On my blog entry entitled Flashbacks in the Form of Dreams after Child Abuse, a reader posted the following comment:
i am at present having therapy for sexual abuse when i was younger…there has always been that knowledge in the back of my head that something happened..not sure why but it has always been there. last year something happened to my eldest son who at the time was 18…it brought back loads of flasbacks/nightmares. Some of which i can relate to but others i dont actually remember happening in my childhood. This has confused me so much as if the nightmares/flashebacks are real then its just disgusting what happened but if they are not real why is my head making something like this up?? Not sure which is worse to tell you the truth. ….I Think the hardest part is getting someone to believe you! Even down to my mother when i told her see slapped me and told me to stop being disgusting…my first partner of 22 yrs didnt believe me… ~ pebbles
I have been where Pebbles is now, and it is a tough place to be. I stayed in the place of “Will anyone believe me? Can I even believe myself?” on and off for a good year, and I still cycled back to that place on occasion over the next few years. If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. As abused children, we dissociated away most of the abuse because we could not handle it. We said in our own heads, “This isn’t happening to me.” We ingrained this in our heads since we were little, so it makes sense that we would struggle with the reality of our experience as we start to “undo” all of the self-induced “brainwashing” of repressing the memories.
My first flashbacks were of my mother sexually abusing me. I could not recall anyone talking about mothers sexually abusing their daughters (although I remembered later that Sybil was sexually abused by her mother) and feared that nobody would believe me. I was afraid even to tell a therapist. I thought he would say that mothers don’t do that and then have me committed for being insane. To avoid this, I screened the therapist by phone and asked if he had ever heard of this happening. If he said no, I was going to hang up. Fortunately, he said yes, which was the first step toward feeling believed and validated.
Having a therapist believe you is huge because this is a professional telling you that you are not “crazy,” and that professional opinion carries a lot of weight. After talking with your therapist, I would not recommend talking with family members as your next step. For ongoing child abuse to happen, there has to be a certain level of denial in the family, so reactions such as what Pebbles described by her mother are common among family members, especially those who were in the position to protect you but didn’t. I also would not go to my partner first because anyone who is having sex with you is going to have his or her own issues to deal with in processing what happened to you.
My other go-to person was a friend. It was hard to tell her, but I needed the childcare while I went to therapy, so I took the risk. She had been abused herself (which I learned later), so she “got it” in a way that many other people would not. It is so important to choose the right people to confide in at the beginning because you are so vulnerable yourself. Until you fully believe yourself, it is damaging to have to “defend yourself.”
For me, the detail and disgusting nature of the memories helped me recognize that the events must have happened because I am not creative enough to come up with this stuff. I never saw a TV show or movie, nor did a read a book that included many of the sick abuses that I suffered. As my therapist said, “Why would I make this stuff up?”
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Faith, your experiences and the way you organize and communicate your thoughts are a blessing to so many people, me included of course. 🙂 I saw a movie last night that began with a time lapse shot of a beautiful Lotus blooming. I thought of you.
Pebbles,
You are in the right spot. For what it’s worth, I believe you… and I’m sure that most everyone who visits here will also. We may not be the people you need to believe you right now, but you can gain strength and momentum from the support you get in being believed to fuel you though some during this time of transition.
Much luck.
mia
For me, my memories came when I was in my late 30s or early 40s, I kept denying it. I really is HUGE that my therapist believed me and my husband, who I knew would be understanding and is my best friend. I also had a couple of friends who would listen to me, but I didn’t tell them for quite a whilce I agree with Faith becareful with whom you talk with including significant others (it depends on the relationship) …most people don’t get what you are going through. For me, that was difficult.
My therapist really was there for me and said that he completely believed me as then my symptoms matched my difficulties and behavior. I was also asked why would you lie about this? Among many other statements.
I often go with coming into my consciousness rather that repressed memories. The repressed memories kinda indicates a conscious decision as if I had a choice.
Once something comes into my consciousness then it is a memory. For me it not come linearly nor easily. Lots of going over things over and over. I needed to learn it was OK to make mistakes that I might not get it right the first time. (Note some people have memories that are clearer than mine in how they come back.)
There is cognitive and emotional dissidence. “Wait a minute I thought I loved this abuser and most of my life I could say I was not abused and now I am saying I am.” That does not make sense and means I have to be a liar. (Not having memories in your consiouness does not mean you are a liar)
It was my 20 year old daughter getting sexually assaulted by a policeman that caused memories to come into my consciousness. “Why do I think I know how that feels.” Most people do not believe my daughter was assaulted by a policeman. That would mean they are not safe.
My memories of trauma are stored differently than other memories and my memory is not the same as most people. I had to learn how my memory worked and then get used to it changing.
