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Here's how memory seems to work for me.

For beginners, on the whole my memory has proven to be pretty sharp, quite thorough (often to my chagrin; who'd want to ever remember?). I can recall the names of all the teachers, most of whom I consider awful, all of them abusive in one way or another, for 13 years of private schools..

Ah, but there's also huge gaps. While I recall the 3rd grade teacher's name an much of her usual over-the-top demeanour, there is a HUGE gap of what seems to have been 'something significant' that I rather hope never does reappear. Though this teacher left the school at the end of my 3rd grade year, she returned one day during the 4th and ... while many kids were excited to see her, I felt extremely uneasy. As, interestingly, was she. I recall a scared sort of stare when she would even idly gaze my way; eventually just avoiding me entirely; and I did the same. Something awful is all I can surmise -- still lurking, but I fervently hope the precise memory will not resurface.

While I've wondered, in some trepidation, if whatever was hidden in the background would flit back into memory, it never has, and I rather hope it never does.

There are some other gaps of that kind, but that one is noticeable. So it seems the memory game can play all sorts of tricks. Yet, in my case, the general insights from the gaps do tend to merge with those that are almost crystal clear, and I really never want to know; just choose to work (if needed) with the other intense abusive memories still mostly intact. Several (too many) took place during my adult years as well.

Sometimes when others bring up certain themes, even in idle conversation, I  find myself easily dissociating. One time this happened during a therapy session, for which I apologized to my T and she reminded me -- it's perfectly normal, and ok, to experience this.

I, too, have concluded that the patterns, even when the details aren't apparently fully recalled, speak to where we might indeed need healing. Most of those 'why' questions are often elusive. After all, we're talking abuse that was senseless to begin with.

There's variety in how each of us respond, and how or when our memories play a role. For me, the best part isn't remembering every detail, but growing beyond what I do know and continuing along the path that seems optimal for me now. The past is still, last I checked, stretching further and further behind me, taking all the 'whys' with it. Now, finally, a new horizon of peace-making with my past is finally emerging. I hope it does for you as well.

Welcome to this next step on your journey, Little2Nothing.

Some of your experience rings very true for mine, especially the lack of feeling truly connected to anyone who seems ok to trust. This is why I find this forum/website so helpful. I hope you'll begin to feel you've found a group where you can begin unpacking the long years of angst, wondering what was wrong, and how to turn it around, especially when the 'professional' help wasn't adequate either.

 

Powerful, the unspoken truths we have to find just to be loved and cared for. Sometimes it's just so hard to try again   

Yet -- here it is; without trying, without the human put-downs, we can live our own way forward.

Thank you, tryingtokeepmoving, for putting words to otherwise blind rage ... and still somehow ... surviving as we build anew.

Having been through lots of therapists before my present one (nearly a decade now), the first steps in, looking back my our first forays involved my looking for hints of how the 'fit' meshed. My old trust issue dominated that attitude.

It soon became apparent that there was a good fit -- she expressed the notion that she didn't 'do' therapy for anyone; that the therapy part is more of a partnership, exploring mostly along lines suggested by the client.

At first I found this a little disappointing. She didn't have answers? Like many, I wanted the easy-on approach. But it soon became obvious she wasn't buying that one -- she might have her own opinions but everything reverted to how I felt, with the allowance that her expertise in trauma therapy was always present.

Another intriguing thing I learned early is that she was a keen listener, and totally open to me as part of the process. It wasn't about her doling out fantastic advice and my going off to live happily ever after. She accepted my input, even delving into some of the books I'd come across that she hadn't.

All along, she trusted my own yen for self-discovery beyond the therapy appointments only. I have a huge inclination for what's called Bibliotherapy, and what I discover in reading often gets into our meetings (mostly telephone now, following the pandemic (one of her offices is in a medical centre). I wouldn't have favoured this at the start, but once we knew each other better the telephone approach saved me some hefty travel.

I do set out some notes ahead of time ... BUT I tend to want to rely on them so much, it can feel like I'm reading a story to her. She's actually okay with that, but I never do catch all of what I want to say either.

But I'm prob getting a little too self-critical here. Plus comparing therapists for unique individuals is tricky anyway. We're all different, prefer different ways to experience therapy.

That said, I'd just encourage patience, especially at the start. Some notes probably help, but they can get a little carried away, too (mine is also partly due to ye olde 'perfectionism many with Cptsd develop; following years of explaining for others and not feeling understood, it feels natural to make clear what one is trying to say.

