“How Can I Remember Childhood Trauma and Abuse?”

Hi Sufferer, you make a good point. But we think it’s a misunderstanding of word choice and you taking that word out of context. We assume you are in the USA. The USA is far more drug focussed than the UK, so ‘treating’ would likely imply drugs. We believe in processing what is behind those symptoms. In the paragraph where that word was used, we went on to say “Such symptoms get better when your process your emotions and upset, regardless of exact facts.” Processing what is behind your symptoms, aka, exactly what you are saying, getting to the root of things, leads to lasting change. To clear up any confusion we’ve now changed the word ‘treating’ to dealing with’. Thanks. And note that no good therapist would ever offer a band aid to a client, the point of therapy is to do the deep work.

Hi Sally, this is really something best explored slowly and safely in the therapy room. There are so many ifs, buts, whys. So we can’t really say if/why as we don’t know you well, or your life, or your story, or they way your brain works. And it would be wrong of us to make any assumptions or explanations over a comments box. It’s great that you are in therapy and sounds like you are growing trust with your therapist, so do keep talking about this there. And talk about your fear, and your physical reactions, which are all normal when they body is processing old traumas. Best, HT

Hi Sarah. Most of us don’t remember abuse clearly. The brain is designed to help us survive. And this means it can wipe out things that are too upsetting and stop us from coping. If you scroll through the comments it might be comforting to see you are from alone in this, both in being abused and in not remembering it. We are really glad you are in therapy. Do you feel comfortable talking about this with your therapist? Or do you think your therapist is someone you can grow to trust with all this? We would then ask if therapy seems to be making you feel worse or better. If you did experience childhood trauma, then you need to be with a therapist who can help you navigate that and understands trauma. It’s normal to feel ‘worse before better’ with therapy as we are finally facing what we’ve run from and it can move a lot of emotions. But in some cases the wrong type of therapy can make you feel worse, if it’s pushing you to talk about things you are not stable enough to navigate. You might want to read our article on therapy that helps trauma http://bit.ly/therapyfortrauma Best, HT.

Hi there. Thank you for bravely sharing all of this. When we lose a parent at a young age, particularly someone we were so close to, it’s a massive trauma. Mourning can take years. Instead, you had your whole life changed within your first year of mourning, and the very person whose support and attention you’d most need, your father, was too busy falling in love with someone else to give you any. We are sure he had his reasons and didn’t mean to neglect and hurt you, but your child’s brain most probably registered that as a double abandonment. Your mother abandoning you through death and your father through a second marriage. So we actually thing this sounds very traumatic indeed. You are a person who is able to see bigger perspectives and has good self awareness, so you are mature enough and positive enough, actually, that you are grateful for your wonderful grandparents. The trouble is that your guilt at having such wonderful grandparents might have meant you didn’t let yourself process the sadness and rage that are a normal part of the grief process. No wonder you feel so numb. All those feelings are so bottled up inside, to maintain that control you have to choose to not feel anything at all. In summary, we think your focus is on the stepmother as that is easier. Easier to put all the emotions on that target than maybe consider that you might be also be equally or more angry at other people and things. This is a complex situation. It’s important not to compare your experiences to others. Each person and each brain and each situation is unique. We think this is clearly trauma and that you clearly have very low self esteem and repressed emotions and you are exhausted and want to tell a new story but don’t know how, are we right? You say you are not in therapy. Is there a reason you haven’t tried? We think it would be hugely beneficial. The thing is we also think you could use a therapy that stabilises you first as just going and talking about this particularly with an inexperienced therapist who doesn’t understand trauma might just leave you constantly triggered and feeling worse. We have an article here that explains why it’s best to try a trauma based therapy first and the right therapies to try http://bit.ly/therapyfortrauma. We think you could see huge differences in your sense of self, your esteem, and your depression/numbness if you committed to the therapy track. Until then, try to go easy on yourself, as you are beating yourself up very clearly in the language you use, and we suspect you blame yourself for a lot of things that were simply entirely beyond your control. Best, HT.