On my blog entry entitled “I Don’t Know If I Have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)”, a reader posted the following comment:
Do any of you readers or Faith have this experience that you initially did not remember your trauma because it was at too young an age? When I ask non-survivors about their memories before age eight (which is the age DID usually develops), they respond that they have hardly any memories, so I’m wondering why so many survivors seem to have so many memories of their trauma at such a young age? Or is it a thing about trauma that you should remember it? ~ Astrid
I have been told that “normal” memory for someone who did not experience childhood trauma includes basic memories of what was going on at home and at school beginning with elementary school, so presumably around age five or six. I did not have a “normal” childhood and cannot attest to this standard being accurate, but others have told me that this is the baseline.
Before recovering flashbacks, I used to pride myself in my very good memory. I have crisp, clear memories from as young as two years old (when my sister was born) that have been independently verified as accurate. There was a snowstorm when she was born that knocked out the power. I remember running in the snow and also sitting in the dark around the fire in the fireplace.
However, when the flashbacks started, I came to realize that my memory had a lot of holes in it. I could recite the name of each teacher and facts about school from age four on up (and still can), but I could not recall any memories at all with my parents in them until middle school. I always had vivid memories of S & L’s house (my most sadistic abusers) but not of the abuse.
The flashback memories filled in many of these gaps in very crisp detail, down to the color of the clothes I was wearing at age 3. When I have a flashback, it feels like I have traveled in a time machine and am re-experiencing the trauma right now. Those memories are very clear when I recover them. Then, by the next morning, they “feel” like all of my other memories. They lose their feeling of happening now and are just another set of memories in my memory bank. I don’t know if my experience is similar to anyone else’s, but that is how the memories work for me.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Blooming Lotus 
That’s interesting, I just had a similar discussion with one of my daughters (age 11). She had asked me, what normal memories were, because most children in her grade couldn’t really remember anything before about age 4-5, but she also has some memory pieces that go back to her 2nd year. From observing my kids (and talking with them), I guess it seems normal to have more detailed memories from somewhere age 4-6 and up, but especially with special events, such as a wedding, a black out etc. there could be some fragments from earlier on as well.
I always had a memory from when I was about 2 years old – my aunt got married and I got to dance with a clown! But other than that I had no real memories until about the time when I started school. Since all my flashbacks started about 18 months ago, there have been a lot more memories – to me it feels very similar to your experience, Faith: at first they are very vivid, kind of re-experiencing, but then they turn into normal memories…that way I can now remember quite a lot of things more both from before and after the ‘typical’ age span, but most of those memories have to do with the abuse or people involved in it. I have hardly any memories of my parents being ‘parents’, my dad is in most every memory as one of the perpetrators and my mom is not there in person, but I feel her presence, kind of she was there but didn’t do anything to stop it. Often frustrating…the only real good memories I have are with my maternal grandfather who would openly protect me from my dad. I am glad to have had him until I was 30 years old.
One interesting effect of trauma, one that I experience, is the lack of capacity for one particular type of memory. It is caused by damage to the hippocampus, or part of it, by the stress hormone cortisol.
There is implicit memory, which could be described as knowing without knowing. For example, when someone looks familiar but you can’t place them. Body memories would also be an example of this.
Then there is explicit memory, which is “the conscious, intentional recollection of previous experiences and information” [Wikipedia] and *this* is the one that tends to be damaged by trauma. It is fairly vivid. For example, someone who was a child in 1969 could be asked “Did you see the moon landing on the TV”, and they could answer yes or no, then as they start thinking about it, fill in more detail, like who else was there, where they were sitting etc.
Damage can be focussed on one area, of course. For example, my ability to retrieve purely intellectual knowledge, like book knowledge, is fairly good, whereas with autobiographical knowledge of any time in my life, I cannot choose to remember it. Both are classed as explicit memory, but one functions and the other doesn’t. Other people may have neither or the other way round.
i keep trying to put flashbacks into some logical order of which there is none. i still have night terrors but not every night and i still have flashbacks but i’m either home alone or in my counselor’s office. somethiNG In side feels safe enough to bring out the worst. after we talk about it, or after we try to talk about it, over time i can find words and when that happens the memories blur. I’ve been having a distinct difference in 4,6,7, and 9. Now, i feel i have the voice of still a child, but one who knows all that happened and is trying to hold the secrets tight.
The truth is that there is no timeline to feelings. Ones we have not been able to recognize or release come when they feel it is time. Unfortunately, those hidden ones are black and tar so i find myself feeling like I was right and that that black tar is who I really am. My therapist keeps saying it is just a part of who i am that i haven’t known or been able to live through.
We are having trouble with a stalker here at work, and although I have only had one scary voicemail and a couple of emails, i am not the target but i sure feel like it. The hypervigilance is back in spades and i am cutting tryign to cut it out of me. I am feeling dependent on my therapist/counselor again for grounding. Yesterday we had an unusual happening. He was expecting a call. I was glad for that, it was a good call for his career, i hoped, and after the call, we had limited time. He was gracious and kind as always and I was totally freaked out. He was trying to let me know he was tired of working with me, he was dreading hearing my crumbs after so many years, he was firing me. I couldn’t name it then, i just needed to get out but i really think had i left, I would have hurt myself. He talked to me, he sat with me – the same as every week. and he rescheduled later in the week. he uNderstands that I cannot do the hardwork the minute i walk in. transitioning from a trying to function person and then pulling out the underlying forces that are not healthy and bringing their roots to life is a challenge.