I wish you well in establishing a pace and style that seems comfortable. I used to have doubts about in-person therapy's usefulness, but my experience with this T has changed all of that.

Brief addendum to the above:

I recently read an author who suggested that the brain can be imagined as a favourite personal room. Okay -- but, like a room in one's house, perhaps it could stand a little remodel.

He suggests changing the colour scheme, removing and replacing the old 'bed of nails' (LOL) with a cozy lounge chair, and the two I like best:

Install a window with a colourful, live seasonal view (so the view isn't static year-in, year-out. Then, the one I like best of all -- the installation of a pressure-valve someplace on a wall.

The valve, a typical orifice device found on stoves, water heaters, all sorts of devices, can be adjusted by a simple twist of opening it and -- voila -- the pressure is released into the air.

Likewise, he suggests that the brain's imaginary redo be outfitted with such a release valve. If nothing else, the room's coziness is soon enhanced.

Just something I recalled at the mention of the role and function of mindfulness in these fragile brains we tend to.

Mindfulness seems to have turned into a cult word which I don't feel comfy about either. It often seems to be more of a marketing slogan than anything.

Personally, in my yen to find words I can live with, I refer to what most would identify with the trendy mindfulness tag and alter it to read as "heartfulness". Because in the heart is where I find things mean the most, both for my perception and how I exist in the world.

"Mindful" does seem a bit, well, scary -- as if one has filled their thinking capacity up with so much there's no room for, say, contemplation or thinking outside the box, so to speak.
Awareness refers to what's meant, I feel.

All language is doing is pointing. And all of us derive our language in different ways. Just my thoughts, translated via how my heart speaks. 

I attended a rotten, pretend-religious sort of school, where the hypocrisy ground me into a zombie-like feeling leading to ... get me outta here.

Then, one day, going into the school from the 9-mile bus trip to get there, I walked in, and totally unconsciously, went to set my books and winter clothes in place, and ... with no forethought, no hidden or inner voices, just turned around and walked the entire 9 miles home.

The parents didn't care (they'd already written me off, the school did no search or inform police, none of that. I returned to the school the next day, but felt so much freer for that walk in freedom.

In retrospect, that walk signifies my true separation, at least in my heart, from a place which was harmful to the 'soul' they said they  were saving from ... something  I guess it was them from whom I needed the separation, and that absent-minded walk was the start of the separation/freedom trip that continues ...

Brave little girl, indeed ...

To take the words of the heart and transform the dark into the new light you find yourself in.

Then, now ... thank you for sharing it here.

  

   Hey, Elpha -- so excited to see you here again! Take yer time, as they say, loping back to this new/old/new place of acquaintance. I kept wondering/hoping if you'd reappear here at some point ... and here you are ... 

Sometimes the saying "attitudinal healing" fits what's needed to describe what's going on within us when we allow ourselves to step past our own frustrations as we struggle further along the foggy path to wholeness.

I've noticed a shift in my extensive private journals (I don't journal here as so much material is too nuanced to fully explain). A difference in how I'm referring to some things on my Cptsd journey seems to put me in a better frame of thinking as I consider what's going on.

Being a bit of a word nerd, I started to slide in the word 'Discovery' in lieu of 'Recovery'. One reason is I'm troubled by the idea of 'recovery' -- as in finding something old that I'd like back, that sort of feeling.

Well, in my case, getting something back often rubs me the wrong way. I mean, I'd never want to recover what my abusive/traumatic past was like. Sometimes when I say 'recovery' I jump a bit, realizing I don't truly want that. I'm sure this might seem silly to some, but being that 'word nerd' I mentioned before, I'm always wondering about how else my thinking along these lines might allow a better feeling.

So in playing with words I've used, I noticed the word "Discovery" was taking over my private journals when my thought patterns might (reluctantly) come to mind about what happened/didn't/might have, etc.

Lots of times I've felt better on twisting the thought pattern from 'recovery' (I often don't want that) to 'discovery'. Maybe I discover that just by using the new word it opens me to consider all the ramifications of all that took place. How maybe what was/is obvious instances of abuse or trauma still resulted in my discovering a trait I like (resilience, trust, discernment, etc.), or how I might have learned something, even if it was hard to handle at the time. Changing it in the future (now) -- discovering a new twist -- allows me to roam over new territory that feels a tad better than recovering the old stuff again. It doesn't absolve or even forgive that old storyline, but it shifts my view to how I can be my best self NOW.

