Blossom717

Have any of you ever realized that you've blocked events out of your memory?

My mom will recall lots of things that went on to us in my parent's divorce, things that I can't remember. Big events that would probably have traumatized me other wise.

I think I do that more than I realized. I knew I did it to a certain degree. Living with mom right now and talking about how a lot of what I am going through with xabf is like what she went through with my dad is causing me to understand how much i've blocked. I can almost feel my brain trying to do it now with some memories of xabf. Its like I can't make myself think about being there, what it was like to go there everyday after work, wake up there. I know what it was like, but I can't feel it anymore.

Does that make any sense?

WendyOR

It sounds like disassociating to me. PTSD often has us have disassociation. I have PTSD. I have it pretty well under control, until things get really, really tough, then it will rear its ugly head.

One time I had to go to an appointment, for my son and his schooling. It was a stressful meeting, due to his autism, etc. He was not to leave the grounds of the school and he kept running, in which could have led to very bad consequences... I parked my car, and walked a straight walk to the building and entered. They then told me that I needed to go out the building, turn the corner to the building and go in that door for the meeting. I did so, and had a successful meeting. I then went to leave, and only remembered that I needed to walk a few short blocks in a straight line to get to my car. Well guess what, I had been disassociating, and I ended up in a panic attack downtown. I didn't have my cell with me to call anyone. It was in the car due to the meeting. I searched for my car downtown in tears for nearly two hours. It was awful.

However, it can be a regression as well.

Sometimes I wish I could forget some things. If only we could pick and choose the memories we can remember and forget... right?

Sending you hugs. Is it being helpful for your healing, remembering some of those things?

Blossom717

Oh that sounds like something I would do! So sorry that happened to you.

Disassociation would make sense. I guess it may be helpful in the long run with healing. Right now I'm trying to accomplish a lot in so little time with so little resources that I've had no chance to try and climb that mountain.

My dad is definitely an issue for me. We will go a long time without talking. Then he will go a few weeks of calling me every day. Right now he is trying to be helpful. He even went as far as to say he was going to give me some money every week to help me out....which is very generous but I can only see that biting me in the butt later. He invited me and dd to go with him and my twin brother and his family to the river this weekend. I probably will for a night just to get my mind off things but if we spend too much time together we clash. Probably partly from the memories I have and don't have of him.

NYCDoglvr

addicts (including codependents) are strongly influenced by denial and rationalization. But all humans do this too. A terrific read: Mistakes Were Made ... but Not by Me" which explains how the mind works. We're all more or less delusional especially with things we'd rather not confront. An example: "my AH is such a mess, he does .........." so we don't have to deal with our own issues.

Blossom717

Also - A lot of xabf's behaviors were starting to remind me of my dad. When I started telling my mom that, she told me some stories from when I was younger and I realized a lot.

theuncertainty

(((hugs)))) I just wanted to let you know you're not alone with this. At the beginning of my relationship with AXH, I kept a journal. He would pick it up, read it, and belittle me about things in it. So I hid it and stopped writing. Well, I found it when I was packing to leave him; took it with me and read it later. I was stunned to read some of the things I wrote about in there. How could I not remember what he did Christmas Eve of __ year? And as I started digging deeper, I found other things that I'd 'forgotten'. And not just the bad things, either. Just stuff that didn't seem to measure up with what I was told by him. I think there's a thread here on F&F that I started when I found my college transcripts and I realized/remembered how well I had done.

I have PTSD. (I want to say 'had', because I haven't any issues lately, but then I haven't had to deal with AXH for a long while either, so...) When I was actively trying to work through stuff with my therapist, I described it as looking in on my past and seeing it filtered through a very dirty window made of unevenly tinted brown glass.

dandylion

Blossom---I read of a theory that has been proposed by some researchers in domestic violence.....it says that after a particularly frightening episode of violence, that, as a protective action, the pituitary, in the brain secretes oxytocin....which is a hormone secreted immediately at birth....and accounts for the amnesia of the pain of childbirth. One can remember that pain was there...but can't reproduce the feelings again in their memory.
This is speculated as a reason why the victim of the abuse will not remember it as being as "bad" as it really was.

This is a theory.....

dandylion