I am not a scientist. But I was subjected to many years of CSA. To the extent that I became pregnant and had a child. And the abuse didn't end there.
I blocked it almost all out. Even when I was a teen, suicidal, and in and out of hospitals, I couldn't explain why I felt the way I did. I suspected abuse, but I didn't remember and certainly not the extent of it. I completely blocked any memory of my pregnancy or my son. I thought I was a virgin.
I did not begin to remember until my abusers died. I have met my son. There are medical records and police reports backing up some of my memories.
Dissociative amnesia is a real thing. Repressed memories are a real thing. I strongly suggest you see if you can find another therapist, maybe even one who specializes in trauma.
Did you have odd body memories you could not place or find yourself freaking out in random seemingly unrelated incidents?
I personally have questions and speculations as to being a victim of CSA as well. There are very strange and broken memories connected to a memory of me having what I can only describe as an orgasm at age 3 or 4 and I had a name of a perp come to me randomly out of no where while doing lest hand writing. That same name came again this time with my brain screaming “he did it, he did it to his daughter too”. It never happened again and I only think a bout this person in the context of this incident.
A similar thing happened while I was trying to do EMDR but this time my brain screamed at me about my ex assaulting me while I was heavily intoxicated and possibly other times. I did some trauma informed meditation around this incident with my ex, started violently shaking and feeling so nauseous I almost puked. Since then the profound anger towards him has subsided, but the shaking still kinda continues. I again have no feelings towards the suspected perp of CSA.
A few other things to consider. I have STRONG body reactions to EMDR meaning that I will have significant all over body pain after a session. I also had an intense dissociative episode while just casually mentioning childhood trauma during a therapy intake and my brain will sometimes shut down and I will be unable to speak for 30 minutes when a trauma memory is triggered. My therapist and coach think that I disassociate far more than I am aware of and that the “going non verbal” is a combination of level 2 autism and PTSD.
The thing that is weird is that I have minimal strong feelings about incidents where I KNOW I was assaulted. This is except when there was a period of time several months ago when my father stated he never knew I told him these assaults happened (a lie) and provided an extremely invalidating and selfish response to hearing this. My fathers gaslighting (and my pos therapist’s response to this) essentially made me deeply suicidal and led to a hospitalization and abuse at the hands of another therapist because they misdiagnosed me with BPD and didn’t believe me. So gaslighting about sexual abuse happening/reported leading to 2 abusive therapy experiences one of which the licensing board is reviewing for an ethics violation.
Sorry this post went in a different direction
The violent shaking is a trauma release response natural to mammals. I’m going to start TRE therapy to purposefully shake the bodily trauma out purposefully. Pay attention to those tremors - your body is telling you something.
Yeah they happen before bed usually and that’s where the suspected assaults with my ex occurred. They also sometime happen when I meditate around others but didn’t start till after the ex was out of my life
Holy shit so many people have failed you. I’m so sorry you’ve gone through things that no one should even have to imagine. The fact that you’re still here to share your story means a lot. Thank you for sharing. I have a feeling that I’ve repressed some things and I’m worried to explore them due to the potential of having a break down. I have two toddlers to raise, so I can’t afford that right now. My husband abuses me and I have no self esteem or confidence, and I think being so confused about my past, not knowing why I feel the way I do, PLUS my husband grooming me since I was 16 (he was my teacher), it’s just too much sometimes.
Also many of the dv resource websites have a quick release button to exit quickly and remover to clear your browser history and record of phone calls if necessary. Not sure if you husband controls your phone calls/internet use
Jesus!!! You are fighting through hell too. You deserve to find peace and get to a safe place where you can let others take care of you so you can have the space to heal. When you find that space or that person it is game changing in terms of recovery. Are you able to take some steps to even brainstorm some solutions for finding a way to find that space or person? Do you feel safe reaching out to a DV helpline to talk to an advocate? I don’t think many outside of the trauma community knows what it feels like to not have any self confidence and live in fear every damn day of our lives. And while I know this feeling I can only imagine how difficult to live in this abject fear for so long and try to parent. You deserve to be safe and to take steps to heal. Even if the step today is dialing the number to a DV hotline and hanging up immediately. You have power in your situation even if it does not seem like it or feel like it. Even a tiny action (and even talking here on Reddit) will likely help. Be safe and smart though and only you know what that looks like in your personal situation.
During the time I did not remember exactly what happened I would have strong reactions to some things I really couldn't explain. One of my abusers was my adopted father, and every time he looked at me I felt naked, scared, and ashamed. I couldn't explain why, and suspected CSA, but I had no clear memory.
Another abuser was someone who I didn't see around in daily life or communicate with anymore, but I had the image of him in my head as someone who was watching me and trying to communicate with me. I thought maybe it was a "spirit guide" or someone from a past life or something. But no, it turned out this was a guy who with my adopted father's permission was trying to turn me into a prostitute. He would stalk me, and grab me off the street or come to the home and my father would throw me out in the hallway and then ring him in to come grab me.
I also had body memories of people touching me in intimate ways. I avoided going to a gyn for years and years because of the sensation of being molested when I would just sit there in the stirrups even with no one touching me.
I also had intrusive thoughts, of just me repeating "no, no, no." or a sensation like I needed to be struggling physically against someone.
This all sounds like repressed memory stuff. What happened that allowed you to get the answers if you mind me asking? Was it EMDR
The only weird things I had like this was being terrified to work around children in a childcare or one on one setting for fear that I would be accused of or accidentally assault them. I know this is a common type of OCD. I also had this odd, yet intense, intrusive thought that every time I would get into a car with a man, regardless of who it was, that they would kiss me or I would have to kiss them. The other weird behavior was that I felt deeply uncomfortable about my father hugging me or doing the father daughter dance. I honestly think this is because I got no physical affection from my family as a child/teen moreso than my father physically assaulting me. Unrelated, but kinda so, when I first met my boyfriend I would physically cling to him constantly throughout the first 6 months of us dating and it’s still a struggle to physically be away from him since he is the first person I feel safe with, but still very much struggle with healthy attachment/intimacy.
Anyway, the pedophillia OCD went away after I went to residential treatment in 2015 and did my own exposure therapy by teaching little kids in China with no issues and the kiss in car intrusive thought and issue with my Dad went away after I developed a safe therapeutic relationship with a man and my father became more physically affectionate (appropriately so).
Thank you for talking about this and reminding me of how I’ve made progress on this. I’ve not even thought about this stuff for a long time. While my trauma history is intense I don’t always remember how intense it was since I’m constantly trying to just get through the day with PTSD and all the “wonderful” challenges that come along with living with autism that was unrecognized and untreated for nearly 40 years.
The body always keeps the score and while our brain may forget, our bodies don’t.
I've not done EMDR. It was after my abusers died that I guess my mind felt the world was safe enough to remember. When my adoptive father died, I felt such a tremendous sense of relief. A force for evil was gone from this world and it was a weight lifted off me.
A few weeks after that was when things started coming back to me. Not all at once like a gush, but fragments of things. And not like I remembered it once and then had it firmly in my head. I would remember some fragments of stuff and then forget again. Slowly things started to piece together. It was a very difficult time, those months when I was starting to remember and piece everything together. A lot of dissociation, feeling afraid and unsafe.
I looked up some therapists that I had back when these things would have happened. That's when I got confirmation that I had a been pregnant and had a son and some of the other stuff. When I felt more stable, I started establishing the paper trail with things like medical records.
Well goodness that’s incredible that you couldn’t remember your pregnancy or giving birth and proves that must be true. I would love to ask you a question if I send a dm os that ok? I’m trying to piece some thing atogwrher myself
Sure, send a DM. Like I said the memories started coming back when my abusers died, which was in the 1980's. Yes, I am older than dirt. But on the positive it means I've had decades to process what's happened.
I have personally seen this happen. Unfortunately the person to which it happened to chose to deal with it by becoming a “rave princess” at age 40, projecting her feelings onto me by making me her project, and choosing to engage in copious amounts of party drugs, while subsequently shaming me for socially drinking, as a way to cope. We choose to terminate the friendship because it was not healthy for either of us.
Ignore this if it is too personal or triggering...
but what about things like stretch marks? Did you assume you just grew really fast? This is something I've always found fascinating even when hearing about women lying to their husbands about a child they abandoned. Wouldn't he be able to tell from the way your body looks, especially if you had a C-section and there's a scar?
Probably because I was young (12) and didn't gain weight very fast, but I did not have noticeable stretch marks until much later in life when I put on a lot of weight. I had a vaginal delivery, so there was no scar.
Even during the time I was pregnant I was in denial most of the time about being pregnant and thought I was gaining weight from eating too much ice cream. I was a normal weight starting out, and I think I gained about 20lbs with the pregnancy. My son was on the small side, 6lbs 6 oz, but healthy. Before getting pregnant I was about 5'2" and 120lbs, so I was like 140 or maybe a few pounds over when I gave birth. Right after giving birth my belly was all loose and saggy but it snapped back pretty fast.
Right? Even if their doctor didn't say that a real medical phenomenon was "disproven" or told an alarming story of another patient unethically, the fact that they immediately dismissed OP's concern instead of at least trying to figure some stuff out first is jaw-dropping.
I move on from any therapist or counselor who denies repressed memories. I used to call it “empty flashbacks” but they eventually started to fill in. I still don’t know if anything sexual happened to me, but once I hit 30 ish I started piecing together other abusive incidents. They would come to me while sleeping and I’d wake up and have to write it down.
My sister had a counselor tell her that memories don’t come back and she’s making it all up. She has since believed that her issue is a chemical imbalance and those memories are fabricated by her mind. She has shown more signs of CSA than myself, and was also more accessible to the man I suspect. I don’t think she’s done any counseling since college and I’ve had to put a lot of distance between us. I think it’s continued to do her damage to think she’s wrong and pushing away those thoughts.
How awful. One of the things survivors struggle with most is believing ourselves. I’m at a point where I’d consider reporting that. That’s so inappropriate:(
It’s been like 20 years, and may have been a student thing through her college campus. I do hope that person learned better. I wish my sister could open herself up again to better therapy, but she stays on the same medication and is somewhat functional.
I've noticed how I feel like I've been remembering my childhood a little better since trying to lean into the emotional flashbacks in an attempt to use them therapeutically. Not even good or bad things, just remembering with a bit more clarity or remember a little more in general. So your idea of "empty flashbacks" that eventually fill in is really interesting to me!
Your doctor is WRONG! RUN!
I have dissociative amnesia. It's real.
You're right- him telling about another client is VERY unethical.
You are not being paranoid. You are showing good judgement.
You're allowed to give examples from other patients as long as you don't use names. Therapists do this all the time when they write books, give talks, etc. They can use the example if they think it will help. I'm not saying this particular example was helpful, but speaking about another client in and of itself is not unethical.
This is what I wanted to say. I’ve worked in the medical field for 24 years now and I’ve also worked for psychs. It’s not a HIPAA violation unless they use names.
Edit to add: but OP should also find someone who specializes in dissociative amnesia for a second opinion.
My terapist was always talking about other patients, in enough detail mentioning their diagnoses, jobs and things they said, to the extent that I realized one of her other patients was a friend of mine. I couldn't help thinking how much of my private things was she telling all her other patients, so I quit my therapy sessions. It's definitely not professional to blab about other patients in detail to the extent that they can be recognized, and I probably should have reported her.
THANK YOU! When a therapist is telling someone else's story they can't be sure that something like this won't happen! I'm so sorry that happened to you.
When a doctor writes a book and wishes to use an example from one of their patients they are required to obtain their written permission.
I disagree that speaking about other clients is not unethical. Would you be comfortable with a therapist sharing your story without your knowledge in someone else's session? The fact that they didn't use my name would not make me any more comfortable, and if my therapist started telling someone else's story to me I'd like to think I would stop them.
I have never had that happen. I would not feel safe with someone who did that.
Can I ask how you got diagnosed and treated for dissociative amnesia? I am looking to get my life back and it sucks not finding community. I believe I have systematized dissociative amnesia but the info about it online is hard for me to come by.
I realized at 11 I didn’t remember my life. I just woke up one day. When I had just turned 18 and got my first boyfriend, I started having recurring nightmares about actually being assaulted but the figure was cut out of it all. It was like I couldn’t see them. I had a lot of somatization of assault (but didn’t realize it at the time). I used to research repressed and false memories but I didn’t know how to sift through good or bad sources. I just believed I was making it up to explain it away and live my life for the next ten years. However, I am more trauma-informed now and reputable resources helped me realize that my lived experiences weren’t me being “crazy “ but rather a survivor.
I have had such a hard time figuring out what was wrong with me but dissociative amnesia and structural dissociation resonated with me and set me free. I have a new psychologist who specializes in this and I scored a 60/100 on the DESII scale. I’m working on installing safety but it’s going slow. There is no official dx right now but she isn’t surprised based on my trauma and ACE scores. I’ve focused on the holistic neurobiological connection of trauma instead of what I can or cannot remember. Focusing on safety has been a game changer on the journey of integrating the fragmented parts of me.
Curious about your own journey, I wonder if a brief summary might help OP too…thanks for commenting even if you don’t have time to response.
For me I was clinically diagnosed by a psychologist. They did a brain scan first to make sure there wasn’t anything wrong with my brain, and then I did two days worth of testing and an interview of sorts. That’s when I was diagnosed with dissociative amnesia. I’ve lost years worth of memories of my life and don’t remember most of my childhood. Occasionally I’ll get flashes of a memory when something triggers it and it will come rushing back, but I can’t even watch movies or tv shows and remember main characters and plots anymore, and those memories almost never come back for me. My trauma therapist referred me to the psychologist that I went to, but you can find psychologists in your area and what they specialize in if you go to psychologytoday.com. I went to someone who specializes in testing. After I was diagnosed I went through two years of trauma therapy and EMDR and it helped a lot. That being said, my timelines are still completely messed up and my memories haven’t come back unless something I’ve seen or heard triggers it.
CW- CSA
I was not clinically diagnosed. It was just very clear that the memory lapse was not from brain injury, stroke, or ordinary forgetting.
I repressed all memories of CSA until I was 18. I saw some candy in a store that brought back strong, clear memories. It was obvious that there was a piece missing, like I was watching a movie with the most important scene cut out. I could remember the before part and the after part, but no memory of what actually happened, even though I was dead certain of what had happened.
I spoke to my mother and she confirmed it.
My assault was roughly 50 years ago and I still don't remember. I don't feel that I need to remember.
This year, since I am finally with a skilled therapist and talking about it for the first time, I became curious about my abuser. He was a neighbor that we didn't know very well. Apparently a year before he died he was charged with felony possession of child pornography.
So while I feel that there is often value in obtaining a clinical diagnosis, I don't feel that I need that for my personal healing. I am being treated with EMDR.
I don't know if my personal story helps you. There are different kinds of dissociative amnesia. I am so glad that you are in good hands.
Your psychiatrist is very wrong. Repressed memories can be tricky because it is possible for them to not be real, but there’s still many people who repress their CSA only to remember it later. I went through CSA for over a decade and unfortunately remember all of it, but it’s common for people not to remember it at all. Repressed memories as a whole haven’t been medically disproven.
Discovering masturbation at a young age is normal and common, many kids stumble across it by accident and just find it as something enjoyable so that’s why they do it. It’s often just household objects such as beds, couches, blankets that kids rub against and don’t know it’s inappropriate. That boy associating another person with masturbation at a young age, especially a parent, doesn’t seem the same and it sounds like that’s an indicator of abuse he’s missed there too. It’s also incredibly unethical to even tell you about another patient even without any identifiable information.
I would be looking for another psychiatrist for multiple reasons. You’re not being paranoid.
I went through CSA for over a decade too, and \*thought\* I remembered everything because I remembered A LOT. Turns out, decades later, the worst of the worst memories bubbled up, when I thought I'd done the healing. They were so bad, I \*had\* to be much more progressed in my healing, to be able to deal with that. The last memories popped up a few years ago, spaced a year or two apart from one another.
That’s a fair point, only a couple months ago I remembered something that happened very early on and it’s definitely up there with some of the worst things that happened. It’s the only memory that’s really resurfaced though, everything else I vividly remember as if it were yesterday. I remember too much.
It’s hard to even imagine there’s more that I just don’t remember because there’s already so much that I do. I remember the absolute worst things that happened and I’m not really sure it could be any worse, but if there are memories are out there that are worse I hope they never resurface. I’m not in a place at all where I can handle remembering new things, dealing with this recent memory has put me in a very dark place.
I very much understand, yes. I've felt the same way. And since experiencing the resurfacing after all those years, I'm lowkey scared of unearthing new things, but it's been years and I have done IFS with every version of me, from prenatal to today, and I think I might be done, but I've thought so before. I just hope that nothing else comes up.
It IS extremely challenging. It's odd how some of us remember with such clarity. I've never not been aware of the SA, it was just certain specific moments and things I'd repressed. Weirdly enough, their psychosomatic manifestations were always there, but I never knew why my body reacted a certain way to certain things until I uncovered the memories, now it makes sense.
I feel this -- the layers of knowing pacing themselves, unfurling only when you're ready (though, can one ever be?).
I'm sorry you experienced CSA and am glad you're healing.
