Dissociative amnesia

[GiveDemARun]

Does anyone have experience of this? I was having horrible flashbacks about a year ago and went to see a therapist about it, who warned me that the memories could suddenly come back. I went ahead anyway but stopped after a few months, and all of a sudden these horrific memories of my childhood have come flooding back tonight. I keep flittering between flashback with sound this time, more memories, feeling nauseous at the memory and then a sense a relief that it’s in the past. I’m trying to just sleep it off but every time I close my eyes the memory becomes clearer. It’s a horrible feeling. Has anyone experienced anything like this before? I just want to sleep and not think about it anymore.

When you say ‘therapist’ do you mean a fully qualified medical professional?

The horrible symptoms you describe really require proper talking through with a psychiatrist attached to a hospital. So you need to see your GP for a referral (which obviously may take months unless you pay - which is possibly why you were seeing a therapist before?).

Sorry you’re going through this. You do need medical support. And family support if it’s available.

Thank you for replying. Yes, she’s a qualified psychotherapist but I paid as all I was receiving via the NHS was CBT, which was wonderful for the day to day but wasn’t helping with the flashbacks at all.

I’m not sure whether I want to go back to see the original lady or not. She was fantastic but I feel like I need to see someone who knows nothing about me in order to deal with this. I don’t really want to “unlock” any other memories now to be honest because I’m terrified about what I might come up with, but I also need to deal with the ones that have shown up. I’m so scared that more are going to start coming through but I’m also worried I could simply be remembering things wrong? Honestly I’m a mess today. I don’t know how I’m going to get on with the day as normal right now.

For the person I knew who experienced this it wasn’t about ‘unlocking’ anything - it was more as if walls had broken down in their brain and a lifetime of horrible memories just started crashing in. And didn’t stop for weeks or months. Truly disabling and destabilising.

I don’t want to diagnose anyone else - but for them it was clearly a complete mental breakdown. They found the psychiatrist helpful, but despised the CBT person who was less clever than them and simply accepted anything they were told.

Do try to get the medical help you need. I hope you have other support too.

That’s interesting. For me it was more like things springing out from boxes. It was like a film clip jumping from a box and being projected to me, starting with the same flashbacks I was having before but this time longer and with a clearer face and some familiar voices and phrases in the background, and then others started coming up. It was more like I was re-recognising things.

I will get in touch with my GP. Thank you, your kindness is appreciated.

Bumping in case others would like to add anything.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!

I had a chat with my siblings who said they often experience similar things but have never shared it as they think their mind is playing tricks on them so don’t want to bring it up, which tells me that whatever we’re remembering must have some truth to it. I do think some of them could be a trick of the mind too as the memories are so distorted and some of them don’t make much sense to me.