Repressed memories may be tied to a specific state of mind. Engaging your 5 senses can help you return to that moment, though it may be painful for you. The sights, smells, sounds, feel, and tastes associated with your memory might trigger it.
Read an old letter, personal journal, or newspaper article. Listen to an old song that you or someone in your family loved. Cook a meal your mom or dad used to make for you. Smell something that may jog your memory, like a book, pillow, perfume, or food.
Childish reactions may be a sign that you're dealing with repressed childhood memories. It could be that you throw tantrums, speak in a child-like voice, or are stubborn about small things. These regular regressions are all indicative that you have memories you haven't unlocked.
Recovering the repressed traumatic memory is necessary for relieving this burden. Researchers argue against this by claiming that instead of repressing the memory, individuals may forget the memory, consciously suppress it or the memory may be false altogether.
Repressed memories can come back to you in various ways, including having a trigger, nightmares, flashbacks, body memories and somatic/conversion symptoms. This can lead to feelings of denial, shame, guilt, anger, hurt, sadness, numbness and so forth.
Experts say that repressed memories are never really forgotten. They stay hidden from our conscious awareness, but intrude upon our daily life in fragments, dreams, triggers, and flashbacks. "Often the memories do not come back as verbal narratives but as symptoms such as dissociative episodes.
Traumatic experiences (especially in childhood) are the most common cause of repressed memories, and can also lead to other kinds of dissociative episodes. Survivors of childhood trauma often repress memories as a defense mechanism, but failing to confront these can lead to negative repercussions.
Most unresolved childhood trauma affects self-esteem and creates anxiety. Did you suffer a serious childhood illness? If so, you were likely isolated at home or hospitalized. This meant being removed from normal social activities and you probably felt lonely, maybe even worried about being different.
Traumatic memories rerouted and hidden away
Memories are usually stored in distributed brain networks including the cortex, and can thus be readily accessed to consciously remember an event.
Compared to repressed memories, false memories are more supported by empirical data: in the case of false memory, people may have a distorted recollection of an event or, in extreme cases, recall an event that never happened.
Repressed memories are memories that have been unconsciously blocked due to the memory being associated with a high level of trauma. Typical incidents where repressed memory occurs in individuals include rape, child sexual abuse, incest, experience of war, and the loss of a loved one.
Memory loss after surviving traumatic events is sometimes called traumatic dissociative amnesia. It can happen in people who experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse or neglect, verbal abuse, or emotional neglect.
What is Trauma blocking? Trauma blocking is an effort to block out and overwhelm residual painful feelings due to trauma. You may ask “What does trauma blocking behavior look like? · Trauma blocking is excessive use of social media and compulsive mindless scrolling.
The good news is that it's completely normal not to remember much of your early years. It's known as infantile amnesia. This means that even though kids' brains are like little sponges, soaking in all that info and experience, you might take relatively few memories of it into adulthood.
How do I know if I was emotionally neglected as a child? There are several signs such as feelings of detachment, lack of peer group, dissociative inclinations, and difficulty in being emotionally present.
Adults who have experienced childhood trauma usually have heightened levels of anxiety. They may worry excessively and have trouble managing their anxiety. It can lead to persistent feelings of sadness, lack of interest in activities, and difficulty experiencing pleasure.
But, the feelings often do not go away after the situation has passed. These emotions become emotional information which stays in our bodies as trauma. So, where are these negative emotions in our bodies? Emotional information is stored through “packages” in our organs, tissues, skin, and muscles.
Intrusive memories
Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event. Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks) Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event. Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event.
Severe stress, depression, a vitamin B12 deficiency, too little or too much sleep, some prescription drugs and infections can all play a role. Even if those factors don't explain your memory lapses, you don't need to simply resign yourself to memory loss as you age.