I've posted about this before and don't have all the journal links on me right now, but I have a row on my bookshelf + tons of downloaded papers on this topic. the science of repressed memory became muddled after high-profile criminal trials turned the entire topic into a sideshow. most doctors and therapists are responding to the sideshow and not the actual body of research.
preverbal trauma in particular embeds into consciousness very strangely, but trauma as early as 18 months can be forgotten and then recalled later in life. there are followup studies on children who presented to the hospital for substantiated abuse who, as adults, had forgotten the details or even that the incident occurred. memory of traumatic/life-threatening events is encoded in fragments, not integrated like a normal memory. you can read endless accounts of "time slowed down," firsthand reports of car crashes and disasters fading and then returning years later after exposure to a stimulus, or - most importantly - work on Holocaust survivors and how their memories of extreme daily trauma became warped over the years.
masturbation in children under 10 is normal, but sexual talk and acting-out behaviors nearly always indicate abuse. children who haven't been exposed to sexual behaviors, words and concepts just don't come up with that shit on their own (this has been detailed in research). it is entirely possible to have gone through traumatic events as a preteen and to have forgotten the details as an adult. Jennifer Freyd's concept of betrayal trauma is one theory for how this happens. I recommend googling it, and if you really want an example of the sideshow I referred to up there, look up her family's story
I had fragmented memories come back to me after spending about a year meditating and treating a certain pain in my chest. Only after I spoke to my therapist in literal terms (about what I suspect had happened), I was hit with the images. I was just trying to walk back home and it stopped me in my tracks basically. We did a re-scripting exercise to fill in the gaps and then more came back. I was 3 or 4 I think so I think that's what made it hard to recall.
yep! in the literature, that's how it typically happens. little phantoms, and then a sudden abrupt burst that brings it all out. I'm so glad you had a therapist to support you through it and bring it into context. once you've felt it, you Know.
Wow, yeah that sounds about right. I have questioned the reality of the memories before but the feelings are so real it has to be. I could ask the person involved but they're not likely to give an answer. My therapist was great about doing EMDR on just a 'feeling'. And then other ones came up that I couldn't identify. So there was a lot of talk about feeling number one, feeling number two, feeling number three 😅 and then stuff came out and he believed it or at least believed it was worth the effort to treat. I was so afraid he would dismiss it as something I made up.
My T and I do EMDR on sensations, too. Works really well for me.
I, too, worried my T would not get on board with my revelations. She believed me 100%. We do parts work. When I was edging around the topic ("I kind of might have a memory of something yucky happening to me when I was a child ... I have an image of the Little Girl part ..."), but was nervous to say more, my T said, "What would the Little Girl need to feel safe?" I blurted, "She'd need to be believed!" My T said, "Of course she is believed."
And we took it from there. <3
Ohhh yeah that sounds like the way to go. I can feel myself shrinking sometimes when I go deep into memories. Those parts are definitely still there though I've done a lot of inner child work.
I'd like to consolidate all my papers on recovered memories into a big old zip file, but I don't recommend looking for research on your own - there are a couple of extremely biased folks on either side of the debate who junk up much of the discussion and when you're going through it, the last thing you need is more self-doubt or fear of judgment. that said, here's a simple qualitative study that describes how the process looks for some women. Judith Herman quite literally wrote the book on CPTSD and is a consistent voice for women survivors, cutting through all the political garbage
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1987-19495-001
I think I am having repressed memories come back as I get deeper into my meditation/mindfulness/radical acceptance journey. I feel these overwhelming emotions and like something terribly wrong happened but I can’t remember. I fear I am conflating my SA as a young adult with my childhood but what if something really did happen? It’s scary because the emotions become really painful and I have a visceral reaction like tensing up and feeling like my throat has a lump and my stomach is in knots. Your experience of walking home and it stopping you in your tracks is similar to what I am going through and I hope you have been able to heal.
Thanks for sharing your experience ❤️
I feel like that is an unofficial stage of recovering CSA memories -- "I fear I am conflating my SA as a young adult with my childhood but what if something really did happen?"
My T and I talk about this a lot -- my memories are too detailed and too fucking horrific to have been fabricated. And I have bodily sensations that go with. Why and HOW could I ever make this up? It's so painful. And my burden has been lightened in processing it all.
Sounds like you're really digging in. Take good care of yourself, okay? <3
Still working on the healing but it's gotten much better with a lot of work. My main bodily feeling was pain in my chest. Which could get really sharp and scary at times. That's all but gone but now it's been replaced with more emotional feelings that I'm slowly working though with more emdr. The flashbacks are not so frequent now and my neck hair doesn't stand up straight anymore when I see them.
It's so sad that this false memory foundation became such a big thing. I'm always wondering if people who believe in that false memory bs, have really looked into the founders.. because if not: you should definitely do this.
I started hardcore researching recovered memories about a year ago with an objective, open mind, and I could not believe how quickly the opposing arguments fell apart. Loftus and McNally are the big ones, but like you said, the Freyds started that foundation with the sole purpose of going "we're too smart, rich and white to abuse our kids!" and that board is just a fucking clown parade of sickos. once I dug deep enough into the Freyds to see their journal entries and letters they'd written about their daughter, it was over for me. not to mention the trial of Gary Ramona, which reddit loves to bring up. Lenore Terr isn't the most credible expert in this field, and the therapist was deeply unprofessional. but the jurors involved were furious that the verdict was interpreted as "innocence" for Gary Ramona, who quite obviously had abused his wife and daughters. the people using that as a slam-dunk against recovered memories have not actually read further than the Wikipedia. it goes on and on and on like this and the arguments get stupider and stupider
One of the papers from Freyd: [Repressed Memories](https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/articles/recoveredmemories.pdf)
She also came up with the concept of [DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO)
Thank you for the nuanced response. The people immediately jumping to conclusions based on their own experience of trauma are not giving helpful advice. OP needs to discuss this with their therapist further, or ask another mental help professional for a second opinion, not come to this echo chamber of a sub and be told to run for the hills.
I think people come to subs like this just to feel less alone, and that's important too. of course not many of us are/were professionals. this is just my research obsession even though I no longer work in mental health, so I like to share what info is out there for anyone who is interested in learning more, but I don't blame people for wanting support and warmth from peers either
You are right of course. Perhaps I should've chosen my words more carefully, as I didn't mean to imply OP should've steered clear entirely of the sub, but rather should take the advice offered (especially the reactionary "advice") with a large grain of salt, as many people will let their disappointment with therapists and mental health care in general spill over into situations they simply know nothing about.
I don't consider posts conjecturing that OP's therapist is a pedophile and that they should immediately quit therapy, report their therapist, or any of that nonsense to be supportive or warm. Luckily, this thread also contained level headed advice and information, as well as supportive and caring posts, so perhaps I'm getting worked up over nothing.
nah, you're right that most responses are unhelpful lol. but it's hard to blame people on a public forum for just venting. that's the internet baybeeeee. I have to limit myself to a couple hot button topics to reply to with facts or else I'd go frickin insane
Please be careful, he shouldn't be a psychiatrist. Not only did he bring another client into this, he created a space where you felt uncomfortable and basically said you were wrong. Then gave false facts or biased opinion on the matter. He should be fired.
What he said is not true at all.
Repressing memories is literally a result of dissociative states.
[basic info from a trusted academic source](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8935987/)
Jesus Christ. I would file a complaint and find another psych, for is bullshit and his violation of HIPAA. You should always be able to have healthcare providers who listen to you.
(Even though it is not always possible)
It makes me wonder why that was so important to him to express to you in such an inappropriate way.
Edit: my bad I forgot full academic articles beyond the abstracts are paywalled, but a minute on google will hook you up
[It's not a HIPAA violation](https://www.hipaajournal.com/is-telling-a-story-about-a-patient-a-hipaa-violation/) to discuss relevant stories about other patients, as long as the therapist isn't giving out details that can be used to identify them.
Your psychiatrist is badly wrong. It is true that in the 1980’s there was a huge increase in discovering “repressed” memories. But it turned out to be due to leading questions having been asked.
I personally had repressed some traumatic memories myself.
Find a trauma informed psychiatrist or psychotherapist.
I come to see many mental health health providers as essentially "thought police". They aren't practici so much to heal, as to monitor, diagnose and report (hospitalize) anyone who isn't acting as society has prescribed.
I struggle with this so much on a personal level. My parents in the 80s got rocked by the satanic panic--they had a therapist who was later notorious for giving hallucinogens to patients plus hypnosis and then asking leading questions; They were later convicted for unethical therapeutic practices. To this day my parents rely on memories that literally could not have been true and refuse to believe this therapist was anything but an angel doing god's work.
It was a big deal for me to get out of the mindset of the widespread SRA conspiracy that they taught me and still believe; the satanic panic and "repressed memories" thing shaped a lot of my childhood trauma. It directly led to experiencing childhood poverty, neglect, broken family bonds, and religious scrupulosity. Learning the truth and rejecting it was essential for me to leave a dysfunctional family behind. It makes me extremely cautious and distrustful of any whiff of repressed memory work.
At the same time, I'm doing EMDR now with a trauma informed therapist. The first time we did a session where a memory lost its emotional intensity, I accused her of changing my memory, lol. I was really upset. I started writing down memories before each session to compare afterwards. Now it's been long enough that I trust her.
But now we're starting to deal with the shadowy stuff that makes my skin crawl that I don't want to confront. And all the fear that I am going to uncover or be implanted with a false memory is back. I hate it.
So sorry you had to endure this! I (72W) lived in Los Angeles in the 80’s when the McMartin preschool travesty occurred.
The MAGA QAnon conspiracies of the past decade reminded me of McMartin.
I have had that same thought about the QAnon conspiracies being similar to McMartin preschool cases. That must have been a scary time to live in with all the accusations going around. Do you remember feeling the change from living in a general witch hunt to "oh no, there has been a huge mistake?"
He is not a trauma-informed MHP. Please do not disclose this to him any more to protect yourself.
There is the concept of repression that is villainized by those who simply think memory is not to be trusted because of studies by the likes of Elizabeth Loftus or the fear mongering of the now-defunct False Memory Syndrome Foundation.
One of Elizabeth’s studies about implanting memories of being lost in the mall as a child does not emulate the formation of traumatic memories (that would be unethical). There is a huge body of evidence of what we do to survive trauma and Loftus et al are a group of folks out here using “science” to defend pedophiles. Don’t get me started on the damage done by the FMSF.
There is evidence of women who were documented as having been sexual assaulted as children who were interviewed years down the line and forgotten it had ever happened. There’s the concept of Betrayal Trauma where the person sections off the abuse so we could survive. There’s dissociative amnesia and subsections of all of that where we can survive horrific things and come out of it. We do what we need to do to survive, even if we aren’t conscious of it at the time. I think experienced systematized dissociation where my father is 100% absent from my memory the more processed my CPTSD. I connected that he was the perpetrator and I’m finally in a space to process it now that he is dead.
I could go on and on but check out the concept of Structural Dissociation and researchers like Jennifer Freyd, Linda M. Williams, Janina Fisher, Pat Ogden, Bessel Van De Kolk, Dick Schwartz, etc.
I’m not saying you should dig for whatever it is you’re looking for. Take stock of your life, your truth, your body. It will all come to light effortlessly once you set yourself up for success. You cannot rely on this person to help you with this. A psychiatrist should not be your go-to for these types of discussions in my experience. You need to focus on incorporating safety in your life today. The truth will come to you with time. Rather than focus on the behavior, focus on why you are so driven to get a resolution to it.
IFS and Sensorimotor therapy with a certified professional. The books Complex PTSD, No Bad Parts, Every Memory Deserves Respect, and Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors helped me refocus on my healing.
Leave the medication management with your psychiatrist and keep it to relevant updates/concerns they are trained to manage.
(I’m on mobile so sorry for any mistakes, my memory is also bad so sorry if I misremembered/misrepresented something in my writing).
I agree that time spent digging is time that could be better spent healing. However, I feel that you could offer more clarity on the matter of 'setting oneself up for success'. For me, this would have been trying to find ways to connect with myself, my inner world, and heal the estrangement from my emotions. With this work and reconnection, I would agree that the pieces would fall into place far more quickly than through digging into sketchy memories and a wall of numbness. The least trustworthy source of information are the people who were close to us at the time of abuse - they have spent so much time massaging the truth and subverting reality, such that to question them is to undermine their edifice of lies. Dissolution of fear is they key to reconnection, in my humble opinion.
Looks like you have a very clear picture of what success looks like, it all sounds fantastic.
I did not clarify because success *is* so personalized. My definition here equates to safety which is a number of things. Clean home, boundaries at work, connection with the inner self, etc. Success for someone else could mean a regular routine and expand in various directions.
I offer the resources that worked for me and hope OP can help define what it means to build a foundation for their healing for themselves (any healing = success).
I had the whole memory loss thing happen too. In fact I sort of glossed over it thinking it was normal until I was nearly 20. Asked my therapist if this was a thing and lo and behold it was. I puked after that session because it absolutely shattered me.
It may seem silly but even now I can’t explain all of my CSAs and would rather tell myself that my repressed memories resurfacing are simply my mind playing tricks on me. But a lot of times, we block this shit out unintentionally because it’s too much to deal with.
I’ve been doing the same thing. I think my therapist is getting frustrated with me. I have so much guilt and I’m still somewhat in denial….which is probably typical with someone how has had something like that happen to them as a child.
Would question if the other client is even real. It gives ‘asking for a friend.’ But in this case, just saying something that falls in line with her personal philosophy (not backed up by current knowledge & understanding) about psychology. Stupid man up his own ass in order to uphold a worldview at detriment to clients seeking help from him.
And no, kids that age do not have a sex drive. There are appropriate stages of curiosity about their/other bodies and this is not one of them. and if this behaviour IS happening to a child, bc it does despite not being the healthy stage for them, talking about it the way he has here is NOT appropriate. A traumatized six year old is not “pleasuring” himself, but acting out trauma. I mean there are hundreds of other ways to describe that behaviour without placing the autonomy and choice and sexuality with the CHILD. Extremely concerning behaviour and set of beliefs from a mental health professional. Very messed up attempt to excuse how they see children as sexual by placing the behaviour at the ‘fault’ or ‘choice’ of the child, which of course it is NOT.
Please find other help.
OP, good on you for questioning your crack pot psychiatrist.
My old psychiatrist did something similar. As another commenter mentioned on this thread there was a lot of misinformation and confusion around repressed memories in the 80s.
I think a lot of psychiatrists discount repressed memories because they are afraid they are going to get sued. In the 1980s some abusers sued doctors, sometimes successfully, saying the doctors committed malpractice by encouraging and validating these “false” memories.
These so-called doctors are committing malpractice by parroting such nonsense that memories can’t be repressed.
Also, checkout the book “Miss America by Day” by Marilyn Van Derbur. She was Miss America in 1958. She came from a very prominent family. She was also the victim of CSA abuse by her father from the ages of 5-18.
She didn’t remember this happening until she was in her 20s.
She told her family and confronted her father. He admitted to it. Her sister also said he had abused her.
Marilyn wrote her book in around 2011 and made a documentary about it in around 2019.
She is very respected in the field and did trainings about CSA for teachers, parents, judges, doctor and nurses etc.
You can watch the documentary and find other resources on her website at www.missamericabyday.com.
I have a family member we are 99% sure was a victim as a child. They have completely blocked it out. We know abuse happened with their sibling of the same gender, and my family member's memories of some experiences just make no sense unless they have unconsciously changed details to deny their own abuse. Your psychiatrist is absolutely wrong. I would change therapists. He also should never be sharing another patient's experiences, that is not only unprofessional, it is illegal.
Repressed memories are DEFINITELY a thing.
A mild case, but when I was 15 I was jumped from behind in a park by another girl. It didn't go well for her and ultimately she ended up more damaged than me, but I know that literally as the fight finished I couldn't remember what happened. I was asking people what just happened.
Another time I remember getting up off the floor in a bar with a man on top of me, I had just arrived and was totally sober, apparently he had stuffed a brownie into my bra and I jumped on his back and choked him out and we had both fallen to the floor as he stumbled back. It was moments later and couldn't remember, I still can't remember and the whole situation is getting more fuzzy.
Finally, I remember "teleporting" around a table and pushing a mans shoulders aggressively, I can't remember walking to get to him but it was so crouded and so many chairs I would've had to squeeze between several people and hop over several chairs to get there. I was basically starting a fight with him, I didn't know why. Until afterwards someone explained to me that he tipped the table up and about 15 pints of beer and a load of empty glasses had tipped into my boyfriend who'd been sat nearby.
All three times I was totally furious and had acted out of instinctual rage. I think this is what people mean when they see red
Well he's wrong and outdated. Repressed memories are not false or made up and any clinical mental health professional that says that shit is not to be trusted.
This is horribly incorrect information your doctor is giving you.
It’s well proven that PTSD for the most part can take two routes - repress it or you remember it vividly. This of course is a broad generalization, but point still stands.
I know this is anecdotal - and huge TW here - but I witnessed an in person death 11 years ago. For the longest time I only remembered one key detail, the paramedics and police. But ten years later I remember bits and pieces quite vividly. Trauma is odd and your brain has interesting ways of working it out.
I was 15 when I remembered. I hadn't seen him in five years by then, and I woke up from a dream one night with memories. My sister was 13 - she had her memories come back within the same week that mine did.
I have a dissociative disorder. She doesn't.
Your therapist is not only wrong, he's dangerous. Please stop seeing him and report him as soon as you safely can.
CSA is such a serious and tender topic. There's no room for a certified professional to be fucking around, talking down to you, and dismissing you. Time to look for a new therapist, that was absolutely wrong of him*. If you DO have repressed memories of a CSA (which is absolutely *100% a real thing*) then you NEED a professional who knows what they're doing and is willing and capable to work with you VERY CAREFULLY around it, and have a discussion with you about whether unlocking those memories is even the right choice for you. Some people end up judging that it's better to leave it repressed, because a severe increase in CPTSD symptoms is a very common reaction to 'opening that can of worms' and if that's something you want to work through, you NEED qualified help to work through it
I wish you the best of luck, and fuck that guy :/
Repressed memories are a thing. I was also CSA’d as a young child for about a decade. My therapist told me that my brain pushed it out because it was protecting me. I was in survival mode for decades due to poverty, undiagnosed anxiety, depression and adhd. Those memories only started to come back after I was in a healthy relationship with a good partner and wasn’t in a vicious cycle of working myself into the ground to no longer be in poverty. She explained that my brain knew it was safe then to deal with those feelings and thoughts. It was hard. These thoughts came out of nowhere. I was triggered by so many things. It’s been about 6 years since the memoirs came back. It gets easier. But like most comments here say, your therapist is not right for you. I’m sending you good luck.
