Mango blast

Repression, also known as dis-associative amnesia, is similar to suppression but it involves unconsciously forgetting or blocking some unpleasant thoughts, feelings and impulses. Individuals might use repression to become unconscious about traumatic past memories.

Any experience, strength and hope to share?

I've been ramping up my support lately, having more counseling and therapy. Repressed childhood memories are coming up now during deep meditation. I'm feeling brave, strong and safe.

The memories are horrific. Verbal/psychological abuse that is absolutely beyond anything I could have ever imagined having happened to me. The memories are very specific, very real, very new to my consciousness.

It's a new awareness that somehow doesn't feel foreign.

KTF

Bekindalways

I haven't had any experience with this Keepingthefaith.

Let us know how it goes.

FireSprite

Well, my history isn't as traumatic sounding KTF, so keep that in mind & take this with a grain of salt, ok?

I found that focusing on hip opening poses in yoga & deep psoa muscle pressure/massage helped all of that to bubble up & out. I would give myself keyword prompts to try to trigger memories - stuff like holidays, birthdays, school events, etc. Just to see what relative memories bubbled up.

But that was my goal - I wanted to open the faucet on that buried stuff & just let it gooooooo. I wanted to purge as much as possible vs. feeling victimized by them randomly popping up. I knew I couldn't get 100% of that out, but I could try for as much as possible. I often describe myself as running AT recovery vs. shying away from the pain of the process & this is a good example of that. I knew it would hurt & would be uncontrollable to a large degree but that holding it in wasn't an option any longer either. (and was pleasantly surprised at times to find that some good got buried away with the bad - which makes sense.... it's not a conscious process by any stretch)

Our hips are described as the seat of our deepest emotions & memories. It's often why we also gain weight around our midsections - a literal layer of protection from our darkest selves & the outside world. Our inner child's dungeon. It's also the area where our Gut Instincts reside..... the entire, intricate gut-brain system ties directly inside that same area of the body. It's the center point for our fight-or-flight instinct via the psoa muscle connection.

https://hubpages.com/health/Hip-Emot...s-in-your-hips

https://www.yogajournal.com/practice/emotions-in-motion

More passive ways to help with the healing aspect of it was stuff like reiki healing, mandala coloring, silence. Deep Sleep. Detoxifying sauna treatments or days spent in nature - at the beach, hiking a trail, standing in the rain.

Mango blast

I've been doing many of those things through recovery, yet have naturally backed off them ...perhaps it was meant to be, to let these things come up slower now. Still connecting with nature, but less reiki, massage, etc. for quite some time. Thank you so much for mentioning these, including the info about belly fat. For the past year, I kept hearing God/Inner Knowing saying my belly fat has been protecting me. I didn't understand that until today.

This morning I listened to Gary Zukav. No coincidence. It hurts, yet I'm being brought through this for a reason. I'm finding my authentic self and my power. Today I'm glad to be alive. I'm embracing joy.

I'm also sitting with these new facts, these new memories. They seem foreign, yet resonate so true. There's no attempt within me at denial. It's more like a breath of relief that the secret is out.

Maudcat

Whoa.
This is very interesting.
I have been doing some yoga hip opening poses as well, though not for the mental exercise, which is intriguing to contemplate.
I am going to read the articles Firesprite posted.
No, I do them because my hips are very tight, always have been.
Safe progress on your journey, KTF.

DesertEyes

Oh yes, went thru a lot of that when I first got into recovery for my ACoA issues. You may want to check out the forum "next" door. https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...oholic-parents

Mike

PuzzledHeart

I wouldn't say that I repressed the memories, but they are extremely fragmented and confusing. Sometimes I wonder if they're even true - I've held them at such a distance that I can hardly believe that they actually happened to me. Then I sometimes get stuck in the "well, they were true but it wasn't THAT bad. It didn't happen every day." I'm fortunate enough now to recognize that that train of though is in itself a defense mechanism.

So right now I feel like I have a huge pile of yarn all tangled up together, and it's up to me to make into something that makes sense. On occasion, I get pissy about the task and I just glare at the tangles. Why the F$#$ did I get left with the tangled yarn? But I'd rather have a sweater than a holy hot mess so what else can I do?

teatreeoil007

OMG-PuzzledHeart! I can so relate to the yarn mess...yesterday when I was doing my knitting it somehow got all messed up and I had to try and rectify the situation...I was frustrated...so I had to leave it and come back to later when I didn't feel so frustrated...sometimes you just want to go "abort procedure, now!".

viola71

I had a similar experience, for the first week of hot yoga I was the girl on the back row uncontrollably crying for 1.5 hrs 5 days in a row and I had no idea why. I spoke with my therapist and she told me they have studied where your emotions are kept in your body. She encouraged me to keep going. It wasn't until I added chiropractic work to the mix that I was able to move forward in my life. My therapist pulled out a book during a session when I told her that I had been seeing the chiro 2x a week for a month and I finally have no pain underneath my should blades; she looked up the area and apparently thats where your self worth lies......during that time period I filed for divorce. The mind body connection is revealing stuff.

PuzzledHeart

teatreeoil - I had my own mini-knitting disaster on the plane this morning (visiting some relatives). Somehow knitting disasters on planes seems a hundred times worse because you're trapped in a tin can and you can't swear and cuss as you want to at the moment.

But back to the subject at hand...