I am yet again thankful for this blog it says what I feel and question in myself. It validates and helps in so many ways. The comments are from those who know .
We process differently than what Faith describes. The end result is similar. It is just a memory I can no longer re-live it as the memory is stored in a different way and place in my brain. There is a time when because I can not re-live the memory it seems not real as it is different than before. That seems to just dissipate with time and we more notice that hey that is now just a memory.
There are what we call false peaks. Much like when you climb a mountain and you think you can see the top and the top is further along. Once at the top you know.
One false peak is when one of us has processed what the memory means to them and others have not yet done so. Another is when one is out that knows nothing about the memory so the memory does not seem real. This seems acute with age when the memory has not happened yet so it does not seem real. If that memory is “seen” it is in a gray scale and reversed.
We have a thing where we will remember in order every hammer we have ever seen or every coat we have ever owned. Sometimes it is like there are many televisions in the next room with many parts of our life running and we just look in and see parts of the show and know we have seen it before.
We have what we call memory blurts which are sometimes spoken. They can seem random. Like a giraffe has a black tongue or I don’t like ladies that smoke cigarettes. It seems random and then we know it is connected.
I broke my leg when 17. That memory was stored normally so I could not re-live it. I kinda used that memory as my normal memory barometer.
My memory is not normal in that it is normal for my experiences. It is my traumatic experiences that are outside of the norm. I go with understanding how my memory works for me and not only as how it is different from people who have not experienced extreme trauma or different than those that have experienced extreme trauma.
How my over all memory works changed when I started processing the trauma. My over all memory was over taxed and did not function well nor as it did before. I lost a lot of time with trying to learn what I already knew yet could not access due to the extreme stress of processing the trauma.
I went from a person who scheduled many appointments a day and forget exactly two of them in my adult life to one who could not remember when therapy was. Some therapists could not grasp I did not need to learn how to keep appointments. This was most aggravating as most therapist that I dealt with were poor time managers.
I always had a seemingly better than average memory of my young childhood. I had no conscious memory of any trauma.
I don’t have the knowing with out knowing. I use knowing in a different way. It is different as I can not explain it yet can share it with some people.
Just a note: It is not my understanding the DID is considered to normally develop at age 8.
For me it’s all pretty fuzzy. Have a few little memories of when I was 4 or 5, then nothing until about 9. Don’t remember learning to write, to swim, to ride a bike, don’t remember any of my teachers, or anything else, of school until age 9. My father got re-married when I was 8, remember nothing, even looking at the photos doesn’t jog my memory. Teenage years seem pretty hazy too. Flashbacks for me tend to be mostly physical, body memories, some confused images, nothing crisp or clear about them, but then I think “I” don’t really have the flashbacks, it’s more like watching someone else have a flashback… For day-to-day stuff I have very little visual memory, but a good auditory memory, don’t know if that relates in any way to not having many visual flashbacks.
The big problem for me, with all this haziness, is knowing which bits happened and which bits are my imagination. I know it doesn’t really matter for healing, but it bothers me.
My understanding of non-trauma or “normal” memories are that they are associated with feelings/emotions. If you had a strong feeling/emotion during the event, then typically this will stick in your mind and create a memory. The feeling can be happy, sad, excited, scared (on a basic or normal level, non-trauma).
Two things I forgot. One is that I like to think of my brain and its pathways as constricted not damaged. Now when my brain starts to un-constrict it is hard and physically painful. Using the hippo campus as an example. My body temp was totally unregulated and went up and down for 6 years before it leveled off.
Another thing is experts on memory meaning those that can do it not those that study it use visual memory to remember an incredible amount of data. Like five decks of cards. Some actually use a story to remember.
I have knowing without knowing. It’s hard sometimes.. Wish I could just know, feel and move on from it. I have the “false peaks” too. I feel so lonely with my experiences. It is good to hear people here put them into words.
I had knowing without knowing until my abuser came forward and admited to the abuse. I am now dealing with the fact that I believe more happened than he is saying, and that it happened much longer than he is admitting. I have had body memories that lead me to believe these things, but still have had no actual memories of anything. I have had PTSD that confirmed to me that something happened in the first place. I am now going through counseling and I am having the hardest time feeling much of anything – anger, sadness, etc. The only thing I seem to be able to feel is guilt. He claims that it was ONLY touching, but I am having trouble feeling anger or anything because it still doesn’t seem real to me since I have no actual memories. Did anyone else have this happen. I feel totally crazy sometimes because I am sure more than that happened, but I have no confirmation.
I too, have very few memories of my childhood. I am not sure what is normal as far as the amount of memories you have throughout your life. I have nothing before I was 5, and little more than that from 5-8. I have almost no memories that include my father (my abuser). Almost all my memories are of my brother and I or my friends and I. And even so, there are not many. I don’t really have much until I was 12 and older. I do remember my teachers and I have memories from school, but I find it strange that my father is in almost no memories.
I have a friend who is an abuse survivor and she says that is a definite sign that my abuse from him was indeed more substantial than he claims. I would like to know if anyone else has any opinion of this. I am really having a hard time trusting my instincts with no distinct memories – enter the guilt. This is all rather new to me as well. I just had all this confirmed March 17, 2011. Thanks for any input or reassurance. I hate that any of us have to go through this. You are all in my prayers.
Hi, Feeling Crazy.
All of the answers are already inside of you. The memories are held subconsciously, but as you are ready to heal, they will surface to your conscious mind.
Your experience in memory sounds very similar to mine — lots of school and sibling memories throughout elementary school but none of mother or father during this time.
– Faith