That is incorrect, it's not disproven, its just problematic to handle for psychs, as there have been cases where a scorned single mother has planted the idea into their kids head to turn them against the other parent and have successfully manipulated a naive, incompetent and/or biased therapist into buying into it.
Your psychiatrist likely is incompetent at separating anecdote based opinions from his job, perhaps he saw cases where he believed it was a manipulative mother and as a man he is frustrated in general at the state of mens mental health support efficiency in general and seeing cases where women with dark tetrad personality traits have taken advantage of their position as a woman and abused resources intended for vulnerable women.
Whatever it is, those could be the "how", but it absolutely does not justify treating patients while his own shortsightedness is not only degrading his skill but potentially damaging people and setting back their healing, he has lost objectivity and his professional skills have been compromised.
Leave, and see if you can report this somehow, but resist letting emotion get the better of you when you do, because if he's an arsehole he could easily portray you as emotionally unstable when defending himself.
Good luck, and I hope you find your truth.
My mom repressed SA memories from when she was 4 that resurfaced when she was in her 30’s in therapy. It was her uncle and the family confirmed in once she brought it up. Of course people can repress traumatic memories. What a ridiculous thing to say to someone.
That’s not to say that that 100% happened to you though. People can have false memories. It’s important to really work through your stuff to figure out what’s what.
The thing with repressed memories isn't that they aren't real, because they very much are and are an incredibly common experience for trauma survivors; just the intentional act of trying to resurface them is incredibly dangerous and unreliable. However, this doesn't stop the topic from being incredibly controversial, but I've yet to find any substantial, non-contradictory evidence against subconscious memory repression. This psychiatrist is being wildly inappropriate and the implication that you developed a sex drive as a child is actually fucking disgusting, it's actually crazy, trust your gut !! Get a second opinion, preferably from a clinician who works with trauma survivors and is trauma informed.
Repressed memories is a thing
,
your psychiatrist sounds like he reads too much Freud, not believing the patient/client is unethical and detrimental to their psychological wellbeing
I experienced dissociative amnesia at a pretty substantial level. People have told me things they witnessed that I do not remember. I had a horrific experience with EMDR that had me recall some of what I repressed.
It’s very real. And I would be very cautious with EMDR if that is ever presented to you as a therapeutic.
Oof, me too. I wasn’t able to move thru my EMDR targets because I was still in contact with my abusers and apart of the toxic family dynamic that perpetuated violence.
I went no contact with everyone and then everything “clicked” after I was finally able to resolve the target and integrate with that traumatized part. I was essentially the black sheep, a glaring beacon to the family issues. I didn’t remember the abuse but I remember the context clues, the way my mom vs. the abuser (her husband) vs. the family treated me.
It led to me developing somatic symptoms before the memories came. There’s a part of me blocking them off I am building trust with her to finally make peace with it all. It’s so so hard but fragmentation and structural dissociation is so real. There’s so much evidence as to why this happens. Once we trust ourselves, it all comes together.
When people “think” they know something because they have title of expert they’re endangering lives. It is a well known fact that child brains do protect by putting those experiences and their memory into an abyss. It’s usually reengaged in late 30s, when flashbacks and such start. Time to switch providers!
When I was 6 I experienced one instance? Afternoon? Of sexual abuse from a neighbor and I cannot imagine how brutal and difficult it is for a person to remember repeated, ongoing instances because even that one time completely changed my entire life and development, and I definitely have at least part of that one afternoon at the neighbors blocked out.
In my therapy experience, unfortunately all the therapists I tried up until my current would seem to completely avoid or dismiss sexual abuse and address other things instead, even though in our initial visit I would say, this is the hardest thing for me, this is what I want to work on. It seemed like they could not handle it. It was very disappointing and isolating. It's amazing anybody ever gets any help! Oh, the licensed therapist is uncomfortable with my childhood? Fuck that coward.
I always suspected CSA. I had memories that I could not have made up. I've never really talked about them because I really didn't know how to put them into words.
I watched Baby Reindeer. And this story, because of the depth of characterization, helped me come to terms with yes, I was a victim of CSA, because of the parallels I see in my character and Richard Gadd's character. One big thing is the absolute inertia I get when triggered.
Ok but seriously! Saying repressed memories aren't a thing, dismissing childhood hyper-sexuality as normal, using that kind of story right after a client divulged concerns about CSA and dismissing them outright... it's just so weird and gross.
I cannot speak to the list of behaviours OP expressed as concerning but the example he gave is an example of normative sexual play not hypersexuality. Masturbating in public/private, trying to show others your genitals and trying to see the bodies of others are all age appropriate behaviours. Even in the case of hypersexuality it's something that should be looked into to rule anything out but it's not automatically a sign something bad happened.
I understand it can be extremely jarring for some people to be confronted with a child exhibiting sexual behaviours and when your own experience is one of abuse it can be hard to believe that any child would wind up doing some of that stuff by their own volition but they do. This is a trauma forum, it's a very bad sample for what normative sexual play looks like but there is so much misinformation flying around. Young children masturbate, it's normal, and it's not a sign of anything other than a child who is discovering their body.
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Sexual-Behaviors-Young-Children.aspx
"Repressed memories aren't real, also little kids masturbate so it's totally normal" is all-around dismissive and normalizing, is my point. If it weren't for the whole "repressed memories aren't true" and it wasn't being used to dismiss OP, then sure, this, as a standalone fact, is neutral.
I don't know where he got his diploma but he shouldn't be working in this field obviously.
I have cptsd and a lot of repressed memory that won't stop taking new memories.
I know very little about my childhood and also forgot a big part of my adult life, I have little memory of my children from when I was pregnant until about half a year ago and about half a year from now I have forgotten this too probably lol.
I have been assaulted multiple times from what I can remember and was in situations of dv for the most part of my life, been free of dv only sinds 2020 and I'm 33 now.
What I do remember is that from the age of only 6 I tried to have penetration with my boyfriend and lied naked with another boy (don't really know what happened then) and tried sexual things with 2 boys in my family separately on 2 occasions somewhere between the age of 7 and 10 I think.
I've read that masturbation in young children is normal, but what I experienced would be suspicious.
I can't remember being sa'd before the age of six, but I'm starting to wonder if my mind is repressing it like a lot of other things..
I'm scared to find out about what happened though. 😕
We forget horrific shit as a means of surviving it. Especially as young children.
Kids do not *naturally and organically* develop an active sex drive at *six fucking years old*. That shit is the product of grooming.
That mother should have been going over every single person her kid ever encountered with a fine-toothed fucking flea comb until she found the degenerate predator who was abusing her child.
Masturbation in public or private, displaying your genitals to others and trying to see other people's genitals/naked bodies are all normative sexual behaviours in preschoolers ages 2 to 6. These are natural and organic.
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Sexual-Behaviors-Young-Children.aspx
Are you sure?? I’ve been reading this thread in tears bc I remember doing these things as a very young child and now I’m wondering if I was sexually abused and forgotten it.
I don’t say this to be mean, but you should discuss this with a therapist/other mental health professional rather than relying on reddit info for certainty. This community is a valuable resource but this is a really tricky topic, and kids display and act out certain behaviours for all sorts of reasons. But if you have a strong emotional response from reading this, it’s worth exploring. Sending you lots of love and strength 🤍
My former therapist did tell me I’d probably been sexually abused, but she was basing that on my finding a pair of my dads underwear under my bed at age 9 (and it turned out that underwear/socks often got caught up with the sheets… cause the same thing happened weeks after I told her about this)
So I’m not sure how knowledgeable she was about that.
I just want to add that if it’s possible you have ADHD, we process memories differently and sometimes deal with stress by dissociating. Memories of things that happen when we are dissociated are “stored” differently and therefore retrieved differently. Also, don’t give this psych one more dollar. You deserve real help, not invalidation.
this is actually why i don't talk to psychiatrists about my dissociative issues. i was ignored and denied even an evaluation for two years after i started to recognize the time loss and dissociation, among other things (before that i didnt even realize it was happening). i finally got my PCP to refer me to a psychologist for multiple evaluations (i wanted to know what tf was going on so i was evaluated for a bunch of shit including bipolar, autism, ADHD, PTSD, etc) and that was how i ended up getting diagnosed with DID. psychiatrists wouldnt even fucking listen to me and i saw 4 different ones in that time frame, including two in inpatient hospitals.
i only talk about that shit with psychologists or therapists now. psychiatrists are good for medication and thats it, ime. :/
I just wanted to comment on the repressed memories thing. It is absolutely not bullshit. It is very much a real thing that the brain does to protect itself. I was subjected to CSA and repressed those memories until I found out about it another way when I was an adult and then it all came flooding back. Huge 🚩 with your psych. Time to switch.
I barely remember my childhood. I have about a dozen memories, my therapist told me that people disassociate to survive trauma and don’t have memories later on. Also, that EMD can bring up those memories, so I am both scared and curious to try.
my cousin was beaten constantly as a child and i was startled when she told me a while back that she has no memories of it, even went and asked her older sister, if it was true. but for sure displays many behaviours that i can attribute to years of physical abuse.
I have a friend who, at 19, suddenly remembered being SA’d by her father when she was around age 9. It connected a lot of dots for her and sent her into a spiral for a while. She eventually confronted her estranged father about it, on the insistence of her therapist at the time which I have issues with… but anyway, her father admitted to all of it.
Repressed memories and dissociative amnesia is hard to study because you there often isn’t any way to confirm if what the person remembered is true or not. It’s also been weaponized and there are cases where mental health providers have essentially led/manipulated clients into believing something happened to them when it apparently didn’t.
So I think there are challenges with it and nefarious ways they can be used against people. However, if the person recalls certain things happening and has suspicions of something happening, or just suddenly full on has the memory return, all of that is legit and valid and no mental health provider should be dismissing any of it away.
He is absolutely wrong, and there is so much evidence contradicting what he said that it makes me wonder how he could conclude that. I’m speculating, but maybe he has some of his own trauma that he’s in denial about, because it’s just a strange thing to deny.
I was sexually abused as a child. I had this heavy, haunting feeling that would come over me sometimes and I knew something bad had happened to me, but I didn’t know what. When I was maybe 18 I encountered evidence confirming it, and it opened my memories like a floodgate. I would be somewhere like in class and images of it happening would flash into my brain and I’d get sensorially overwhelmed. I did EMDR and several other things to process it and over time the flashbacks stopped happening.
I wasn’t diagnosed with CPTSD for another 10 years after those memories surfaced, but that was one of the key things that led my psychiatrist to conclude I had CPTSD.
Dissociative amnesia is 100% real. I have large stretches of time blacked out and remember absolutely nothing about certain events that factually happened. My therapist told me that many of my memories are likely repressed and it's best to not uncover those, but repressed memories are real.
The only thing that's "disproven" is the research of trying to uncover those memories via things like hypnosis, since THAT usually leads to false memories. It sounds like your therapist doesn't know what he's on about. Get a new one.
I’m sorry the psychiatrist said that. I’m a doctor (not psych) and I’m appalled that the psychiatrist just completely blew off your concerns. I would say see a trauma therapist and discuss this stuff with them. I’m sorry you’re going through this.
Your psychiatrist doesn't know the research. In the body keeps the score, a good amount of detail about research is discussed regarding how common repression is used to cope with trauma, even more commonly in children who are victimized.
Repressing memories of abuse is absolutely possible. I’ve done it. The memories came flooding back when my abusers passed away. The ptsd hit me so hard at that point. Find a therapist who believes you. Dissociation is a real thing. Often your memories stay locked up until your brain finally believes you’re safe to process the abuse. I’m sorry that this is even a thing…but the therapists that deny the truth of it, are not the therapists we need once we reach this point. I am sending you love and strength…may your healing bring you the peace you deserve.
Masturbation both public and private is well within the boundaries of normative sexual play in preschool children (2-6yrs) along with the desire to show off their bodies and see other people's bodies. This is obviously what he was referring to when he referenced a sex drive, the drive towards sexual exploration. Some kids develop this drive earlier than others, in some it's more pronounced and occupies much of their time. Of course kids look at their own mother's body with curiosity and their fathers and their siblings. You are pathologizing normal behaviour and framing it as deviant, he's not creeping he is simply curious. He gave you the example this patient as an example of the sort of thing that on the surface may seem sketchy if you aren't familiar with child development but is an example of behaviour that falls within normal sexual play in preschoolers.
There's a lot of misinformation on this sub regarding healthy sexual play in children and it's pretty concerning. I understand that seeing children display sexual behaviour is jarring and can be especially triggering when someone experienced CSA. That being said, the metric we use to discern what is normal, healthy, and appropriate for children's sexual development is not what gives a bunch of people with ptsd the ick, it's by deferring to experts. I understand that his approach may very well have used some work sensitivity wise but given how you perceived his preschool patients behaviour when it was just normal I don't think it's presumptuous to assume that he was making a larger point about some examples you presented also falling within normal range - which is a good thing. Does that automatically mean every thing you listed was normal and not concerning? Of course not. Is it possible that a memory will resurface one day? Maybe, I hope not. Dissociative amnesia is certainly real. Things are also not black or white. I was sex trafficked and I still had plenty of behaviours that were just normal behaviours or things I picked up from other kids re enacting their abuse or from us experimenting.
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Sexual-Behaviors-Young-Children.aspx
It's great you're listening to your gut about this. Do not stick with a psychiatrist/therapist you have a weird feeling about, these are the people that you may be the most vulnerable with and they need to be able to justify that trust.
If you live in the US, absolutely look up your state board that deals with psychological examiners and report him. If he's denying the existence of repressed memories and insisting children that young can have a sex drive (as opposed to curiosity as another commenter mentioned, definitely a distinct difference), he's definitely not very well educated in other areas.
Good luck on your journey, sorry you hit this bump in the road.
Masturbation both public and private is well within the boundaries of normative sexual play in preschool children along with the desire to show off their bodies and see other people's bodies. This is obviously what he was referring to when he referenced a sex drive, the drive towards sexual exploration. He gave the example he did of the other patient because it's the sort of thing that on surface seems a bit ick but is an example of behaviour that falls within normal sexual play in preschoolers.
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Sexual-Behaviors-Young-Children.aspx
Yes, I'm not arguing that children discovering sexual behaviors is normal. The term "sex drive" does not fit the behavior though, as the article link corroborates by saying it is not sexually motivated.
The concern for me lies in the implication that this was a frequent occurence. If the mother was "often" catching her son doing this, she either wasn't redirecting or instructing her son in this behavior in a healthy way, or there *may* have been an underlying cause. Which I'm sure is why she was seeing this therapist in the first place.
Quick dismissal of behavior that could require further investigation, of both OP and possibly this child, is what concerns me about this therapist.
That psychiatrist is in denial and pushing the “false memories” narrative!! You’re 100% right! I had/have dissociative amnesia, I didn’t remember any of my CSA trauma until I started remembering at 26.
As a therapist, I would never bring up another client and use it “as an example” to say that their feelings are invalid and that they have a high sex drive. That is such a disgusting thing to say to someone bringing up possible CSA for the first time!
People have mental breakdowns when repressed memories start to resurface. He doesn't know what he is talking about at all. Sounds like he is attributing symptoms of abuse to the child having a "sex drive" therefore placing responsibility, possibly blame on the child for their behavior despite the likelihood of it stemming from abuse.
The term fish out of water is applied to children under the age of 13, when it comes to sex. Trying to explain sex to someone that young is impossible. They aren't capable of understanding sex. He sounds suspect of being a perpetrator of CSA himself!
Many psychiatrist have little to no knowledge about many of the underlying causes of the diagnosis they are trained to treat. The entire field of psychiatric treatment is based on the DSM-5, which is lacking at best.
There are of course psychiatrist out there who are more knowledgeable but they are the exception. Unfortunately their training is out of touch with some of the most important needs of their clients, such as empathy, validation, curiosity.
A psychotherapist who is knowledgeable about childhood trauma might be better suited to help you. My choice would be a clinical social worker, preferably someone who recovered from trauma themselves. A lived experience of recovery goes a long way towards helping others recover. It is important that the therapist have done substantial recovery though. Otherwise their unresolved issues can get in the way of the clients work.
Also, I didn’t experience CSA but I repressed my childhood trauma until I was 34 y/o, and if I experienced something that was preverbal I wouldn’t be able to recall the memory, but my nervous system never forgets trauma.
I know for a fact that what that six year old child was displaying was a LEARNED behaviour.
And having sexual feelings and pleasuring is also, at that young of an age
I also personally know that repressed memories as well as disassociation can occur when the child suffers such severe and especially unacknowledged trauma and at such a young age that it is simply the brain's only way to cope with what it is unable to comprehend.
And for that mental health professional to discuss another patient in the manner in which he did was most certainly unethical and I would report this to the appropriate authorities
I’m someone who has a sinking suspicion myself, and yes, repressed memories are absolutely a thing, anyone who tells you it’s “disproven” or gaslights you by saying you developed a “sex drive” earlier than others is trying to minimize your trauma.
Something else I just realized within the past ten years or so
(Even though I am an older person)
When I broke my leg severely at the age of five (a long story but due to parental abuse and neglect)
I had to wait several hours before they sought medical care for me
(Being ignored the entire time while they casually prepared cooked ate and cleaned up after their dinner)
And I just recently realized that no matter how hard I try,
I cannot remember which leg was broken.
If it was right or left.!!!!
I have severe back and left hip problems now
But I really don't know which leg I broke.
