blank memory ( possible triggers)

blank memory ( possible triggers)
K

Kid A

Registrant
I know enough to know I was sexually abused, but the haziness of my memory causes me as many difficulties as the abuse itself. The original flashback that brought me into therapy, I told myself was only a dream, and like other dreams I managed to forget it. In the dream I am 4 years old, in my bedroom at night, staring intenseley at the orange walls as I feel extreme fear of my uncles presence mixed with a sexual feeling that no 4 year old should feel. This memory jumped into my head a few years ago as clear as day, and then jumped back out. I now know it was no dream, and have been dealing with the memory for a few months. Then just last week another memory emerged. There are 3 tall men with black cat heads. They hover over me like my uncle. In my head I hear them tell me what to do: "turn on your stomach, pull your pants a little bit down, now your underpants, roll over on your back, pull them down again, now all the way," then I black out as it gets sexual. Unlike the first memory which I remember as a dream, this one I remember as a fantasy, but was I really such a sexually advanced kid to be having such fantasies? Why are they black cats? My little league team when I was six was black, we were called the panthers I think. My coach gave away 2 bats at the end of the year. He gave me one, and I wondered why, I wasn't very good at baseball. He felt sorry for me for some reason and I didn't know why. My friend Carey was on the team I think, is that him in the picture. Carey and I acted out this script together in my basement all the time, we both seemed to know it. Was Carey's dad the coach? I have the picture. Both coaches look so familiar but so strangeley distant. I can't remember any of first grade. All of the rest of my memory is just hazy and numb. I want them to come back, but have a hard time looking. There are other things, seemingly less graphic, that I can look at even less: my mother having me give her massages. She's on her stomach but her shirt's off. This doesn't seem right. There are other things I want to see but I look and its black and its frustrating cause it makes everything else in my life black. All smells, colors, and sounds that a child gets to absorb I tuned out. I want these things to return. I want the lights to turn on in the past and present. I suppose when I'm ready they will. Its normally when I stop looking that new pieces of this confusing puzzle form.
 
Kid,

Its normally when I stop looking that new pieces of this confusing puzzle form.
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This is the answer to anything you have said about this confusion.

The memory issues, memory denial, are all when you try and control your mind and try and look into the past.

You would not have been sexual at 4yo, but you would have been sexualised, which you would have only have hit you with the onset of puberty.

There would have been a huge mass of confusion and trust issues, even with close friends and coaches, teachers etc., which you struggle to deal with.

As an older person, my way of thinking is this, my own memories have been erased, but they are still waiting to surface, they only do it when I lower the stress levels inside.

I cannot see the link with the black cats and your past, but something must have kept you thinking that something was wrong.

Writing down snippets of memory is a good thing to do, I wish I had, but never dismiss them as untrue, but rather work on making sense of them and the past.

Talk about memories here and with a trained therapist who can help you through finding out some of the missing pieces.

I do not think that your mother helped by allowing you to massage her, and that alone would be seen as abuse, I am sorry that she did that.

Take care,

ste
 
Kid A,

Unfortunately I think you are right in seeing these images as true memories of abuse. As you become better able to accept them it is likely that they will return in fuller detail, or that more details will emerge.

I hope you will talk to a therapist about this, as the memories will be painful and traumatic for you. It will be the T's job to help you along while protecting you as much as possible.

Don't feel you are "losing it", but the way. Loss of memories and then recovery of them in bits and fragments often happens to survivors.

Much love,
Larry
 
These memories I accept as true because they cause my heart to beat in fear or to shut down completely. My therapist said before 5 children remember things differently than after 5. They remember perception and fragments, not storylines. This too is frustrating, cause when I tell my close friends that I blacked out at when it becomes sexual, they think, then it must have not been so bad. Both the dream and the fantasy happened more than once. I remember the world differently before the abuse. I remember having senses, playing freely, not being scared all the time. Then after the abuse, I told myself that life is only a dream. All I would have to do for the next 20 years is figure out who to play in the dream. I felt like an impostor in a boys clothing and would learn how to act, think, and feel like a real boy. All minor disturbances after the abuse caused me to dissociate from reality. The only play I found rewarding after the abuse was sexual play with my friend Carey in which the repetiive nature was so similar to the pattern of when the coaches tell me what to do. All the connections I listed are not ones I sought out but ones that jumped into my head, but now leave me wanting to know more. I was done looking when I saw this scripted scene with 3 tall cats jump into my mind. I got scared and let it go and then images of my first little league team connected themselves to that memory. These things I hold is true because of the panic they cause when they enter my mind. The memories have a wall though, when things start feeling very sexual, I stop seeing what is happening. The feeling I have with my uncle is one of orgasm, but that is crazy, kids can't orgasm, at least not ejaculate, but I liked the feeling despite my overwhelming fear that my uncle was there hovering over my bed like a monster. But it was only a dream, I told myself. I had the dream on more than one occasion, and despite the fact that I felt awake, I conviinced myself it wasn't real. It took a great amount of force and imagination to do so, both of which screwed me up but protected me for many years.
 
