About a year ago, at age 13, I recovered a suppressed memory from several years earlier. It happened very suddenly and unexpectedly like a punch in the stomach while I was watching T.V. with my family. I'm still unsure of what triggered it, but suddenly I remembered being sexually harassed by an older uncle (at the time I was likely around 5 and he would be about 6 years older than me). It made all these little things from my childhood make sense. Things like before visiting or letting me go play with my aunt (my age) my dad would ask where that uncle was (usually at the great-grandparents house) and it was drilled into my head that I was not aloud to go into his room so much that I still feel uncomfortable going upstairs in my grandparents house. (That uncle was long since kicked out of the house. He flunked out of high school, didn't go to college, probably got into drugs, and family suspects he is having an affair with one of his friend's mother.) From what I remember of the memory me and him where sitting outside on the backyard steps alone. Their yard is fenced in, so no one would have seen us, and the adult where inside. He dared me to eat a piece of cat food. Being a stubborn weirdo even then, I did. However I then began to fear I would turn into a cat (I was very young, ok? ;P ) and started to get upset. Now the memory starts to get really fuzzy. I think I started to cry a little and he said something along the line of "do you want me to make it better?" I of course nodded my head yes to that, fearing I would be sprouting ears and a tail any moment (I guess I took the saying "you are what you eat" a little to seriously). I believe at this point he grabbed me and placed me on his lap before kissing me on the lips. I think I pulled away, screamed, and ran inside. Once inside the adults managed to get me to talk about what happened I was assured cat food would not turn me into a cat. At this point I can't remember anything but that uncle being absent from my memories for the next several years. It might not seem like much, I know many many many people have had it much much worse, but I'm just terrified that I don't know the whole story. I mean, where do you turn when your own mind fails you? Is there any way or tricks to remembering things like this? Or just coping with not knowing? Because I'm much to afraid to ask my parents about it. Sorry about the long post, I needed to vent.
I found this info which seems like it might be a little helpful...especially the part talking about types of triggers toward the bottom: The Leadership Council - Trauma and Memory Glad you are putting this out there! (*hug*)
Hi. First, welcome to EC. I'm sorry that you had to experience what you did, but it is good that you are comfortable talking about it, as that's an important part of healing it. Also, to put it in perspective, what happened to you is unfortunately not at all uncommon; it is currently thought that about 1 in 3 women in the US will have some form of sexual abuse or unwanted sexual aggression against them before age 18, so you're far from alone. Spontaneous recovery of traumatic memories is not an uncommon thing. We've learned a lot about this subject, and about the process of memory storage and retrieval in the past 20 years, and one of the most frustrating things is that, with all memories, but particularly with suppressed memories, what we retrieve is not exact. As far as we understand presently, our memories are stored as a series of discrete pieces of information, and our brains, when we retrieve the memories, seamlessly fill in the blanks, so memory is reconstructive, not exact. And the reconstruction can be influenced by outside factors, suggestion, what we want to remember, things that people have told us, and various other things. What this means for memory recovery is that it can be essentially impossible to ascertain reliably, when we're retrieving memories, exactly where the factual memory leaves off and where inference and reconstruction comes in. As difficult as it is, the best solution is to try and avoid stressing and obsessing about it. Likely once the process of beginning to recover fragments begins, more fragments will pop up given time, as your unconscious feels safe in allowing the memories to resurface. Trying to force the issue, asking everyone around you for details, and that sort of thing are generally not only unhelpful, but can contaminate what factual memory is there. I do strongly recommend that you talk to your parents about seeing a therapist with experience in childhood sexual abuse. Regardless of what did or did not happen, it's clear that this event was traumatic for you, and discussing it with a therapist would be very helpful. Just make sure that the therapist you see has extensive experience specifically with abuse survivors; this is a very specialized field and it's important it be handled by someone familiar with the issues involved.