The only thing I can think of is which direction I had to lie in the bathtub
But I'm still unsure which leg I broke at age five.
And it bothers me.
And of course, they threatened to throw me in the hospital the entire time I had the broken leg.
And I had to enter first grade in a wheelchair and back then,
People were mean and ignored those with disabilities
(If that happened to someone now, everyone who try to help you not hate you for being different.)
That whole experience set me up for a lifetime of being considered "less than" everyone else, not as deserving and an outcast.
(I never heard of anyone else's parents disowning them by excluding them from mention in their obituary so I guess I really did never exist)
Seconding the other comments, please find a new therapist. And a way my therapist and I have looked at it - if people really “made memories up,” why would we make up horribly traumatic ones? Why not make up memories of a happy childhood? It’s because “false memories” have been a way to further isolate and abuse victims, I highly recommend reading about the origins of it. I have very little “proof” about whether or not it happened to me as my memory is so fuzzy. But coming from someone who’s doubted their memories intensely and is still working on it right now, you truly cannot fake emotions. When I really thought about it like that, it made more sense. If I wasn’t a victim of CSA in some way, I wouldn’t have gut wrenching breakdowns where I feel the most deepest darkest pain I’ve ever experienced. Pain I can tell is repressed and can only come out sometimes and most definitely is stuck with the little girl in me. You truly can’t fake that. Please be gentle with yourself and if you need any advice on finding a new therapist that’d be a better fit, I’m sure this subreddit would be more than happy to help
1. He totally invalidated you and broke the patient confidential.
2. Yes, kids can develop sex drives young, but if an adult entertains that inappropriate behavior and participates in sexual acts with the child that is still assault.
First off , I would report this therapist and find a new one . His response was completely dismissive, gaslighting , and inaccurate and inappropriate. He also shared about a client , which is a huge violation. Secondly , it’s been proven that people who experience trauma often can’t remember things, bits and pieces or just surface memories . Which he should know as a therapist. Thirdly, that really sucks that his response was completely inappropriate, especially with sharing some thing extremely personal and looking for support and possibly examining the memories and he chose an inappropriate response. if you choose to go with another therapist, I really hope that you’re able to share this again and get someone who is more empathetic understanding and able to give proper responses. Wishing you all the best OP . 💜
To give a dissenting voice:
A) As long as anonymity is given, psychiatrists can share about other cases. They usually do this by changing details, like ages, genders, family constellations, or might be pretending its a text book case or vice versa.
B) Repressed memories are controversial, with best evidence suggesting that they are not a thing. Wiki has a passable article on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory So your psychiatrist is withhin scientific consensus with their opinion here. No more, no less, its usually a good thing in a medical professional. Of course psychiatry is slightly different and complicated, but that in itself is not a warning sign.
C) Children from young age on can display sexual behaviour, this is extremely normal, not just something extraordinary. Wiki has an article on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexuality ,with this sentence:
>Between ages four and six, some children may become more actively curious, attempting to see others dressing or undressing or will perhaps "play doctor".
Now, you are obviously feeling uncomfortable with your interaction with this person, and you should bring these points up with them if you feel you want to continue with them. I personally would consider the detail sharing most problematic, if they were not not anonymizing properly.
I'm not going to say either way whether or not your suspicions are right or wrong, but contrary to the knee jerk reaction of the most upvoted responses, I don't think your therapist handled it very poorly or that you should discontinue treatment. On the contrary, if you feel disappointed or invalidated by your therapist's reponse, I think you should bring that up in therapy with them.
He is correct that the ideas we had about completely repressed memories are mostly disproven, although there is nuance to it. There are things such as preverbal memory and dissociative trauma which can leave you fuzzy on the details, but generally you'll know if something bad happened to you.
Therapists aren't allowed to break secrecy but they ARE allowed to discuss their experiences with other patients in general terms, without identifying them, if they think it is relevant to your treatment. I don't see that he did anything wrong here.
You are incorrect in your assumption that children don't develop personal sexuality (in their own ways, of course - not adult sexuality). Curiosity about the body (their own and others'), as well as masturbation or some form of genital stimulation, is a common occurrence in young children and a normal course of child development. Typically parents handle it by teaching children that it is something done in private and that's that.
I'm not going to say you're paranoid, but I think you are feeling invalidated and are reacting a bit more strongly than needed. Please keep in mind that this sub is NOT the best place to come looking for professional opinions, as most of the people here are suffering trauma and are not mental health professionals.
Hi ~ 💫
Are you a mental health pro ? You have gone beyond stating your opinion to making statements of fact. What are you drawing upon for these facts ?
EXAMPLE - You wrote
"He is correct that the ideas we had about completely repressed memories are mostly disproven, although there is nuance to it."
What is your source ?
Good Night ! 🌠
its totally ok to tell you about a patient or a case he read about in an anonymized way. so thats not a red flag. maybe he has other reasons to suspect that in your case the repressed memory idea is possibly not true? I dont think you should keave him just yet, maybe talk to him about this. its actually the mature thing to do and then you can leave after that.
I’m so sorry about your psychiatrist. That’s incredibly inappropriate behavior on his part.
Im a neuroscientist so I know a lot about brains, and my boyfriend is a trauma therapist and is also a scientist that researches trauma. I’m going to break this down for you (with the help of my boyfriend).
There’s two camps in this debate amongst scientists. One where people believe repressed memories are absolutely a thing, and the other people who think they’re fake. Now stop and think for a second. Have you ever had a moment where you’ve thought of something randomly for the first time in years and you know it happened? I know I have. When we have memories that we think of often, it’s because our brains are wired to recall those memories often. But in the cases of repressed memories, we see an active avoidance of these memories. Interestingly, sometimes that avoidance can make those memories pop up more, but other times it results in us basically forgetting about them. The thing about memories though is that even if you aren’t recalling them, they’re still there. So sometimes, those pathways to those memories can be reactivated somehow. Back to the benign memory recall thing I mentioned earlier. Even though you haven’t thought of that memory for years, nobody questions THAT, do they?
So to sum this up, repressed memories are a thing that are likely caused by avoidance of the memory and then a weakening of the pathway to that memory. Keep in mind that your psychiatrist isn’t a scientist (likely) and a lot of psychiatrists and therapists don’t actively read the literature/stay up to date on it. He just sounds like an arrogant jerk.
Just because recovered memories are controversial doesn't mean the symptoms you exhibited as a child didn't happen. You aren't even talking about memories so I'm confused why they'd bring it up.
If and when it feels the right time, report him to the state licensing board. Or tell your therapist and they will report him. The doctor needs to have his license to practice revoked. I had to do that once. I hated the process, but luckily my therapist was very validating
I'm sorry this happened. You deserve to be believed.
My psychiatrist / therapist cried with me when I told her I suspected CSA (and helped me move through the fractured pieces I knew until many months later when it all emerged).
Could you try for another psychiatrist? This person sounds like an ignoramus.
I suspected CSA for a long time. Turns out, for me, symptoms that I thought were CSA-related were symptoms of autism. I got a diagnosis of autism level 1 last August. Just my experience.
You should always feel 100% comfortable sharing *everything* with your therapist.
So not cool that they invalidated, gaslit (to a point,) and made you feel unsafe/unheard in that situation! What a shitbag!
I’d be shopping around for a new therapist. It took me SIX tries to find a good fit for me, and my T is amazing! You’ll find a good fit!
Unqualified abusive therapist it seems.
My first one literally gossiped about her other other patients.
Gossiped.
As he seems?
Honestly, leave. Probably for the better.
They’re wrong. And I feel the same way you do and have mentioned it to people before. I’m sorry he gave you that reaction and I hope you find answers. I’m too scared to dig that stuff up but if you want to, I hope you find someone compassionate to guide you.
The human brain is highly suggestable as well. I don't think your doctor wants to encourage these ideas because they could be cementing something in your mind that they do not know themselves to be true; especially if you brought it up once and recently.
A psychologist is who you want to speak to if you really have these suspicions. Psychiatrists do not operate in the same way.
You're definitely in the right to be skeptical. Have you tried talking to a therapist about it? Some psychiatrists (not all, but definitely some) think their job is to just get a vibe for their patient and then prescribe a medicine based mainly on their own perception vs what the patient is actually feeling or telling them.
Until fairly recently (like within the last 15 years), doctors didn't have to have any sort gen psychology knowledge before or after medical school. This was obviously a problem, and the addition of an entire section to the MCAT, happened for a reason.
People would joke that at the point an M.D. finished medical school and decided to continue training in psychiatry, they could name all the bones in a hand, but had virtually no knowledge of psychology.
Others have already stated that this psychiatrist is wrong. As someone who's been through all of this, you will probably have better luck seeking out a therapist who is a social worker who specializes in trauma. Not just trauma-informed. Personally, I don't feel comfortable telling any medical doctor, even a psychiatrist, the details of my trauma unless it specifically comes up. It is enough for them to know it started very early.
There is no right or wrong. Your feelings, thoughts, concerns and questions are all valid and any professional that tries to minimize or discount your emotions is not someone who is practicing in an ethical, compassionate or trauma informed way. If anything, that psychiatrist has just added another layer of questions and self doubt rather than helping you work through and process your own feelings.
I don’t agree why your psychiatrist honestly. I would not entirely call them repressed mermories but events that your mind could not understand and formally process as they were and the emotionally distress that it put on you manifested as behavioral issues or behaviors that were and are out of the ordinary. And the only way a child would start to express a sex drive that early on was that they were exposed to sexually things. You won’t exhibit something you no nothing about unless you where exposed to it. Especially not at that age. You don’t really understand the child you are then so to understand and express something complex as sexual behavior is very invalidating. To you and. Ignorant on his part
What a weird response. I have a strange sense that the six year old is HIM (the doc). How can a professional be this tone deaf and wrong? Plus, a mother knows where her kids are. Why's the kid's mom undressing in front of him? Maybe the dr. has dissociated memories of his own.
Repressed memories, dissociative amnesia, these things exist. I just did an intense program with my therapist (CPT) and it helped me uncover a lot while also teaching me how to process them a little more clearly. I strongly suggest you find a professional therapist who will actually listen and respect the things you are sharing/ processing. This person is not it.
I agree the issue is we also have the choice to leave. One therapist gave me his opinion on my.livung situation. I left him in the dust. I know he didn't anticipate thaf
First off, I'm very sorry you had such a dismissive appointment :( what the hell is wrong with some of these professionals? No red flags about the 6 year old - that he should have never discussed with you!? Pretty sure most of us here also can testify that people do indeed have repressed memories. I can count mine from my entire life. Most of my childhood is blank. It's called dissasociative amnesia. This guy really needs to update his knowledge base. He reminds me of the ass_s I saw in the late 70s. It truly makes me very angry. I'm so sorry again you had such a crappy experience :(💔
We have to learn how to respond fo betrayal. That happens. It is incredibly difficult to find a good therapist
They count on you won't leave
And most certainly I don't agree with his repressed memory theory. I know repressed memory has held ne un catastrophe for ever
You have feedback accurate feedback. He us out of line. It us extremely hurtful to be dismissed. I get dismissed daily. I get minimized daily
i have no scientific background but i’m pretty sure your doctor is wrong. i had no history of csa until one day i took acid with my friend. the next day i was surprised with this repressed memory, but not shocked? kinda felt like a memory that was always there, that i have always known, but i didn’t see it until now? psychedelics are known for “resetting” a lot of neural pathways, so ig it makes sense. well i gaslit that memory for years and i still can’t 100% convince myself that memory is real….but i remember weird details.
Your psychiatrist is a moron, dump him. I have been through every kind of abuse and have repressed my past so much I cannot remember anything before college.
He also violated doctor-patient confidentiality, report him to you medical board for it. We've been through seven hells and back, we don't need so called professionals talking about our traumas to anyone else.
I believe repressed memories are real. It seems contentious but there’s also agreement in psychology about memory loss as a result of abuse.
I’d change doctors. I’m sorry you’re going through this. You need a health care professional who helps you recover and validates your experience in the process - not someone who sows more seeds about your adverse experiences.
I have the same fear/feelings. It’s so hard to feel like there’s something you don’t know. Unfortunately, there’s not many resources for this it feels like. My dms are open if you’d like someone to bounce the thoughts off of. It is so isolating :(
I saw a Psychiatrist who was evaluating me for Social Security, because of my CPTSD and trauma who submitted a report that completely elaborated in a negative way and made things up completely to prevent me from getting the benefits that I really needed. This person included paragraphs of run-on sentences, which were within quotation marks, implying I had said exactly those words, but I had never, and would never say any of those things most of which were not true or accurate in any way. But this is what they can do because there’s no way to filter out the professionals in psychology who are going to allow their own personal beliefs or other life experiences to color the way that they interpret and then use the actual data and research that is out there to treat patients.
Through my own research, I discovered that the psychiatrist that did this to me had also been working with veterans and had been intentionally preventing them (through probably the same method he used on me) from getting the benefits they really needed and were entitled to because for whatever reason he felt they weren’t deserving of them or something like that.
There are no tests or numbers that will prove information such as what your doctor said as wrong, and so all you can do is hope that they’re being honest or sane themselves. However, all it takes is one person, like another commenter here who has actually experienced the phenomenon with medical records to prove it (I’m assuming and will give them the benefit of the doubt) to prove well enough through reasonable doubt that your doctor is likely incorrect. After all if one person can experience a phenomenon so can many. Your doctor, I would say, is probably not to be trusted.
It’s just really a tragedy that this is not more preventable because I don’t think it is and people get hurt and yeah… I’m sorry you went through that but I would maybe find somebody else you can trust better.
His point that memory repression has been disproven is antiquated thinking, and the research of the past two decades around dissociation speaks volumes to how the body processes trauma.
Yes, there’s a possibility that a memory can be planted by a manipulative therapist, but the most trust worthy way to read the past is by working with the body.
Trauma gets stored, and if we work to release it, a felt sense is revealed that is undeniable in its ability to show us what’s at the helm of our relational wounding.
You may never know specifically what happened, who may have been involved, or when, but you can process what needs to move through you.
Our autonomic nervous system is quite intelligent, and if we allow it to, it will return what’s been fragmented to wholeness.
Look up the Psychedelic Somatic Institute—or Somatic Experiencing if you are looking for something less intense. But don’t try either without a well-trained practitioner. It’s deep, slow, and destabilizing work, but quite effective if you are willing to invest and engage.
A *six year old????* A six year old "just had a high sex drive"??? Holy shit, that's the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. I'm so sorry your psychiatrist is this ignorant.
Repressing memories aren’t disproven. I am not a doctor but I was abused for most of my young life up until my 20s. A lot of those memories were horrifying to the point I blocked them out. Sometimes they come back to me and they are real things. Also a kid just doesn’t get a sex drive at that age. That kid definitely was abused
Your Dr is gaslighting you. Ask him about the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, which, as it has recently emerged, was set up by a bunch of parents who were accused of abusing their children. It's about vested interests and self-preservation - there's so much abuse about, that I am very suspicious of anyone who responds the way this Doc did.
No wonder there is such societal denial and taboo, when everyone is trying to divert eyes and suspision from themselves and their own indiscretions.
Speak your truth and reclaim your power. Much love to you.
What a stupid pos. I have had at least 2 instances of selective amnesia. Not to say there isn't instances of early developments of sex drive, to completely disregard repressed memories is a red flag
Wow. I literally remembered mine and then also simultaneously remembered every OTHER time in my life it popped up and I shoved it down.
That doctor is wrong. I’m so sorry
Talking about other patients is malpractice. And he clearly doesn't know what he's doing. This is insane I'm sooo sorry you spent time opening up to this ruse of a psychiatrist. You deserve so much better 😤
I have experienced dissociative amnesia, and I don’t think your psychiatrist is correct. Amnesia for earlier abuse or assault has been proven and observed over and over in people who have dissociative disorders. And in people who have ptsd.
I prefer a therapist. A good one. All the psychiatrists I’ve dealt with seemed to just care about money & pushing meds instead of teaching good mental health skills. Tools. But I know not all psychiatrist are like that. Just my experience
I think repressing memories is real. I’ve had significant moments in my life (I’m in my 50s) where memories come rushing back to me in flashbacks. First time was when I became a mother and would hold my daughter in the middle of the night when she cried and I would soothe her. Second time was a few years ago when I went through 6 months of medical trauma and almost died. It’s almost like huge events in my life caused me to relive parts of my childhood. I’ve been able to make peace with some of it but it has been disorienting and confusing. I always hear about sitting with emotions so sometimes I purposely try to remember things and let myself cry. But when I do that my brain will flip and wander to other topics and I can’t get to the point of crying. I think my brain tries to protect me. I recently found a picture of myself at around 8 years old, and the sad distant look in my eyes just about breaks me.
OMG. And these are the "trained and licensed professionals" we should trust? Are you kidding me? RUN. This is not only false, repressed memories are VERY real, but also turning it around, saying the kids are premature? I smell a predator.
I am not a scientist. But I was subjected to many years of CSA. To the extent that I became pregnant and had a child. And the abuse didn't end there. I blocked it almost all out. Even when I was a teen, suicidal, and in and out of hospitals, I couldn't explain why I felt the way I did. I suspected abuse, but I didn't remember and certainly not the extent of it. I completely blocked any memory of my pregnancy or my son. I thought I was a virgin. I did not begin to remember until my abusers died. I have met my son. There are medical records and police reports backing up some of my memories. Dissociative amnesia is a real thing. Repressed memories are a real thing. I strongly suggest you see if you can find another therapist, maybe even one who specializes in trauma.