Does anybody repress memories of courage? There are times where I do stand up for myself and then I second guess those moments, as if I could never ever be the woman or girl that initiated the confrontation. There are moments where I am proud of doing something brave but then I immediately slap myself down the pedestal because I don't want to get too big for my britches.

A dear old friend of mine once accused me of being utterly afraid of success because it would make me stand out. Here am I encouraging others here on SR to be brave but perhaps I am the hypocrite, because IRL I don't even want to claim moments of bravery as my own.

FireSprite

Absolutely. I found that I buried a lot of good with the bad - partly due to the unconscious process it is. You aren't exactly shifting through memories as you file them like that. But also partly because my old definitions didn't consider them to be examples of my bravery or confidence - a lot got filed under "What - you think you're special or something?"

Fascinating!!! I know very little about where our emotions lie in relation to our physical body outside of the hip thing - off to google, thanks!

Mango blast

I let my adult children know the basics of what's going on with me a week ago. That I've been No Contact with my mom, dad and brother. That my brother may not be aware of this and I'm okay with that. That I'm having repressed memories of childhood emotional and psychological trauma and abuse coming up. That I have a great support system including counseling and therapy.

I asked for privacy with this, yet no secrets.

I don't plan to ever share the details with them. I'm trusting.... God, Universe, karma, life... that things will work out... and that it likely won't be how I'd direct it if I could. Acceptance. Surrender. Surrounded by more of the "good" in life coming up each day.

If I could choose, there would be charges being pressed... I actually looked into that, with help of a therapist. It's not worth my recovery or sanity to get wrapped up in a fight I would be almost guaranteed to lose. I've already survived... I simply now have these new memories to adapt to. ....and yet still physically ill when I get blindsided by them.

I'm thankful my brain protected me when no one was there to give me protection. I'm angry on many levels and letting that out in safe ways, with counseling.

Mango blast

It's illogical that I knew I was severely abused long before I started remembering the actual memories... and that I was lead into No Contact first, many months before I had any knowledge of there having been abuse. Everything about this has been convoluted and complex.

About a year ago I started finding and using my voice, I started standing up for myself and I started refusing monetary gifts from my parents. Then things started to get weird enough that I could no longer ignore it... the control, manipulation...

Just when I thought I was really making such good progress with my recovery from having alcoholism in my life, things started going deeper than I could have expected.

I'm mad. I'm mad at having my "happy" childhood memories being ripped apart. I'm mad that the illusions of loving parents was broken so easily by No Contact, by not being actively engaged in the dysfunction. I'm mad that life isn't fair and it's not how I want it to be.

And then I realize these are simply more physical, mental and emotional releases. My body, brain and psyche are no longer tense... anxiety is gone... my overall health is greatly improving... I no longer have self-hatred... I FEEL self-love, loved by my Higher Power, protected and strong.

Mango blast

Honesty keeps coming up as a theme this past week... and now I was lead back here.

In the above quote I said "no secrets".

And then... "I don't plan to ever share the details with them".

As much as I want to protect my children, I'm also terrified of sharing what happened to me and becoming revictimized by disbelief, accusations against me and/or hearing others support my abusers.

I'm becoming stronger. I'm trusting this process. Each time I voice to someone safe (counseling, a close friend in recovery, certain people with very strong recovery backgrounds...) the things that happened to me as a child, something happens in me owning my truth.

For me, to never share that with those closest to me would be dishonesty at it's heart.

One step at a time, one breath at a time one day at a time.

KTF

OpheliaKatz

Some how I still feel trapped in the abuse, unable to fully articulate what or who are doing things that make me panic. I feel like if I say anymore than I've already said, I won't be safe. I should get a new therapist, but then I'll have to tell my story from the beginning. I wonder how healthy it would be for me to bury my memories and emotions where I don't have to see or feel them... and hope that they don't surface.

SparkleKitty

Ophelia, I'm so sorry you are struggling with this. I'm no therapist, but I can tell you that no emotion that I ever supressed stayed that way--it invariably surfaced at an inappropriate time and place, and in some wildly infated form. The only healthy way of dealing with emotions is to allow yourself to feel them, and then let them go--preferably in a safe place.

Therapy can help, but it sounds like your current therapist is out of her depth on this one. As exhausting as it seems to start over, the benefits of developing a strong relationship with a therapist who gets you are immeasurable.

OpheliaKatz

I guess I just have to bite the bullet and start over.

Mango blast

Starting over can be freeing.

FireSprite

It would, quite literally, be the very WORST thing you could possibly do for yourself..... do TO yourself.

My mother has done this her entire life & now at age 62 she has the health issues of a woman in her mid-to-late 80's with such a myriad of problems from her eyes to her bones to her brain..... NONE of which her Docs can attribute to any physical starting point. There is pretty much no reason for her to suffer the way she does, but she DOES. She does so much that she has become officially disabled as a result & her health continues to decline & it is no exaggeration when I say that I have come to believe that she has even become somewhat mentally disabled in ways I can't prove.

You do NOT want to sign up for this kind of future Ophelia, you just don't. Therapy is hard but at least there is the possibility of growth..... suppressing emotions only hurts You & it keeps you trapped as a victim to your past.

CentralOhioDad

My AW has tried to do this for years, and I believe she is where she is now with booze because of it. Oh, and she has terminal uniqueness where she doesn't believe anyone can help her with her recurring nightmares and other issues.

So no, I don't believe trying to suppress them will do you much good.