Just a thought -- a discovery, if you will.

However you refer to your steps, as recovery or discovery, I wish you well with what you find, and hope it can provide a fresh perspective on an old grief, or worse.

For sure, dissociation is, was, and might still affect me. While highly irritating and even a tad angry in its aftermatch, I started to turn around on that attitude once when, apologizing to my T for "xonking" out, she reassured me that this happens frequently with trauma survivors, and the the best part of my dissociation that day was simply that I noticed. That reassurance was highly supportive, as I was in the habit of piling fault on fault with regard to what I consider my inadequacies in handling all the nastiness that involuntarily invades whatever I'm doing.

But triggers and flashbacks being what they are, it happened again and still can haunt me. But I go back to what she told me -- "this is alright, you're okay; more than okay."

I've noticed this can happen so many times -- even while reading, when I get to the hard stuff (or material reminiscent of same, sometimes far-fetched, I can find myself in the "zone". The worst, of course, is when it interferes with people interactions. There it's harder to explain, but I've noticed I can sense when it might happen and somewhat when it does.

I wish you well, but first things first -- it's normal, you're ok, and you have noticed its presence, and perhaps understood it isn't the end of the world, that many of us experience the same jolt to our equilibrium.

Welcome back, Hope. Your thoughtful writings are always relevant and heartfelt sharing about what can be an up/down/inside/out experience that's also never easy to find words for.

 

"Sometimes when you're in a dark place, you think you've been buried, but actually you've been planted." CHRISTINE CAINE

from the book by Compton, Ellen. Good Things Happen in the Dark: A Candid Manifesto for Courageous Authenticity.

This imagery brought to mind the earlier (1908) book THE SECRET GARDEN and its subsequent serialization on BBC TV in 1975. Both of these were discussed by several people on this forum a few years ago.

   

 

Wouldn't ya know, as soon as I dropped off what I wrote above, a very healing book I own literally popped off my bookshelf (okay, literally off my massive Kindle feed  ).

I recall it as being one of my favourite discoveries along the lines of finding the encouragement I crave when the darkness descends (not just sleep deprivation).

Okay, the writer is Ellen Compton; the book title GOOD THINGS HAPPEN IN THE DARK: A Candid Manifesto for Courageous Authenticity.

Reading it again reminds me of what I mean when I say I prefer the word 'discovery' to 'recovery'.
 

Thanks to all who chimed in on this. I know I'm not alone with this wicked, repetitive symptom.

I've considered and used a number of drugs and other preparations designed as sleep aids and found I have to watch out. Melatonin, for instance, also can be a damper on lung function, as I found out once and don't want to risk again. A huge complication is asthma, which is mild and generally well controlled, unless I ingest super-relaxers like melatonin.

I'm suspicious of drugs in general, mostly due to a history of mis-prescribed items (med people love to throw prescriptions without bothering about side effects. For years, my asthma was said to be controlled by steroidal drugs which probably contributed over years to my glaucoma of a few years back now, but until the steroirs were cut out I didn't realize they were contributing to the eye condition which can lead to blindness.

While I found relief via a very competent eye physician who probably saved my vision via 2 glaucoma surgeries, it reminded me of how side effects in so many areas are ignored by many medical professionals. Then there's the pluses to that notion -- I've known a couple of people who died likely due to the misprescription of deppression aids (some of which also contribute to the sight probs -- I know that from direct experiences of my own). Throw in a botched leg surgery which has never healed right and I remain super-cautious per drugs; albeit I use one asthma med that helps without the steroidal probs certain treatments cause or exacerbate.

Sum it all up and I'm extremely wary of going the med, or even the 'natural', route per ingested items.

Meanwhile, I'm stuck with the 'haunting' old voices which actally are less bothersome than they used to be (thanks in part to some work with my T on this), BUT the fact they still float into mind so often I find scary and, as per so many cPTSD remnants, extremely disappointed to find them still flaring up; even or especially as overall I sense a vast overall improvement in my general cPTSD discoveries (I call my process this, finding more hope in discovery than I do with recovery, which is past-oriented, where so many symptoms originated and still originate from.

Anyway, it got to the point recently that I felt so desperate on the night I sent in that post. Meanwhile, by continuing to process those new discoveries I touched on my wish remains to at least turn the tide somewhat and feel more equilibrium vs. the desperate dysfunction of those sleepless nights.

Thanks for being here, listening, and sharing your own wisdom nuggets with me.