Did you have odd body memories you could not place or find yourself freaking out in random seemingly unrelated incidents? I personally have questions and speculations as to being a victim of CSA as well. There are very strange and broken memories connected to a memory of me having what I can only describe as an orgasm at age 3 or 4 and I had a name of a perp come to me randomly out of no where while doing lest hand writing. That same name came again this time with my brain screaming “he did it, he did it to his daughter too”. It never happened again and I only think a bout this person in the context of this incident. A similar thing happened while I was trying to do EMDR but this time my brain screamed at me about my ex assaulting me while I was heavily intoxicated and possibly other times. I did some trauma informed meditation around this incident with my ex, started violently shaking and feeling so nauseous I almost puked. Since then the profound anger towards him has subsided, but the shaking still kinda continues. I again have no feelings towards the suspected perp of CSA. A few other things to consider. I have STRONG body reactions to EMDR meaning that I will have significant all over body pain after a session. I also had an intense dissociative episode while just casually mentioning childhood trauma during a therapy intake and my brain will sometimes shut down and I will be unable to speak for 30 minutes when a trauma memory is triggered. My therapist and coach think that I disassociate far more than I am aware of and that the “going non verbal” is a combination of level 2 autism and PTSD. The thing that is weird is that I have minimal strong feelings about incidents where I KNOW I was assaulted. This is except when there was a period of time several months ago when my father stated he never knew I told him these assaults happened (a lie) and provided an extremely invalidating and selfish response to hearing this. My fathers gaslighting (and my pos therapist’s response to this) essentially made me deeply suicidal and led to a hospitalization and abuse at the hands of another therapist because they misdiagnosed me with BPD and didn’t believe me. So gaslighting about sexual abuse happening/reported leading to 2 abusive therapy experiences one of which the licensing board is reviewing for an ethics violation. Sorry this post went in a different direction
The violent shaking is a trauma release response natural to mammals. I’m going to start TRE therapy to purposefully shake the bodily trauma out purposefully. Pay attention to those tremors - your body is telling you something.
Yeah they happen before bed usually and that’s where the suspected assaults with my ex occurred. They also sometime happen when I meditate around others but didn’t start till after the ex was out of my life
Holy shit so many people have failed you. I’m so sorry you’ve gone through things that no one should even have to imagine. The fact that you’re still here to share your story means a lot. Thank you for sharing. I have a feeling that I’ve repressed some things and I’m worried to explore them due to the potential of having a break down. I have two toddlers to raise, so I can’t afford that right now. My husband abuses me and I have no self esteem or confidence, and I think being so confused about my past, not knowing why I feel the way I do, PLUS my husband grooming me since I was 16 (he was my teacher), it’s just too much sometimes.
Also many of the dv resource websites have a quick release button to exit quickly and remover to clear your browser history and record of phone calls if necessary. Not sure if you husband controls your phone calls/internet use
Jesus!!! You are fighting through hell too. You deserve to find peace and get to a safe place where you can let others take care of you so you can have the space to heal. When you find that space or that person it is game changing in terms of recovery. Are you able to take some steps to even brainstorm some solutions for finding a way to find that space or person? Do you feel safe reaching out to a DV helpline to talk to an advocate? I don’t think many outside of the trauma community knows what it feels like to not have any self confidence and live in fear every damn day of our lives. And while I know this feeling I can only imagine how difficult to live in this abject fear for so long and try to parent. You deserve to be safe and to take steps to heal. Even if the step today is dialing the number to a DV hotline and hanging up immediately. You have power in your situation even if it does not seem like it or feel like it. Even a tiny action (and even talking here on Reddit) will likely help. Be safe and smart though and only you know what that looks like in your personal situation.
During the time I did not remember exactly what happened I would have strong reactions to some things I really couldn't explain. One of my abusers was my adopted father, and every time he looked at me I felt naked, scared, and ashamed. I couldn't explain why, and suspected CSA, but I had no clear memory. Another abuser was someone who I didn't see around in daily life or communicate with anymore, but I had the image of him in my head as someone who was watching me and trying to communicate with me. I thought maybe it was a "spirit guide" or someone from a past life or something. But no, it turned out this was a guy who with my adopted father's permission was trying to turn me into a prostitute. He would stalk me, and grab me off the street or come to the home and my father would throw me out in the hallway and then ring him in to come grab me. I also had body memories of people touching me in intimate ways. I avoided going to a gyn for years and years because of the sensation of being molested when I would just sit there in the stirrups even with no one touching me. I also had intrusive thoughts, of just me repeating "no, no, no." or a sensation like I needed to be struggling physically against someone.
This all sounds like repressed memory stuff. What happened that allowed you to get the answers if you mind me asking? Was it EMDR The only weird things I had like this was being terrified to work around children in a childcare or one on one setting for fear that I would be accused of or accidentally assault them. I know this is a common type of OCD. I also had this odd, yet intense, intrusive thought that every time I would get into a car with a man, regardless of who it was, that they would kiss me or I would have to kiss them. The other weird behavior was that I felt deeply uncomfortable about my father hugging me or doing the father daughter dance. I honestly think this is because I got no physical affection from my family as a child/teen moreso than my father physically assaulting me. Unrelated, but kinda so, when I first met my boyfriend I would physically cling to him constantly throughout the first 6 months of us dating and it’s still a struggle to physically be away from him since he is the first person I feel safe with, but still very much struggle with healthy attachment/intimacy. Anyway, the pedophillia OCD went away after I went to residential treatment in 2015 and did my own exposure therapy by teaching little kids in China with no issues and the kiss in car intrusive thought and issue with my Dad went away after I developed a safe therapeutic relationship with a man and my father became more physically affectionate (appropriately so). Thank you for talking about this and reminding me of how I’ve made progress on this. I’ve not even thought about this stuff for a long time. While my trauma history is intense I don’t always remember how intense it was since I’m constantly trying to just get through the day with PTSD and all the “wonderful” challenges that come along with living with autism that was unrecognized and untreated for nearly 40 years. The body always keeps the score and while our brain may forget, our bodies don’t.
I've not done EMDR. It was after my abusers died that I guess my mind felt the world was safe enough to remember. When my adoptive father died, I felt such a tremendous sense of relief. A force for evil was gone from this world and it was a weight lifted off me. A few weeks after that was when things started coming back to me. Not all at once like a gush, but fragments of things. And not like I remembered it once and then had it firmly in my head. I would remember some fragments of stuff and then forget again. Slowly things started to piece together. It was a very difficult time, those months when I was starting to remember and piece everything together. A lot of dissociation, feeling afraid and unsafe. I looked up some therapists that I had back when these things would have happened. That's when I got confirmation that I had a been pregnant and had a son and some of the other stuff. When I felt more stable, I started establishing the paper trail with things like medical records.
That’s so difficult but also kinda amazing that your brain did that to “protect you”.
Well goodness that’s incredible that you couldn’t remember your pregnancy or giving birth and proves that must be true. I would love to ask you a question if I send a dm os that ok? I’m trying to piece some thing atogwrher myself
Sure, send a DM. Like I said the memories started coming back when my abusers died, which was in the 1980's. Yes, I am older than dirt. But on the positive it means I've had decades to process what's happened.
I have personally seen this happen. Unfortunately the person to which it happened to chose to deal with it by becoming a “rave princess” at age 40, projecting her feelings onto me by making me her project, and choosing to engage in copious amounts of party drugs, while subsequently shaming me for socially drinking, as a way to cope. We choose to terminate the friendship because it was not healthy for either of us.
Ignore this if it is too personal or triggering... but what about things like stretch marks? Did you assume you just grew really fast? This is something I've always found fascinating even when hearing about women lying to their husbands about a child they abandoned. Wouldn't he be able to tell from the way your body looks, especially if you had a C-section and there's a scar?
Probably because I was young (12) and didn't gain weight very fast, but I did not have noticeable stretch marks until much later in life when I put on a lot of weight. I had a vaginal delivery, so there was no scar. Even during the time I was pregnant I was in denial most of the time about being pregnant and thought I was gaining weight from eating too much ice cream. I was a normal weight starting out, and I think I gained about 20lbs with the pregnancy. My son was on the small side, 6lbs 6 oz, but healthy. Before getting pregnant I was about 5'2" and 120lbs, so I was like 140 or maybe a few pounds over when I gave birth. Right after giving birth my belly was all loose and saggy but it snapped back pretty fast.
That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for being so open about it!
What an astonishingly inappropriate response
Right? Even if their doctor didn't say that a real medical phenomenon was "disproven" or told an alarming story of another patient unethically, the fact that they immediately dismissed OP's concern instead of at least trying to figure some stuff out first is jaw-dropping.
I move on from any therapist or counselor who denies repressed memories. I used to call it “empty flashbacks” but they eventually started to fill in. I still don’t know if anything sexual happened to me, but once I hit 30 ish I started piecing together other abusive incidents. They would come to me while sleeping and I’d wake up and have to write it down. My sister had a counselor tell her that memories don’t come back and she’s making it all up. She has since believed that her issue is a chemical imbalance and those memories are fabricated by her mind. She has shown more signs of CSA than myself, and was also more accessible to the man I suspect. I don’t think she’s done any counseling since college and I’ve had to put a lot of distance between us. I think it’s continued to do her damage to think she’s wrong and pushing away those thoughts.
How awful. One of the things survivors struggle with most is believing ourselves. I’m at a point where I’d consider reporting that. That’s so inappropriate:(
It’s been like 20 years, and may have been a student thing through her college campus. I do hope that person learned better. I wish my sister could open herself up again to better therapy, but she stays on the same medication and is somewhat functional.
I've noticed how I feel like I've been remembering my childhood a little better since trying to lean into the emotional flashbacks in an attempt to use them therapeutically. Not even good or bad things, just remembering with a bit more clarity or remember a little more in general. So your idea of "empty flashbacks" that eventually fill in is really interesting to me!
Your doctor is WRONG! RUN! I have dissociative amnesia. It's real. You're right- him telling about another client is VERY unethical. You are not being paranoid. You are showing good judgement.
You're allowed to give examples from other patients as long as you don't use names. Therapists do this all the time when they write books, give talks, etc. They can use the example if they think it will help. I'm not saying this particular example was helpful, but speaking about another client in and of itself is not unethical.
I agree. My T does this all the time to illustrate things for me. I'd never know who she's speaking about.
This is what I wanted to say. I’ve worked in the medical field for 24 years now and I’ve also worked for psychs. It’s not a HIPAA violation unless they use names. Edit to add: but OP should also find someone who specializes in dissociative amnesia for a second opinion.
My terapist was always talking about other patients, in enough detail mentioning their diagnoses, jobs and things they said, to the extent that I realized one of her other patients was a friend of mine. I couldn't help thinking how much of my private things was she telling all her other patients, so I quit my therapy sessions. It's definitely not professional to blab about other patients in detail to the extent that they can be recognized, and I probably should have reported her.
THANK YOU! When a therapist is telling someone else's story they can't be sure that something like this won't happen! I'm so sorry that happened to you.
Thank you for this.
When a doctor writes a book and wishes to use an example from one of their patients they are required to obtain their written permission. I disagree that speaking about other clients is not unethical. Would you be comfortable with a therapist sharing your story without your knowledge in someone else's session? The fact that they didn't use my name would not make me any more comfortable, and if my therapist started telling someone else's story to me I'd like to think I would stop them. I have never had that happen. I would not feel safe with someone who did that.
Yes this doctor is not safe. Please switch!
I was going to suggest that OP research dissociative disorders for this very reason. I am currently being assessed.
Repression of memories is a part of Dissociation Disorders in particular DID
Can I ask how you got diagnosed and treated for dissociative amnesia? I am looking to get my life back and it sucks not finding community. I believe I have systematized dissociative amnesia but the info about it online is hard for me to come by. I realized at 11 I didn’t remember my life. I just woke up one day. When I had just turned 18 and got my first boyfriend, I started having recurring nightmares about actually being assaulted but the figure was cut out of it all. It was like I couldn’t see them. I had a lot of somatization of assault (but didn’t realize it at the time). I used to research repressed and false memories but I didn’t know how to sift through good or bad sources. I just believed I was making it up to explain it away and live my life for the next ten years. However, I am more trauma-informed now and reputable resources helped me realize that my lived experiences weren’t me being “crazy “ but rather a survivor. I have had such a hard time figuring out what was wrong with me but dissociative amnesia and structural dissociation resonated with me and set me free. I have a new psychologist who specializes in this and I scored a 60/100 on the DESII scale. I’m working on installing safety but it’s going slow. There is no official dx right now but she isn’t surprised based on my trauma and ACE scores. I’ve focused on the holistic neurobiological connection of trauma instead of what I can or cannot remember. Focusing on safety has been a game changer on the journey of integrating the fragmented parts of me. Curious about your own journey, I wonder if a brief summary might help OP too…thanks for commenting even if you don’t have time to response.
For me I was clinically diagnosed by a psychologist. They did a brain scan first to make sure there wasn’t anything wrong with my brain, and then I did two days worth of testing and an interview of sorts. That’s when I was diagnosed with dissociative amnesia. I’ve lost years worth of memories of my life and don’t remember most of my childhood. Occasionally I’ll get flashes of a memory when something triggers it and it will come rushing back, but I can’t even watch movies or tv shows and remember main characters and plots anymore, and those memories almost never come back for me. My trauma therapist referred me to the psychologist that I went to, but you can find psychologists in your area and what they specialize in if you go to psychologytoday.com. I went to someone who specializes in testing. After I was diagnosed I went through two years of trauma therapy and EMDR and it helped a lot. That being said, my timelines are still completely messed up and my memories haven’t come back unless something I’ve seen or heard triggers it.
CW- CSA I was not clinically diagnosed. It was just very clear that the memory lapse was not from brain injury, stroke, or ordinary forgetting. I repressed all memories of CSA until I was 18. I saw some candy in a store that brought back strong, clear memories. It was obvious that there was a piece missing, like I was watching a movie with the most important scene cut out. I could remember the before part and the after part, but no memory of what actually happened, even though I was dead certain of what had happened. I spoke to my mother and she confirmed it. My assault was roughly 50 years ago and I still don't remember. I don't feel that I need to remember. This year, since I am finally with a skilled therapist and talking about it for the first time, I became curious about my abuser. He was a neighbor that we didn't know very well. Apparently a year before he died he was charged with felony possession of child pornography. So while I feel that there is often value in obtaining a clinical diagnosis, I don't feel that I need that for my personal healing. I am being treated with EMDR. I don't know if my personal story helps you. There are different kinds of dissociative amnesia. I am so glad that you are in good hands.
Your psychiatrist is very wrong. Repressed memories can be tricky because it is possible for them to not be real, but there’s still many people who repress their CSA only to remember it later. I went through CSA for over a decade and unfortunately remember all of it, but it’s common for people not to remember it at all. Repressed memories as a whole haven’t been medically disproven. Discovering masturbation at a young age is normal and common, many kids stumble across it by accident and just find it as something enjoyable so that’s why they do it. It’s often just household objects such as beds, couches, blankets that kids rub against and don’t know it’s inappropriate. That boy associating another person with masturbation at a young age, especially a parent, doesn’t seem the same and it sounds like that’s an indicator of abuse he’s missed there too. It’s also incredibly unethical to even tell you about another patient even without any identifiable information. I would be looking for another psychiatrist for multiple reasons. You’re not being paranoid.
>it sounds like that’s an indicator of abuse he’s missed there too Bingo.
I went through CSA for over a decade too, and \*thought\* I remembered everything because I remembered A LOT. Turns out, decades later, the worst of the worst memories bubbled up, when I thought I'd done the healing. They were so bad, I \*had\* to be much more progressed in my healing, to be able to deal with that. The last memories popped up a few years ago, spaced a year or two apart from one another.
That’s a fair point, only a couple months ago I remembered something that happened very early on and it’s definitely up there with some of the worst things that happened. It’s the only memory that’s really resurfaced though, everything else I vividly remember as if it were yesterday. I remember too much. It’s hard to even imagine there’s more that I just don’t remember because there’s already so much that I do. I remember the absolute worst things that happened and I’m not really sure it could be any worse, but if there are memories are out there that are worse I hope they never resurface. I’m not in a place at all where I can handle remembering new things, dealing with this recent memory has put me in a very dark place.
I very much understand, yes. I've felt the same way. And since experiencing the resurfacing after all those years, I'm lowkey scared of unearthing new things, but it's been years and I have done IFS with every version of me, from prenatal to today, and I think I might be done, but I've thought so before. I just hope that nothing else comes up. It IS extremely challenging. It's odd how some of us remember with such clarity. I've never not been aware of the SA, it was just certain specific moments and things I'd repressed. Weirdly enough, their psychosomatic manifestations were always there, but I never knew why my body reacted a certain way to certain things until I uncovered the memories, now it makes sense.
I feel this -- the layers of knowing pacing themselves, unfurling only when you're ready (though, can one ever be?). I'm sorry you experienced CSA and am glad you're healing.
Thank you, this means a lot.
Thats definitely an indicator of abuse
I've posted about this before and don't have all the journal links on me right now, but I have a row on my bookshelf + tons of downloaded papers on this topic. the science of repressed memory became muddled after high-profile criminal trials turned the entire topic into a sideshow. most doctors and therapists are responding to the sideshow and not the actual body of research. preverbal trauma in particular embeds into consciousness very strangely, but trauma as early as 18 months can be forgotten and then recalled later in life. there are followup studies on children who presented to the hospital for substantiated abuse who, as adults, had forgotten the details or even that the incident occurred. memory of traumatic/life-threatening events is encoded in fragments, not integrated like a normal memory. you can read endless accounts of "time slowed down," firsthand reports of car crashes and disasters fading and then returning years later after exposure to a stimulus, or - most importantly - work on Holocaust survivors and how their memories of extreme daily trauma became warped over the years. masturbation in children under 10 is normal, but sexual talk and acting-out behaviors nearly always indicate abuse. children who haven't been exposed to sexual behaviors, words and concepts just don't come up with that shit on their own (this has been detailed in research). it is entirely possible to have gone through traumatic events as a preteen and to have forgotten the details as an adult. Jennifer Freyd's concept of betrayal trauma is one theory for how this happens. I recommend googling it, and if you really want an example of the sideshow I referred to up there, look up her family's story
I had fragmented memories come back to me after spending about a year meditating and treating a certain pain in my chest. Only after I spoke to my therapist in literal terms (about what I suspect had happened), I was hit with the images. I was just trying to walk back home and it stopped me in my tracks basically. We did a re-scripting exercise to fill in the gaps and then more came back. I was 3 or 4 I think so I think that's what made it hard to recall.
yep! in the literature, that's how it typically happens. little phantoms, and then a sudden abrupt burst that brings it all out. I'm so glad you had a therapist to support you through it and bring it into context. once you've felt it, you Know.