It ended up for me trusting my memories. That took a lot of work. I don’t care that some people do not believe me now that some do. Funny how that works.
I think we have trouble believing it happened because we were threatened and told it “never happened”. People in places of trust have a lot of power over our behavior. Even a few years ago, when my boss attacked me at work, he left my office and told everyone in the center office, “You didn’t hear anything, it never happened.” For them, it never happened. They won’t speak of it.
Despite all I’ve written and all the encouragement from friends and professionals, I still doubt myself. I waver between complete acceptance and complete denial, and hover in every place in between. I think that’s why the lunch I had with my mother last monday was so hard. Her out-and-out telling me that I did not remember my childhood correctly really struck a nerve… and I’ve never even told her what I remember! I know, intellectually, that guilt is what drives her to say such things, guilt about what she suspected and did nothing to prevent, but inside, the little girl I was still lives in denial.
All of these thoughts are so good and helpful. I too am struggling with believing myself, my memories. Believing that I am not just fabricating them. I find myself getting busier and busier so as not to think of any of it- but its all still there- waiting- undone…
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hi (((pebbles/gem))). Glad you found Faith.
hi (((faith))) (((mia)))
Had another thought. My therapist has never said she believed any more than I was hurt. She does not verify that what I am telling is the truth. I think this is standard practice and a good one.
I called her and told her it would be helpful if I knew if she had ever heard of MKULTA and how they abused children or any other government sponsored trauma. She called back and said no.
I do know she has worked with others that experienced cult behavior we have never taught specifics or her knowledge. That would have made it hard to differentiate between the “Witchcraft cult and the Satanic Cult.
Pretty much my therapist knew I was very hurt and was able to listen as I discovered why.
I did have one therapist say that abusers use little tricks. What happened with me does not qualify as little tricks.
Another thought is I wanted my therapist to guess what happened to me from the clues that were given to me. She did not and if she had than that would have been more work.
I have 6 years of memories from age 11-17. I have clues to memories that I don’t have. I wouldn’t have labeled myself as an adultress at age 3 if nothing sexual was happening to me by that age. I have drawings that I did on my own and shared in a counseling group that are more the drawings of an 8 or 9 year old, not that of an 11-17 year old. I remember having bad headaches and feeling safe outside, alone when I was 7 years old.
[…] Should I Believe Memories of Child Abuse? (faithallen.wordpress.com) […]
thank you.
I’ve been having a lot of dreams about my uncle lately. I don’t know if it’s because of something my brother told me a few months ago and then I scared myself into thinking something happened to me as child or something that really happened…anyways I had a really disturbing dream last night.
I recently have been having strange dreams with him in them. I have always felt creeped out by him, and don’t like being alone with him because he has a tendency to say weird things.
In my dream, we were readying my grandmother’s house for a party. My sister and I went to get ready. I have really short hair in real life, but in the dream it was long, and blond (I’ve always been a brunette) I curled my hair into ringlets and my sister did hers in a similar style. Having curly hair has some significance to me, as I had curly hair as a young child. We came out to the party and my creepy uncle saw me and my sister. He said something that I don’t recall that was sexual. I flipped out and started hitting him. I screamed “You don’t say that to her.” He didn’t understand why what he said was wrong. That made me more angry. Suddenly, in my head I was watching something from the past. I was in a shed at his farm, and there were young kittens. I watched as he killed a kitten. The stranger thing about this is, my mother told me as child laughingly, that her younger brothers (She had 7) had accidentally killed kittens on the farm because they held them wrong as kids. I felt very sad and heartbroken to hear that.
I came back to the present in the dream, screaming and crying hysterically. All I could think, that was a flash back I realized then that the reason I get so depressed when people are cruel to animals is for that reason. I’m not sure how to feel about this dream.
Hi, Hekate.
Yes, that does sound like a flashback dream to me. People who have not suffered trauma don’t have dreams like that.
My abuser forced me to kill a kitten, and killing animals is common in ritual abuse (and also with more sadistic non-ritualized child abuse). The message is, “I have the power to kill you just as I have the power to kill this kitten.” It drives home how powerless you are to protect who you love, which makes you feel powerless to protect yourself, either.
My abusers killed my dog in front of me. They told me that I could save either my sister or dog but not both. With your sister being involved, the threat could have been to her in a similar fashion — “If you tell, I will do to your sister what I just did to the kitten.”
This is heavy stuff, so be very gentle with yourself. Talk with your therapist about it if you are in therapy. Let yourself cry and grieve for that kitten. It is likely that your depression at animal cruelty is your unshed tears for that kitten.
– Faith