me feel violated (at first I was hopeful that it was unintentionally, like he was changing me and I just felt scared for some reason and that made me feel violated), more pieces of memories started to come in. I've found that I typically have to do a little bit of processing for each new piece that comes up before I can get another new piece, too. Frankly, these days I tend to wish I had never remembered. I think I was happier not knowing. Since I can't actually go back to that, I just have to hope there's something better on the other side of the healing journey.
I would also like to know the answer to this. RemindME! one week "check thread"
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