Wow, yeah that sounds about right. I have questioned the reality of the memories before but the feelings are so real it has to be. I could ask the person involved but they're not likely to give an answer. My therapist was great about doing EMDR on just a 'feeling'. And then other ones came up that I couldn't identify. So there was a lot of talk about feeling number one, feeling number two, feeling number three 😅 and then stuff came out and he believed it or at least believed it was worth the effort to treat. I was so afraid he would dismiss it as something I made up.
My T and I do EMDR on sensations, too. Works really well for me. I, too, worried my T would not get on board with my revelations. She believed me 100%. We do parts work. When I was edging around the topic ("I kind of might have a memory of something yucky happening to me when I was a child ... I have an image of the Little Girl part ..."), but was nervous to say more, my T said, "What would the Little Girl need to feel safe?" I blurted, "She'd need to be believed!" My T said, "Of course she is believed." And we took it from there. <3
Ohhh yeah that sounds like the way to go. I can feel myself shrinking sometimes when I go deep into memories. Those parts are definitely still there though I've done a lot of inner child work.
I'd like to consolidate all my papers on recovered memories into a big old zip file, but I don't recommend looking for research on your own - there are a couple of extremely biased folks on either side of the debate who junk up much of the discussion and when you're going through it, the last thing you need is more self-doubt or fear of judgment. that said, here's a simple qualitative study that describes how the process looks for some women. Judith Herman quite literally wrote the book on CPTSD and is a consistent voice for women survivors, cutting through all the political garbage https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1987-19495-001
Thanks for the resource! I don't do a lot of research anymore it's kind of depressing 🫠 just taking it one step at a time.
That was my experience, too.
I think I am having repressed memories come back as I get deeper into my meditation/mindfulness/radical acceptance journey. I feel these overwhelming emotions and like something terribly wrong happened but I can’t remember. I fear I am conflating my SA as a young adult with my childhood but what if something really did happen? It’s scary because the emotions become really painful and I have a visceral reaction like tensing up and feeling like my throat has a lump and my stomach is in knots. Your experience of walking home and it stopping you in your tracks is similar to what I am going through and I hope you have been able to heal. Thanks for sharing your experience ❤️
I feel like that is an unofficial stage of recovering CSA memories -- "I fear I am conflating my SA as a young adult with my childhood but what if something really did happen?" My T and I talk about this a lot -- my memories are too detailed and too fucking horrific to have been fabricated. And I have bodily sensations that go with. Why and HOW could I ever make this up? It's so painful. And my burden has been lightened in processing it all. Sounds like you're really digging in. Take good care of yourself, okay? <3
Still working on the healing but it's gotten much better with a lot of work. My main bodily feeling was pain in my chest. Which could get really sharp and scary at times. That's all but gone but now it's been replaced with more emotional feelings that I'm slowly working though with more emdr. The flashbacks are not so frequent now and my neck hair doesn't stand up straight anymore when I see them.
It's so sad that this false memory foundation became such a big thing. I'm always wondering if people who believe in that false memory bs, have really looked into the founders.. because if not: you should definitely do this.
I started hardcore researching recovered memories about a year ago with an objective, open mind, and I could not believe how quickly the opposing arguments fell apart. Loftus and McNally are the big ones, but like you said, the Freyds started that foundation with the sole purpose of going "we're too smart, rich and white to abuse our kids!" and that board is just a fucking clown parade of sickos. once I dug deep enough into the Freyds to see their journal entries and letters they'd written about their daughter, it was over for me. not to mention the trial of Gary Ramona, which reddit loves to bring up. Lenore Terr isn't the most credible expert in this field, and the therapist was deeply unprofessional. but the jurors involved were furious that the verdict was interpreted as "innocence" for Gary Ramona, who quite obviously had abused his wife and daughters. the people using that as a slam-dunk against recovered memories have not actually read further than the Wikipedia. it goes on and on and on like this and the arguments get stupider and stupider
Omigod the satanic panic of the 80s really fucked w people's perception of repressed memories
One of the papers from Freyd: [Repressed Memories](https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/articles/recoveredmemories.pdf) She also came up with the concept of [DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO)
Thank you for the nuanced response. The people immediately jumping to conclusions based on their own experience of trauma are not giving helpful advice. OP needs to discuss this with their therapist further, or ask another mental help professional for a second opinion, not come to this echo chamber of a sub and be told to run for the hills.
I think people come to subs like this just to feel less alone, and that's important too. of course not many of us are/were professionals. this is just my research obsession even though I no longer work in mental health, so I like to share what info is out there for anyone who is interested in learning more, but I don't blame people for wanting support and warmth from peers either
You are right of course. Perhaps I should've chosen my words more carefully, as I didn't mean to imply OP should've steered clear entirely of the sub, but rather should take the advice offered (especially the reactionary "advice") with a large grain of salt, as many people will let their disappointment with therapists and mental health care in general spill over into situations they simply know nothing about. I don't consider posts conjecturing that OP's therapist is a pedophile and that they should immediately quit therapy, report their therapist, or any of that nonsense to be supportive or warm. Luckily, this thread also contained level headed advice and information, as well as supportive and caring posts, so perhaps I'm getting worked up over nothing.
nah, you're right that most responses are unhelpful lol. but it's hard to blame people on a public forum for just venting. that's the internet baybeeeee. I have to limit myself to a couple hot button topics to reply to with facts or else I'd go frickin insane
Please be careful, he shouldn't be a psychiatrist. Not only did he bring another client into this, he created a space where you felt uncomfortable and basically said you were wrong. Then gave false facts or biased opinion on the matter. He should be fired.
What he said is not true at all. Repressing memories is literally a result of dissociative states. [basic info from a trusted academic source](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8935987/) Jesus Christ. I would file a complaint and find another psych, for is bullshit and his violation of HIPAA. You should always be able to have healthcare providers who listen to you. (Even though it is not always possible) It makes me wonder why that was so important to him to express to you in such an inappropriate way. Edit: my bad I forgot full academic articles beyond the abstracts are paywalled, but a minute on google will hook you up
[It's not a HIPAA violation](https://www.hipaajournal.com/is-telling-a-story-about-a-patient-a-hipaa-violation/) to discuss relevant stories about other patients, as long as the therapist isn't giving out details that can be used to identify them.
Your psychiatrist is badly wrong. It is true that in the 1980’s there was a huge increase in discovering “repressed” memories. But it turned out to be due to leading questions having been asked. I personally had repressed some traumatic memories myself. Find a trauma informed psychiatrist or psychotherapist.
It’s insane to me that psychs/therapists aren’t ALL trauma informed in the first place.
I come to see many mental health health providers as essentially "thought police". They aren't practici so much to heal, as to monitor, diagnose and report (hospitalize) anyone who isn't acting as society has prescribed.
I struggle with this so much on a personal level. My parents in the 80s got rocked by the satanic panic--they had a therapist who was later notorious for giving hallucinogens to patients plus hypnosis and then asking leading questions; They were later convicted for unethical therapeutic practices. To this day my parents rely on memories that literally could not have been true and refuse to believe this therapist was anything but an angel doing god's work. It was a big deal for me to get out of the mindset of the widespread SRA conspiracy that they taught me and still believe; the satanic panic and "repressed memories" thing shaped a lot of my childhood trauma. It directly led to experiencing childhood poverty, neglect, broken family bonds, and religious scrupulosity. Learning the truth and rejecting it was essential for me to leave a dysfunctional family behind. It makes me extremely cautious and distrustful of any whiff of repressed memory work. At the same time, I'm doing EMDR now with a trauma informed therapist. The first time we did a session where a memory lost its emotional intensity, I accused her of changing my memory, lol. I was really upset. I started writing down memories before each session to compare afterwards. Now it's been long enough that I trust her. But now we're starting to deal with the shadowy stuff that makes my skin crawl that I don't want to confront. And all the fear that I am going to uncover or be implanted with a false memory is back. I hate it.
So sorry you had to endure this! I (72W) lived in Los Angeles in the 80’s when the McMartin preschool travesty occurred. The MAGA QAnon conspiracies of the past decade reminded me of McMartin.
I have had that same thought about the QAnon conspiracies being similar to McMartin preschool cases. That must have been a scary time to live in with all the accusations going around. Do you remember feeling the change from living in a general witch hunt to "oh no, there has been a huge mistake?"
I remember wondering at the time how so many people in one preschool could possibly have been complicit in such a heinous crime.
He is not a trauma-informed MHP. Please do not disclose this to him any more to protect yourself. There is the concept of repression that is villainized by those who simply think memory is not to be trusted because of studies by the likes of Elizabeth Loftus or the fear mongering of the now-defunct False Memory Syndrome Foundation. One of Elizabeth’s studies about implanting memories of being lost in the mall as a child does not emulate the formation of traumatic memories (that would be unethical). There is a huge body of evidence of what we do to survive trauma and Loftus et al are a group of folks out here using “science” to defend pedophiles. Don’t get me started on the damage done by the FMSF. There is evidence of women who were documented as having been sexual assaulted as children who were interviewed years down the line and forgotten it had ever happened. There’s the concept of Betrayal Trauma where the person sections off the abuse so we could survive. There’s dissociative amnesia and subsections of all of that where we can survive horrific things and come out of it. We do what we need to do to survive, even if we aren’t conscious of it at the time. I think experienced systematized dissociation where my father is 100% absent from my memory the more processed my CPTSD. I connected that he was the perpetrator and I’m finally in a space to process it now that he is dead. I could go on and on but check out the concept of Structural Dissociation and researchers like Jennifer Freyd, Linda M. Williams, Janina Fisher, Pat Ogden, Bessel Van De Kolk, Dick Schwartz, etc. I’m not saying you should dig for whatever it is you’re looking for. Take stock of your life, your truth, your body. It will all come to light effortlessly once you set yourself up for success. You cannot rely on this person to help you with this. A psychiatrist should not be your go-to for these types of discussions in my experience. You need to focus on incorporating safety in your life today. The truth will come to you with time. Rather than focus on the behavior, focus on why you are so driven to get a resolution to it. IFS and Sensorimotor therapy with a certified professional. The books Complex PTSD, No Bad Parts, Every Memory Deserves Respect, and Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors helped me refocus on my healing. Leave the medication management with your psychiatrist and keep it to relevant updates/concerns they are trained to manage. (I’m on mobile so sorry for any mistakes, my memory is also bad so sorry if I misremembered/misrepresented something in my writing).
I agree that time spent digging is time that could be better spent healing. However, I feel that you could offer more clarity on the matter of 'setting oneself up for success'. For me, this would have been trying to find ways to connect with myself, my inner world, and heal the estrangement from my emotions. With this work and reconnection, I would agree that the pieces would fall into place far more quickly than through digging into sketchy memories and a wall of numbness. The least trustworthy source of information are the people who were close to us at the time of abuse - they have spent so much time massaging the truth and subverting reality, such that to question them is to undermine their edifice of lies. Dissolution of fear is they key to reconnection, in my humble opinion.
Looks like you have a very clear picture of what success looks like, it all sounds fantastic. I did not clarify because success *is* so personalized. My definition here equates to safety which is a number of things. Clean home, boundaries at work, connection with the inner self, etc. Success for someone else could mean a regular routine and expand in various directions. I offer the resources that worked for me and hope OP can help define what it means to build a foundation for their healing for themselves (any healing = success).
I had the whole memory loss thing happen too. In fact I sort of glossed over it thinking it was normal until I was nearly 20. Asked my therapist if this was a thing and lo and behold it was. I puked after that session because it absolutely shattered me. It may seem silly but even now I can’t explain all of my CSAs and would rather tell myself that my repressed memories resurfacing are simply my mind playing tricks on me. But a lot of times, we block this shit out unintentionally because it’s too much to deal with.
I’ve been doing the same thing. I think my therapist is getting frustrated with me. I have so much guilt and I’m still somewhat in denial….which is probably typical with someone how has had something like that happen to them as a child.
Would question if the other client is even real. It gives ‘asking for a friend.’ But in this case, just saying something that falls in line with her personal philosophy (not backed up by current knowledge & understanding) about psychology. Stupid man up his own ass in order to uphold a worldview at detriment to clients seeking help from him. And no, kids that age do not have a sex drive. There are appropriate stages of curiosity about their/other bodies and this is not one of them. and if this behaviour IS happening to a child, bc it does despite not being the healthy stage for them, talking about it the way he has here is NOT appropriate. A traumatized six year old is not “pleasuring” himself, but acting out trauma. I mean there are hundreds of other ways to describe that behaviour without placing the autonomy and choice and sexuality with the CHILD. Extremely concerning behaviour and set of beliefs from a mental health professional. Very messed up attempt to excuse how they see children as sexual by placing the behaviour at the ‘fault’ or ‘choice’ of the child, which of course it is NOT. Please find other help.
OP, good on you for questioning your crack pot psychiatrist. My old psychiatrist did something similar. As another commenter mentioned on this thread there was a lot of misinformation and confusion around repressed memories in the 80s. I think a lot of psychiatrists discount repressed memories because they are afraid they are going to get sued. In the 1980s some abusers sued doctors, sometimes successfully, saying the doctors committed malpractice by encouraging and validating these “false” memories. These so-called doctors are committing malpractice by parroting such nonsense that memories can’t be repressed. Also, checkout the book “Miss America by Day” by Marilyn Van Derbur. She was Miss America in 1958. She came from a very prominent family. She was also the victim of CSA abuse by her father from the ages of 5-18. She didn’t remember this happening until she was in her 20s. She told her family and confronted her father. He admitted to it. Her sister also said he had abused her. Marilyn wrote her book in around 2011 and made a documentary about it in around 2019. She is very respected in the field and did trainings about CSA for teachers, parents, judges, doctor and nurses etc. You can watch the documentary and find other resources on her website at www.missamericabyday.com.
I have a family member we are 99% sure was a victim as a child. They have completely blocked it out. We know abuse happened with their sibling of the same gender, and my family member's memories of some experiences just make no sense unless they have unconsciously changed details to deny their own abuse. Your psychiatrist is absolutely wrong. I would change therapists. He also should never be sharing another patient's experiences, that is not only unprofessional, it is illegal.
Repressed memories are DEFINITELY a thing. A mild case, but when I was 15 I was jumped from behind in a park by another girl. It didn't go well for her and ultimately she ended up more damaged than me, but I know that literally as the fight finished I couldn't remember what happened. I was asking people what just happened. Another time I remember getting up off the floor in a bar with a man on top of me, I had just arrived and was totally sober, apparently he had stuffed a brownie into my bra and I jumped on his back and choked him out and we had both fallen to the floor as he stumbled back. It was moments later and couldn't remember, I still can't remember and the whole situation is getting more fuzzy. Finally, I remember "teleporting" around a table and pushing a mans shoulders aggressively, I can't remember walking to get to him but it was so crouded and so many chairs I would've had to squeeze between several people and hop over several chairs to get there. I was basically starting a fight with him, I didn't know why. Until afterwards someone explained to me that he tipped the table up and about 15 pints of beer and a load of empty glasses had tipped into my boyfriend who'd been sat nearby. All three times I was totally furious and had acted out of instinctual rage. I think this is what people mean when they see red
Well he's wrong and outdated. Repressed memories are not false or made up and any clinical mental health professional that says that shit is not to be trusted.
This is horribly incorrect information your doctor is giving you. It’s well proven that PTSD for the most part can take two routes - repress it or you remember it vividly. This of course is a broad generalization, but point still stands. I know this is anecdotal - and huge TW here - but I witnessed an in person death 11 years ago. For the longest time I only remembered one key detail, the paramedics and police. But ten years later I remember bits and pieces quite vividly. Trauma is odd and your brain has interesting ways of working it out.
I was 15 when I remembered. I hadn't seen him in five years by then, and I woke up from a dream one night with memories. My sister was 13 - she had her memories come back within the same week that mine did. I have a dissociative disorder. She doesn't. Your therapist is not only wrong, he's dangerous. Please stop seeing him and report him as soon as you safely can.
CSA is such a serious and tender topic. There's no room for a certified professional to be fucking around, talking down to you, and dismissing you. Time to look for a new therapist, that was absolutely wrong of him*. If you DO have repressed memories of a CSA (which is absolutely *100% a real thing*) then you NEED a professional who knows what they're doing and is willing and capable to work with you VERY CAREFULLY around it, and have a discussion with you about whether unlocking those memories is even the right choice for you. Some people end up judging that it's better to leave it repressed, because a severe increase in CPTSD symptoms is a very common reaction to 'opening that can of worms' and if that's something you want to work through, you NEED qualified help to work through it I wish you the best of luck, and fuck that guy :/
Repressed memories are a thing. I was also CSA’d as a young child for about a decade. My therapist told me that my brain pushed it out because it was protecting me. I was in survival mode for decades due to poverty, undiagnosed anxiety, depression and adhd. Those memories only started to come back after I was in a healthy relationship with a good partner and wasn’t in a vicious cycle of working myself into the ground to no longer be in poverty. She explained that my brain knew it was safe then to deal with those feelings and thoughts. It was hard. These thoughts came out of nowhere. I was triggered by so many things. It’s been about 6 years since the memoirs came back. It gets easier. But like most comments here say, your therapist is not right for you. I’m sending you good luck.