I hope you all believe my story. I am often numb when I spit it out and feel nobody believes me except my therapist and this girl I just met. My best friend believed me when I told it to him as I was in the midst of remembering and tears and anger were abundant, but thats not always the case. I guess it doesn't matter, but after a life of having my blankness be interpreted as my personality I need people to realize it is a symptom I suffer with, its not me. I feel lucky to have a glimpse of me before the abuse, a me that was pure and free. I know you all understand and that many of you have been threw much worse that I can't even imagine. I also know that its useless to compare, but I do anyway. I hear people saying, get over it, it could of been so much worse, and the critical part of me agrees with them. But the other part, the part thats pure and free, says to not listen to them. The part thats pure and free wants to be loved and to know that things can get better, even if it never knows fully what locked it up to begin with. These are some of the battles I have.
On some days, the good ones, I walk out to the bay near my house and can feel the wind coming threw me, I can smell the water, and move my body freely, and the momentary lapse of the constriction of trauma gives me hope.
 
I believe you, Kid A. I know what it's like to have repressed memories and to have them come back. Sometimes when I least expect it. It's not been fun. I always hope that there will be no more, but I've come to understand that there may be others. I surely hope not though.

Keep coming here. We'll help you with that hope you speak of.

Lots of love,

John
 
I looked through my old photos and found a page of little league photos. In all the pages before I look calm and at peace. In all the pictures after I am faking a smile, striking a poze or zoning out into space. My first year of little league was first grade, and I cannot remember any of first grade. This is the time when my life disconnects and no longer makes sense. I saw my friend and nextdoor neighbor Carey in one of these photos so I know for sure he was on my team. I also know for sure that Carey and I acted things out together that neither one of us should have known. I've been good so far about not searching out my past, but now I'm desperate to know what was done to me and by who. I want to know who caused a carefree kid to become scared and frozen for twenty+ years. Memories keep coming back to me. Some are abuse related and some are not, but they all make me realize that my life story is completely fragmented. Thanks for all your help and support. -Kid A
 
Kid A,

Yep, I believe every word. But I know how you feel when you ask that. It's all so confusing, and until recently it is something that troubled me a lot. I wanted to be believed but kept wondering how could anyone imagine that this could happen to a kid? On the other hand, I desperately wanted it all to be a bad dream or some kind of delusion on my part. I wanted to wake up and I am 11 again and thinking wow, what a terrible nightmare. But on every side I got the same answer from Ts and psychologists - these were genuine memories of CSA.

It's tough to have to accept this bro. But once we do we can begin to heal. One thing good about the truth is that it can't hurt us.

Much love,
Larry
 
I want to be strong and accept this, but it feels like the more I accept, the more I see. Even now I'm trying to write what I see and I can't do it. The moment I see it, I say its not real. Even as all the facts come together I still can't accept these images to be true. I found out that my coach was my next door neighbor and definetly the father of my best friend Carey, the one who knew all the sexual things I knew. My coach drove us to and from practice. My mom said he was a very strange character looking back. Not one kid in my little league photo is smiling. Can a coach abuse a whole team? Anyway these are just questions about the facts and photos which as an adult I can negotiate; Its the memories and flashbacks of things I can't really describe here that I use all my power to deny, things that photos don't show. I think all of you are so courageous for confronting your demons and you give me hope that I can find the same strength.
 
Kid A,

Don't feel you have to do all this at once. The hurt we suffered developed over years, so it's natural if we have to deal with it in stages and not all at once.

I know how you feel about that device of saying "It isn't real". I know I was doing that for a long time, and in November, when I disclosed to my parents, I thought that was it. But it wasn't, and I am getting clobbered by some new things over the holidays. It is difficult and I sure would like to say it can't be and I am just stressed out and worrying too much. Maybe I am.

But it is far more likely that these are more real memories, and I have to be prepared for that possibility. Sometimes the truth is difficult to accept bro; it's all the crap we wish we could we could just cancel and never even think about. But that trap is what results in some guys dealing with their abuse at the age of 15, while others are doing at the age of 55. The truth can't hurt us Kid, but it doesn't go away either.

You conclude with this:

I think all of you are so courageous for confronting your demons and you give me hope that I can find the same strength.
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You already have that courage bro. It's that courage that allowed you to admit to yourself what happened, to come here and to speak about your issues. Whatever you need for the rest of the road is just more of the same from the reserves you are calling on now.

Much love,
Larry
 
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