Posted by Racer on August 2, 2005, at 13:30:00
In reply to fake memories or real?, posted by B2chica on August 2, 2005, at 10:48:24
Hm... I'm not sure what to reply to you, because my own bias is very much in the way here. I'll try to work out the thin track in the middle, but if I fail, please understand that it's MY bias, and nothing to do with you...
My own SA has never been anything less than concrete in my mind. There has never been a day when I don't know what happened and that it happened. But you know what? The actual details don't really matter -- what matters is how I *felt* about what happened. The pain, the shame, the helplessness, the impotent rage, and the feelings of abandonment after I told my mother. Those feelings are what matter, because those are the things that are still with me in all too many situations.
I suspect something of the same is true of you: whether the "new memory" is true in any objective sense or not, it's the feelings you experience around it that really matter. I'm not sure you need to worry so much that [x] did or did not happen, as long as you can identify what the emotional meaning of "remembering" it is for you.
Does that make sense?
As for the question of "fake memories" -- that's a hard one, because I've known people who had those fake memories, and it was worse for them than actually remembering has been for me or any of the other people I know who remembered it all. I've had questionable memories -- nothing like SA, but equally distressing in their way -- and they've always been more upsetting than the real thing. I think, for me, that they're more upsetting because I don't know whether those things really happened. Does that make sense? At least with the "real" memories, I know that I know they happened. I don't have to question myself.
I hope something there makes sense. (I kinda doubt it, but I can still hope... %^| )
Good luck, and do bring it all up with your T.
poster:Racer
thread:536668
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050801/msgs/536716.html