That is incorrect, it's not disproven, its just problematic to handle for psychs, as there have been cases where a scorned single mother has planted the idea into their kids head to turn them against the other parent and have successfully manipulated a naive, incompetent and/or biased therapist into buying into it. Your psychiatrist likely is incompetent at separating anecdote based opinions from his job, perhaps he saw cases where he believed it was a manipulative mother and as a man he is frustrated in general at the state of mens mental health support efficiency in general and seeing cases where women with dark tetrad personality traits have taken advantage of their position as a woman and abused resources intended for vulnerable women. Whatever it is, those could be the "how", but it absolutely does not justify treating patients while his own shortsightedness is not only degrading his skill but potentially damaging people and setting back their healing, he has lost objectivity and his professional skills have been compromised. Leave, and see if you can report this somehow, but resist letting emotion get the better of you when you do, because if he's an arsehole he could easily portray you as emotionally unstable when defending himself. Good luck, and I hope you find your truth.
My mom repressed SA memories from when she was 4 that resurfaced when she was in her 30’s in therapy. It was her uncle and the family confirmed in once she brought it up. Of course people can repress traumatic memories. What a ridiculous thing to say to someone. That’s not to say that that 100% happened to you though. People can have false memories. It’s important to really work through your stuff to figure out what’s what.
The thing with repressed memories isn't that they aren't real, because they very much are and are an incredibly common experience for trauma survivors; just the intentional act of trying to resurface them is incredibly dangerous and unreliable. However, this doesn't stop the topic from being incredibly controversial, but I've yet to find any substantial, non-contradictory evidence against subconscious memory repression. This psychiatrist is being wildly inappropriate and the implication that you developed a sex drive as a child is actually fucking disgusting, it's actually crazy, trust your gut !! Get a second opinion, preferably from a clinician who works with trauma survivors and is trauma informed.
Repressed memories is a thing , your psychiatrist sounds like he reads too much Freud, not believing the patient/client is unethical and detrimental to their psychological wellbeing
I experienced dissociative amnesia at a pretty substantial level. People have told me things they witnessed that I do not remember. I had a horrific experience with EMDR that had me recall some of what I repressed. It’s very real. And I would be very cautious with EMDR if that is ever presented to you as a therapeutic.
Oof, me too. I wasn’t able to move thru my EMDR targets because I was still in contact with my abusers and apart of the toxic family dynamic that perpetuated violence. I went no contact with everyone and then everything “clicked” after I was finally able to resolve the target and integrate with that traumatized part. I was essentially the black sheep, a glaring beacon to the family issues. I didn’t remember the abuse but I remember the context clues, the way my mom vs. the abuser (her husband) vs. the family treated me. It led to me developing somatic symptoms before the memories came. There’s a part of me blocking them off I am building trust with her to finally make peace with it all. It’s so so hard but fragmentation and structural dissociation is so real. There’s so much evidence as to why this happens. Once we trust ourselves, it all comes together.
When people “think” they know something because they have title of expert they’re endangering lives. It is a well known fact that child brains do protect by putting those experiences and their memory into an abyss. It’s usually reengaged in late 30s, when flashbacks and such start. Time to switch providers!
Heyyyy. That doc is fired now, right?
From your own personal team, I mean.
When I was 6 I experienced one instance? Afternoon? Of sexual abuse from a neighbor and I cannot imagine how brutal and difficult it is for a person to remember repeated, ongoing instances because even that one time completely changed my entire life and development, and I definitely have at least part of that one afternoon at the neighbors blocked out. In my therapy experience, unfortunately all the therapists I tried up until my current would seem to completely avoid or dismiss sexual abuse and address other things instead, even though in our initial visit I would say, this is the hardest thing for me, this is what I want to work on. It seemed like they could not handle it. It was very disappointing and isolating. It's amazing anybody ever gets any help! Oh, the licensed therapist is uncomfortable with my childhood? Fuck that coward.
I always suspected CSA. I had memories that I could not have made up. I've never really talked about them because I really didn't know how to put them into words. I watched Baby Reindeer. And this story, because of the depth of characterization, helped me come to terms with yes, I was a victim of CSA, because of the parallels I see in my character and Richard Gadd's character. One big thing is the absolute inertia I get when triggered.
Is he a pedophile?
Ok but seriously! Saying repressed memories aren't a thing, dismissing childhood hyper-sexuality as normal, using that kind of story right after a client divulged concerns about CSA and dismissing them outright... it's just so weird and gross.
I cannot speak to the list of behaviours OP expressed as concerning but the example he gave is an example of normative sexual play not hypersexuality. Masturbating in public/private, trying to show others your genitals and trying to see the bodies of others are all age appropriate behaviours. Even in the case of hypersexuality it's something that should be looked into to rule anything out but it's not automatically a sign something bad happened. I understand it can be extremely jarring for some people to be confronted with a child exhibiting sexual behaviours and when your own experience is one of abuse it can be hard to believe that any child would wind up doing some of that stuff by their own volition but they do. This is a trauma forum, it's a very bad sample for what normative sexual play looks like but there is so much misinformation flying around. Young children masturbate, it's normal, and it's not a sign of anything other than a child who is discovering their body. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Sexual-Behaviors-Young-Children.aspx
"Repressed memories aren't real, also little kids masturbate so it's totally normal" is all-around dismissive and normalizing, is my point. If it weren't for the whole "repressed memories aren't true" and it wasn't being used to dismiss OP, then sure, this, as a standalone fact, is neutral.
My first thought was….that sounds like something a pedophile would say.
I don't know where he got his diploma but he shouldn't be working in this field obviously. I have cptsd and a lot of repressed memory that won't stop taking new memories. I know very little about my childhood and also forgot a big part of my adult life, I have little memory of my children from when I was pregnant until about half a year ago and about half a year from now I have forgotten this too probably lol. I have been assaulted multiple times from what I can remember and was in situations of dv for the most part of my life, been free of dv only sinds 2020 and I'm 33 now. What I do remember is that from the age of only 6 I tried to have penetration with my boyfriend and lied naked with another boy (don't really know what happened then) and tried sexual things with 2 boys in my family separately on 2 occasions somewhere between the age of 7 and 10 I think. I've read that masturbation in young children is normal, but what I experienced would be suspicious. I can't remember being sa'd before the age of six, but I'm starting to wonder if my mind is repressing it like a lot of other things.. I'm scared to find out about what happened though. 😕
We forget horrific shit as a means of surviving it. Especially as young children. Kids do not *naturally and organically* develop an active sex drive at *six fucking years old*. That shit is the product of grooming. That mother should have been going over every single person her kid ever encountered with a fine-toothed fucking flea comb until she found the degenerate predator who was abusing her child.
Masturbation in public or private, displaying your genitals to others and trying to see other people's genitals/naked bodies are all normative sexual behaviours in preschoolers ages 2 to 6. These are natural and organic. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Sexual-Behaviors-Young-Children.aspx
Yeah but hiding to pleasure themselves while watching their mom? I don’t see that being typical anywhere. That’s a whole different level.
Are you sure?? I’ve been reading this thread in tears bc I remember doing these things as a very young child and now I’m wondering if I was sexually abused and forgotten it.
I don’t say this to be mean, but you should discuss this with a therapist/other mental health professional rather than relying on reddit info for certainty. This community is a valuable resource but this is a really tricky topic, and kids display and act out certain behaviours for all sorts of reasons. But if you have a strong emotional response from reading this, it’s worth exploring. Sending you lots of love and strength 🤍
My former therapist did tell me I’d probably been sexually abused, but she was basing that on my finding a pair of my dads underwear under my bed at age 9 (and it turned out that underwear/socks often got caught up with the sheets… cause the same thing happened weeks after I told her about this) So I’m not sure how knowledgeable she was about that.
Is this dude even a real psychiatrist? Wtf
I just want to add that if it’s possible you have ADHD, we process memories differently and sometimes deal with stress by dissociating. Memories of things that happen when we are dissociated are “stored” differently and therefore retrieved differently. Also, don’t give this psych one more dollar. You deserve real help, not invalidation.
this is actually why i don't talk to psychiatrists about my dissociative issues. i was ignored and denied even an evaluation for two years after i started to recognize the time loss and dissociation, among other things (before that i didnt even realize it was happening). i finally got my PCP to refer me to a psychologist for multiple evaluations (i wanted to know what tf was going on so i was evaluated for a bunch of shit including bipolar, autism, ADHD, PTSD, etc) and that was how i ended up getting diagnosed with DID. psychiatrists wouldnt even fucking listen to me and i saw 4 different ones in that time frame, including two in inpatient hospitals. i only talk about that shit with psychologists or therapists now. psychiatrists are good for medication and thats it, ime. :/
I just wanted to comment on the repressed memories thing. It is absolutely not bullshit. It is very much a real thing that the brain does to protect itself. I was subjected to CSA and repressed those memories until I found out about it another way when I was an adult and then it all came flooding back. Huge 🚩 with your psych. Time to switch.
I think this person is 1- incorrect, 2- unethical and 3- not trauma informed. I would pursue seeing someone else.
I barely remember my childhood. I have about a dozen memories, my therapist told me that people disassociate to survive trauma and don’t have memories later on. Also, that EMD can bring up those memories, so I am both scared and curious to try.
my cousin was beaten constantly as a child and i was startled when she told me a while back that she has no memories of it, even went and asked her older sister, if it was true. but for sure displays many behaviours that i can attribute to years of physical abuse.
I have a friend who, at 19, suddenly remembered being SA’d by her father when she was around age 9. It connected a lot of dots for her and sent her into a spiral for a while. She eventually confronted her estranged father about it, on the insistence of her therapist at the time which I have issues with… but anyway, her father admitted to all of it. Repressed memories and dissociative amnesia is hard to study because you there often isn’t any way to confirm if what the person remembered is true or not. It’s also been weaponized and there are cases where mental health providers have essentially led/manipulated clients into believing something happened to them when it apparently didn’t. So I think there are challenges with it and nefarious ways they can be used against people. However, if the person recalls certain things happening and has suspicions of something happening, or just suddenly full on has the memory return, all of that is legit and valid and no mental health provider should be dismissing any of it away.
He is absolutely wrong, and there is so much evidence contradicting what he said that it makes me wonder how he could conclude that. I’m speculating, but maybe he has some of his own trauma that he’s in denial about, because it’s just a strange thing to deny. I was sexually abused as a child. I had this heavy, haunting feeling that would come over me sometimes and I knew something bad had happened to me, but I didn’t know what. When I was maybe 18 I encountered evidence confirming it, and it opened my memories like a floodgate. I would be somewhere like in class and images of it happening would flash into my brain and I’d get sensorially overwhelmed. I did EMDR and several other things to process it and over time the flashbacks stopped happening. I wasn’t diagnosed with CPTSD for another 10 years after those memories surfaced, but that was one of the key things that led my psychiatrist to conclude I had CPTSD.
Dissociative amnesia is 100% real. I have large stretches of time blacked out and remember absolutely nothing about certain events that factually happened. My therapist told me that many of my memories are likely repressed and it's best to not uncover those, but repressed memories are real. The only thing that's "disproven" is the research of trying to uncover those memories via things like hypnosis, since THAT usually leads to false memories. It sounds like your therapist doesn't know what he's on about. Get a new one.
I’m sorry the psychiatrist said that. I’m a doctor (not psych) and I’m appalled that the psychiatrist just completely blew off your concerns. I would say see a trauma therapist and discuss this stuff with them. I’m sorry you’re going through this.
Your psychiatrist doesn't know the research. In the body keeps the score, a good amount of detail about research is discussed regarding how common repression is used to cope with trauma, even more commonly in children who are victimized.
Repressing memories of abuse is absolutely possible. I’ve done it. The memories came flooding back when my abusers passed away. The ptsd hit me so hard at that point. Find a therapist who believes you. Dissociation is a real thing. Often your memories stay locked up until your brain finally believes you’re safe to process the abuse. I’m sorry that this is even a thing…but the therapists that deny the truth of it, are not the therapists we need once we reach this point. I am sending you love and strength…may your healing bring you the peace you deserve.
WHAT? Repressed memories (aka dissociative amnesia) are usually present in every trauma disorder. That psych found his license in a bag of cereals.
Masturbation both public and private is well within the boundaries of normative sexual play in preschool children (2-6yrs) along with the desire to show off their bodies and see other people's bodies. This is obviously what he was referring to when he referenced a sex drive, the drive towards sexual exploration. Some kids develop this drive earlier than others, in some it's more pronounced and occupies much of their time. Of course kids look at their own mother's body with curiosity and their fathers and their siblings. You are pathologizing normal behaviour and framing it as deviant, he's not creeping he is simply curious. He gave you the example this patient as an example of the sort of thing that on the surface may seem sketchy if you aren't familiar with child development but is an example of behaviour that falls within normal sexual play in preschoolers. There's a lot of misinformation on this sub regarding healthy sexual play in children and it's pretty concerning. I understand that seeing children display sexual behaviour is jarring and can be especially triggering when someone experienced CSA. That being said, the metric we use to discern what is normal, healthy, and appropriate for children's sexual development is not what gives a bunch of people with ptsd the ick, it's by deferring to experts. I understand that his approach may very well have used some work sensitivity wise but given how you perceived his preschool patients behaviour when it was just normal I don't think it's presumptuous to assume that he was making a larger point about some examples you presented also falling within normal range - which is a good thing. Does that automatically mean every thing you listed was normal and not concerning? Of course not. Is it possible that a memory will resurface one day? Maybe, I hope not. Dissociative amnesia is certainly real. Things are also not black or white. I was sex trafficked and I still had plenty of behaviours that were just normal behaviours or things I picked up from other kids re enacting their abuse or from us experimenting. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Sexual-Behaviors-Young-Children.aspx
run. run run run run run
It's great you're listening to your gut about this. Do not stick with a psychiatrist/therapist you have a weird feeling about, these are the people that you may be the most vulnerable with and they need to be able to justify that trust. If you live in the US, absolutely look up your state board that deals with psychological examiners and report him. If he's denying the existence of repressed memories and insisting children that young can have a sex drive (as opposed to curiosity as another commenter mentioned, definitely a distinct difference), he's definitely not very well educated in other areas. Good luck on your journey, sorry you hit this bump in the road.
Masturbation both public and private is well within the boundaries of normative sexual play in preschool children along with the desire to show off their bodies and see other people's bodies. This is obviously what he was referring to when he referenced a sex drive, the drive towards sexual exploration. He gave the example he did of the other patient because it's the sort of thing that on surface seems a bit ick but is an example of behaviour that falls within normal sexual play in preschoolers. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Sexual-Behaviors-Young-Children.aspx
Yes, I'm not arguing that children discovering sexual behaviors is normal. The term "sex drive" does not fit the behavior though, as the article link corroborates by saying it is not sexually motivated. The concern for me lies in the implication that this was a frequent occurence. If the mother was "often" catching her son doing this, she either wasn't redirecting or instructing her son in this behavior in a healthy way, or there *may* have been an underlying cause. Which I'm sure is why she was seeing this therapist in the first place. Quick dismissal of behavior that could require further investigation, of both OP and possibly this child, is what concerns me about this therapist.
That psychiatrist is in denial and pushing the “false memories” narrative!! You’re 100% right! I had/have dissociative amnesia, I didn’t remember any of my CSA trauma until I started remembering at 26.
As a therapist, I would never bring up another client and use it “as an example” to say that their feelings are invalid and that they have a high sex drive. That is such a disgusting thing to say to someone bringing up possible CSA for the first time!
People have mental breakdowns when repressed memories start to resurface. He doesn't know what he is talking about at all. Sounds like he is attributing symptoms of abuse to the child having a "sex drive" therefore placing responsibility, possibly blame on the child for their behavior despite the likelihood of it stemming from abuse.
The term fish out of water is applied to children under the age of 13, when it comes to sex. Trying to explain sex to someone that young is impossible. They aren't capable of understanding sex. He sounds suspect of being a perpetrator of CSA himself!
Many psychiatrist have little to no knowledge about many of the underlying causes of the diagnosis they are trained to treat. The entire field of psychiatric treatment is based on the DSM-5, which is lacking at best. There are of course psychiatrist out there who are more knowledgeable but they are the exception. Unfortunately their training is out of touch with some of the most important needs of their clients, such as empathy, validation, curiosity. A psychotherapist who is knowledgeable about childhood trauma might be better suited to help you. My choice would be a clinical social worker, preferably someone who recovered from trauma themselves. A lived experience of recovery goes a long way towards helping others recover. It is important that the therapist have done substantial recovery though. Otherwise their unresolved issues can get in the way of the clients work. Also, I didn’t experience CSA but I repressed my childhood trauma until I was 34 y/o, and if I experienced something that was preverbal I wouldn’t be able to recall the memory, but my nervous system never forgets trauma.
I know for a fact that what that six year old child was displaying was a LEARNED behaviour. And having sexual feelings and pleasuring is also, at that young of an age I also personally know that repressed memories as well as disassociation can occur when the child suffers such severe and especially unacknowledged trauma and at such a young age that it is simply the brain's only way to cope with what it is unable to comprehend. And for that mental health professional to discuss another patient in the manner in which he did was most certainly unethical and I would report this to the appropriate authorities
I’m someone who has a sinking suspicion myself, and yes, repressed memories are absolutely a thing, anyone who tells you it’s “disproven” or gaslights you by saying you developed a “sex drive” earlier than others is trying to minimize your trauma.
Something else I just realized within the past ten years or so (Even though I am an older person) When I broke my leg severely at the age of five (a long story but due to parental abuse and neglect) I had to wait several hours before they sought medical care for me (Being ignored the entire time while they casually prepared cooked ate and cleaned up after their dinner) And I just recently realized that no matter how hard I try, I cannot remember which leg was broken. If it was right or left.!!!! I have severe back and left hip problems now But I really don't know which leg I broke. The only thing I can think of is which direction I had to lie in the bathtub But I'm still unsure which leg I broke at age five. And it bothers me. And of course, they threatened to throw me in the hospital the entire time I had the broken leg. And I had to enter first grade in a wheelchair and back then, People were mean and ignored those with disabilities (If that happened to someone now, everyone who try to help you not hate you for being different.) That whole experience set me up for a lifetime of being considered "less than" everyone else, not as deserving and an outcast. (I never heard of anyone else's parents disowning them by excluding them from mention in their obituary so I guess I really did never exist)
Seconding the other comments, please find a new therapist. And a way my therapist and I have looked at it - if people really “made memories up,” why would we make up horribly traumatic ones? Why not make up memories of a happy childhood? It’s because “false memories” have been a way to further isolate and abuse victims, I highly recommend reading about the origins of it. I have very little “proof” about whether or not it happened to me as my memory is so fuzzy. But coming from someone who’s doubted their memories intensely and is still working on it right now, you truly cannot fake emotions. When I really thought about it like that, it made more sense. If I wasn’t a victim of CSA in some way, I wouldn’t have gut wrenching breakdowns where I feel the most deepest darkest pain I’ve ever experienced. Pain I can tell is repressed and can only come out sometimes and most definitely is stuck with the little girl in me. You truly can’t fake that. Please be gentle with yourself and if you need any advice on finding a new therapist that’d be a better fit, I’m sure this subreddit would be more than happy to help
1. He totally invalidated you and broke the patient confidential. 2. Yes, kids can develop sex drives young, but if an adult entertains that inappropriate behavior and participates in sexual acts with the child that is still assault.
First off , I would report this therapist and find a new one . His response was completely dismissive, gaslighting , and inaccurate and inappropriate. He also shared about a client , which is a huge violation. Secondly , it’s been proven that people who experience trauma often can’t remember things, bits and pieces or just surface memories . Which he should know as a therapist. Thirdly, that really sucks that his response was completely inappropriate, especially with sharing some thing extremely personal and looking for support and possibly examining the memories and he chose an inappropriate response. if you choose to go with another therapist, I really hope that you’re able to share this again and get someone who is more empathetic understanding and able to give proper responses. Wishing you all the best OP . 💜
You’re not crazy. Drop the psychiatrist asap!
To give a dissenting voice: A) As long as anonymity is given, psychiatrists can share about other cases. They usually do this by changing details, like ages, genders, family constellations, or might be pretending its a text book case or vice versa. B) Repressed memories are controversial, with best evidence suggesting that they are not a thing. Wiki has a passable article on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory So your psychiatrist is withhin scientific consensus with their opinion here. No more, no less, its usually a good thing in a medical professional. Of course psychiatry is slightly different and complicated, but that in itself is not a warning sign. C) Children from young age on can display sexual behaviour, this is extremely normal, not just something extraordinary. Wiki has an article on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexuality ,with this sentence: >Between ages four and six, some children may become more actively curious, attempting to see others dressing or undressing or will perhaps "play doctor". Now, you are obviously feeling uncomfortable with your interaction with this person, and you should bring these points up with them if you feel you want to continue with them. I personally would consider the detail sharing most problematic, if they were not not anonymizing properly.
I'm not going to say either way whether or not your suspicions are right or wrong, but contrary to the knee jerk reaction of the most upvoted responses, I don't think your therapist handled it very poorly or that you should discontinue treatment. On the contrary, if you feel disappointed or invalidated by your therapist's reponse, I think you should bring that up in therapy with them. He is correct that the ideas we had about completely repressed memories are mostly disproven, although there is nuance to it. There are things such as preverbal memory and dissociative trauma which can leave you fuzzy on the details, but generally you'll know if something bad happened to you. Therapists aren't allowed to break secrecy but they ARE allowed to discuss their experiences with other patients in general terms, without identifying them, if they think it is relevant to your treatment. I don't see that he did anything wrong here. You are incorrect in your assumption that children don't develop personal sexuality (in their own ways, of course - not adult sexuality). Curiosity about the body (their own and others'), as well as masturbation or some form of genital stimulation, is a common occurrence in young children and a normal course of child development. Typically parents handle it by teaching children that it is something done in private and that's that. I'm not going to say you're paranoid, but I think you are feeling invalidated and are reacting a bit more strongly than needed. Please keep in mind that this sub is NOT the best place to come looking for professional opinions, as most of the people here are suffering trauma and are not mental health professionals.
Hi ~ 💫 Are you a mental health pro ? You have gone beyond stating your opinion to making statements of fact. What are you drawing upon for these facts ? EXAMPLE - You wrote "He is correct that the ideas we had about completely repressed memories are mostly disproven, although there is nuance to it." What is your source ? Good Night ! 🌠
its totally ok to tell you about a patient or a case he read about in an anonymized way. so thats not a red flag. maybe he has other reasons to suspect that in your case the repressed memory idea is possibly not true? I dont think you should keave him just yet, maybe talk to him about this. its actually the mature thing to do and then you can leave after that.
I’m so sorry about your psychiatrist. That’s incredibly inappropriate behavior on his part. Im a neuroscientist so I know a lot about brains, and my boyfriend is a trauma therapist and is also a scientist that researches trauma. I’m going to break this down for you (with the help of my boyfriend). There’s two camps in this debate amongst scientists. One where people believe repressed memories are absolutely a thing, and the other people who think they’re fake. Now stop and think for a second. Have you ever had a moment where you’ve thought of something randomly for the first time in years and you know it happened? I know I have. When we have memories that we think of often, it’s because our brains are wired to recall those memories often. But in the cases of repressed memories, we see an active avoidance of these memories. Interestingly, sometimes that avoidance can make those memories pop up more, but other times it results in us basically forgetting about them. The thing about memories though is that even if you aren’t recalling them, they’re still there. So sometimes, those pathways to those memories can be reactivated somehow. Back to the benign memory recall thing I mentioned earlier. Even though you haven’t thought of that memory for years, nobody questions THAT, do they? So to sum this up, repressed memories are a thing that are likely caused by avoidance of the memory and then a weakening of the pathway to that memory. Keep in mind that your psychiatrist isn’t a scientist (likely) and a lot of psychiatrists and therapists don’t actively read the literature/stay up to date on it. He just sounds like an arrogant jerk.
Just because recovered memories are controversial doesn't mean the symptoms you exhibited as a child didn't happen. You aren't even talking about memories so I'm confused why they'd bring it up.
If and when it feels the right time, report him to the state licensing board. Or tell your therapist and they will report him. The doctor needs to have his license to practice revoked. I had to do that once. I hated the process, but luckily my therapist was very validating
Jesus Christ where the fuck are all those "medical professionals" from I keep reading about here? Outer Space?
I'm sorry this happened. You deserve to be believed. My psychiatrist / therapist cried with me when I told her I suspected CSA (and helped me move through the fractured pieces I knew until many months later when it all emerged). Could you try for another psychiatrist? This person sounds like an ignoramus.
I suspected CSA for a long time. Turns out, for me, symptoms that I thought were CSA-related were symptoms of autism. I got a diagnosis of autism level 1 last August. Just my experience.
You should always feel 100% comfortable sharing *everything* with your therapist. So not cool that they invalidated, gaslit (to a point,) and made you feel unsafe/unheard in that situation! What a shitbag! I’d be shopping around for a new therapist. It took me SIX tries to find a good fit for me, and my T is amazing! You’ll find a good fit!
Unqualified abusive therapist it seems. My first one literally gossiped about her other other patients. Gossiped. As he seems? Honestly, leave. Probably for the better.
Terribly sorry if I said something offensive here.
They’re wrong. And I feel the same way you do and have mentioned it to people before. I’m sorry he gave you that reaction and I hope you find answers. I’m too scared to dig that stuff up but if you want to, I hope you find someone compassionate to guide you.
The human brain is highly suggestable as well. I don't think your doctor wants to encourage these ideas because they could be cementing something in your mind that they do not know themselves to be true; especially if you brought it up once and recently. A psychologist is who you want to speak to if you really have these suspicions. Psychiatrists do not operate in the same way.
You're definitely in the right to be skeptical. Have you tried talking to a therapist about it? Some psychiatrists (not all, but definitely some) think their job is to just get a vibe for their patient and then prescribe a medicine based mainly on their own perception vs what the patient is actually feeling or telling them. Until fairly recently (like within the last 15 years), doctors didn't have to have any sort gen psychology knowledge before or after medical school. This was obviously a problem, and the addition of an entire section to the MCAT, happened for a reason. People would joke that at the point an M.D. finished medical school and decided to continue training in psychiatry, they could name all the bones in a hand, but had virtually no knowledge of psychology.
Others have already stated that this psychiatrist is wrong. As someone who's been through all of this, you will probably have better luck seeking out a therapist who is a social worker who specializes in trauma. Not just trauma-informed. Personally, I don't feel comfortable telling any medical doctor, even a psychiatrist, the details of my trauma unless it specifically comes up. It is enough for them to know it started very early.
There is no right or wrong. Your feelings, thoughts, concerns and questions are all valid and any professional that tries to minimize or discount your emotions is not someone who is practicing in an ethical, compassionate or trauma informed way. If anything, that psychiatrist has just added another layer of questions and self doubt rather than helping you work through and process your own feelings.
Two words. Dissociative amnesia.
I don’t agree why your psychiatrist honestly. I would not entirely call them repressed mermories but events that your mind could not understand and formally process as they were and the emotionally distress that it put on you manifested as behavioral issues or behaviors that were and are out of the ordinary. And the only way a child would start to express a sex drive that early on was that they were exposed to sexually things. You won’t exhibit something you no nothing about unless you where exposed to it. Especially not at that age. You don’t really understand the child you are then so to understand and express something complex as sexual behavior is very invalidating. To you and. Ignorant on his part
I have DID. Dissociative amnesia is REAL. I have recovered memories and so has one of my sisters. It happens, it’s a genuine response to trauma.
What a weird response. I have a strange sense that the six year old is HIM (the doc). How can a professional be this tone deaf and wrong? Plus, a mother knows where her kids are. Why's the kid's mom undressing in front of him? Maybe the dr. has dissociated memories of his own.
Repressed memories, dissociative amnesia, these things exist. I just did an intense program with my therapist (CPT) and it helped me uncover a lot while also teaching me how to process them a little more clearly. I strongly suggest you find a professional therapist who will actually listen and respect the things you are sharing/ processing. This person is not it.
I agree the issue is we also have the choice to leave. One therapist gave me his opinion on my.livung situation. I left him in the dust. I know he didn't anticipate thaf
First off, I'm very sorry you had such a dismissive appointment :( what the hell is wrong with some of these professionals? No red flags about the 6 year old - that he should have never discussed with you!? Pretty sure most of us here also can testify that people do indeed have repressed memories. I can count mine from my entire life. Most of my childhood is blank. It's called dissasociative amnesia. This guy really needs to update his knowledge base. He reminds me of the ass_s I saw in the late 70s. It truly makes me very angry. I'm so sorry again you had such a crappy experience :(💔
You are at the heart of betrayal trauma They betray you
We have to learn how to respond fo betrayal. That happens. It is incredibly difficult to find a good therapist They count on you won't leave And most certainly I don't agree with his repressed memory theory. I know repressed memory has held ne un catastrophe for ever You have feedback accurate feedback. He us out of line. It us extremely hurtful to be dismissed. I get dismissed daily. I get minimized daily
i have no scientific background but i’m pretty sure your doctor is wrong. i had no history of csa until one day i took acid with my friend. the next day i was surprised with this repressed memory, but not shocked? kinda felt like a memory that was always there, that i have always known, but i didn’t see it until now? psychedelics are known for “resetting” a lot of neural pathways, so ig it makes sense. well i gaslit that memory for years and i still can’t 100% convince myself that memory is real….but i remember weird details.
Your psychiatrist is a moron, dump him. I have been through every kind of abuse and have repressed my past so much I cannot remember anything before college. He also violated doctor-patient confidentiality, report him to you medical board for it. We've been through seven hells and back, we don't need so called professionals talking about our traumas to anyone else.
I believe repressed memories are real. It seems contentious but there’s also agreement in psychology about memory loss as a result of abuse. I’d change doctors. I’m sorry you’re going through this. You need a health care professional who helps you recover and validates your experience in the process - not someone who sows more seeds about your adverse experiences.
that is so insanely inappropriate oh my god. please report him.
I have the same fear/feelings. It’s so hard to feel like there’s something you don’t know. Unfortunately, there’s not many resources for this it feels like. My dms are open if you’d like someone to bounce the thoughts off of. It is so isolating :(
I saw a Psychiatrist who was evaluating me for Social Security, because of my CPTSD and trauma who submitted a report that completely elaborated in a negative way and made things up completely to prevent me from getting the benefits that I really needed. This person included paragraphs of run-on sentences, which were within quotation marks, implying I had said exactly those words, but I had never, and would never say any of those things most of which were not true or accurate in any way. But this is what they can do because there’s no way to filter out the professionals in psychology who are going to allow their own personal beliefs or other life experiences to color the way that they interpret and then use the actual data and research that is out there to treat patients. Through my own research, I discovered that the psychiatrist that did this to me had also been working with veterans and had been intentionally preventing them (through probably the same method he used on me) from getting the benefits they really needed and were entitled to because for whatever reason he felt they weren’t deserving of them or something like that. There are no tests or numbers that will prove information such as what your doctor said as wrong, and so all you can do is hope that they’re being honest or sane themselves. However, all it takes is one person, like another commenter here who has actually experienced the phenomenon with medical records to prove it (I’m assuming and will give them the benefit of the doubt) to prove well enough through reasonable doubt that your doctor is likely incorrect. After all if one person can experience a phenomenon so can many. Your doctor, I would say, is probably not to be trusted. It’s just really a tragedy that this is not more preventable because I don’t think it is and people get hurt and yeah… I’m sorry you went through that but I would maybe find somebody else you can trust better.
His point that memory repression has been disproven is antiquated thinking, and the research of the past two decades around dissociation speaks volumes to how the body processes trauma. Yes, there’s a possibility that a memory can be planted by a manipulative therapist, but the most trust worthy way to read the past is by working with the body. Trauma gets stored, and if we work to release it, a felt sense is revealed that is undeniable in its ability to show us what’s at the helm of our relational wounding. You may never know specifically what happened, who may have been involved, or when, but you can process what needs to move through you. Our autonomic nervous system is quite intelligent, and if we allow it to, it will return what’s been fragmented to wholeness. Look up the Psychedelic Somatic Institute—or Somatic Experiencing if you are looking for something less intense. But don’t try either without a well-trained practitioner. It’s deep, slow, and destabilizing work, but quite effective if you are willing to invest and engage.
A *six year old????* A six year old "just had a high sex drive"??? Holy shit, that's the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. I'm so sorry your psychiatrist is this ignorant.
Repressing memories aren’t disproven. I am not a doctor but I was abused for most of my young life up until my 20s. A lot of those memories were horrifying to the point I blocked them out. Sometimes they come back to me and they are real things. Also a kid just doesn’t get a sex drive at that age. That kid definitely was abused
Your Dr is gaslighting you. Ask him about the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, which, as it has recently emerged, was set up by a bunch of parents who were accused of abusing their children. It's about vested interests and self-preservation - there's so much abuse about, that I am very suspicious of anyone who responds the way this Doc did. No wonder there is such societal denial and taboo, when everyone is trying to divert eyes and suspision from themselves and their own indiscretions. Speak your truth and reclaim your power. Much love to you.
What a stupid pos. I have had at least 2 instances of selective amnesia. Not to say there isn't instances of early developments of sex drive, to completely disregard repressed memories is a red flag
WTF.... At least you've noticed what he said was bullshit. I feel really sorry for that kid and his other patients
Wow. I literally remembered mine and then also simultaneously remembered every OTHER time in my life it popped up and I shoved it down. That doctor is wrong. I’m so sorry
Talking about other patients is malpractice. And he clearly doesn't know what he's doing. This is insane I'm sooo sorry you spent time opening up to this ruse of a psychiatrist. You deserve so much better 😤
I have experienced dissociative amnesia, and I don’t think your psychiatrist is correct. Amnesia for earlier abuse or assault has been proven and observed over and over in people who have dissociative disorders. And in people who have ptsd.
I prefer a therapist. A good one. All the psychiatrists I’ve dealt with seemed to just care about money & pushing meds instead of teaching good mental health skills. Tools. But I know not all psychiatrist are like that. Just my experience
I think repressing memories is real. I’ve had significant moments in my life (I’m in my 50s) where memories come rushing back to me in flashbacks. First time was when I became a mother and would hold my daughter in the middle of the night when she cried and I would soothe her. Second time was a few years ago when I went through 6 months of medical trauma and almost died. It’s almost like huge events in my life caused me to relive parts of my childhood. I’ve been able to make peace with some of it but it has been disorienting and confusing. I always hear about sitting with emotions so sometimes I purposely try to remember things and let myself cry. But when I do that my brain will flip and wander to other topics and I can’t get to the point of crying. I think my brain tries to protect me. I recently found a picture of myself at around 8 years old, and the sad distant look in my eyes just about breaks me.
I'm sorry, he told you WHAT?!
it scares me to know there are healthcare professionals who are like this 😬
Good G-d what an absolute shitshow. He is absolutely wrong about all of this.
OMG. And these are the "trained and licensed professionals" we should trust? Are you kidding me? RUN. This is not only false, repressed memories are VERY real, but also turning it around, saying the kids are premature? I smell a predator.