Repressed Memory: Breaking Through to the Truth
When the details of traumatic experiences from my past surfaced, my spirit and soul responded first - unexplained fear. My insides rumbled and my troubled thoughts couldn’t claim answers to why I felt so afraid. Nightmares high jacked my sleep. I wanted to bolt in any direction to find someone to help me and walk through what I was soon to discover. Breaking through repressed memory is more like re-discovering what you’ve forgotten.
Too afraid to say the words out loud, my inner voice acknowledged, “Oh no. Something bad happened. It’s very bad and I am afraid.” The many days of feeling tense dread and unexplained fear led me to find a counselor. I wanted to know the truth.
Beginning the Journey: Unexplained Fear to Seeking Answers
“I remember something that I can’t explain,” I started that particular counseling session with Dr. Barone. “I have a recurring dream or thought. It seems more like a vivid dream. Not like the dream where the child is trapped under bedsheets. Different somehow. It’s difficult for me to explain.”
Dream seemed to be an accurate description. It helped me hope that the image could be just a figment of my imagination stimulated by something I ate the evening before or something I read or watched on TV.
But saying it out loud made me cringe. My gut hurt. I hunched over. My shoulders felt heavy. I hesitated to describe to Dr. Barone the physical pain I felt. Somehow I found the strength to form the words.
“I feel pain radiating through my stomach.”Alligator in the Ocean: One Family’s Fight to Stop a Serial Predator and Their Determination to Heal, (Chapter 14, page 57.)
The Path to Healing: One Detail at a Time
To my surprise, the first few months of counseling, I recalled several details of part of the traumatic childhood event. I felt safe describing what happened. And at the same time many portions of the abuse I endured, remained tucked away deep inside, hidden somewhere in my memory file. Eventually, I remembered what happened and the people who hurt me. One detail at a time. One day at a time. Dr. Barone provided a safe place for me to discover, revisit, sort out, write, draw, cry, pray, and talk about what happened to me when I was a child. I accepted that the time and effort it took to address and manage, cope and heal as the repressed memories broke through memory loss and into conscious thoughts, was invaluable to me. Invaluable because it promoted healing by loosening the emotional grip those forgotten childhood experiences had on me, especially the unexplained fear.
I found a voice and answers to the disturbing details that told the story of my past. Once I had answers I felt relief. I gained confidence in myself even though I was once damaged, I rose up to be a survivor and no longer a victim. As I moved through each heartbreaking detail day after day for about three years, inspiration replaced fear. And as that time passed I felt equipped to talk about my journey with others on similar journeys and encourage them to know there is hope to heal. I also felt grateful for the strength that replaced injury, and contentment in the amazing experiences life ahead promises. And I understood that living life in the present is a gift from God filled with opportunities to learn and acquire wisdom, as well as realize dreams. And that my past experiences both good and bad, provided me with the tools to better myself, my decisions, my relationships, and my faith.
Yes, I experienced a torrential rain of emotion as I grieved what I was discovering. Yes, it was difficult. However, I looked at healing as an investment worthy of making because I was priceless in the eyes of God who made me with a purpose. I learned to love myself as I addressed all the concerns, disruptions, anger, disappointment, and fear generated from the details I discovered. Journaling helped me release the ugly and damaging wounds caused from abuse and safely place them on the pages so I no longer had to store them inside of me. Also, when I struggled and felt overwhelmed or too discouraged or doubted that I might not heal, I paused rather than be pulled down by discouragement. Then I reached my arm up into the air and looked up above myself. I rested in knowing that God, my Creator, would not let go of me. He carried me, held me, and guided me through all of it. It was manageable because I didn’t re-visit the traumatizing abuse alone.
At times, emotions surged during the discovery-periods. Some of those emotions were grief, sadness, disappointment, and shock as I realized the truth about how evil and cruel some people behave toward others, as my perpetrator did. At first, I felt I had no control of who I was and why I was even born. Was my purpose here on earth to be prey for predators? It’s a reasonable question to ask while searching for answers. And yet because of who my God is I persevered and trusted His word that proclaims is always reliable even when I didn’t fully understand it. There is a verse in the Old Testament, Jeremiah 32:27 where God is proclaiming, “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” and another in the New Testament found in Ephesians 3:20 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”
Finding Comfort and Strength in Discovery
With the grief during discovery, I found and felt comfort also. The difficult journey brought with it love, encouragement to persevere, and find strength to overcome the pain and injuries caused by the abuse, because I found help from both my husband and loving friends, and from a caring therapist. When I felt triumphant after I faced the truth of the crisis and found myself still standing, I was compelled to keep going. Comfort and hope soothed and renewed my tired mind. Strength and determination fueled my confidence and helped me to surmount discouragement that often lingered at the initial breakthrough of my repressed memories.
I learned that it is normal to groan and cry when words did not suffice to express the pain I felt during the crisis. And that groaning is a gift created in us to address suffering. Even the Holy Spirit of God groans when we suffer.
Romans 8:26-27 says, In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
Moving Forward: Beyond Crisis and Towards Joy
Crisis does not half to slay us or take us captive for the rest of our lives. Time is needed to address crisis and trauma. And also, there is a way out of the dungeon-like stupor and the emotions that overwhelm after trauma, crisis, and hardship. You can choose to manage the deep emotions that birth from trauma and threaten to hold you hostage from joy and contentment.
Emotions are an outlet that words don’t suffice when something bad happens to you or a loved one. Journaling, going for walks, painting, praying, building a tree fort, cooking, sewing, singing, lifting weights, fly-fishing, and listening to music are all safe and healthy activities I chose to engage in to balance the grief caused from the crisis with the happiness of being a woman, a wife, a mother, a friend, an athlete, an outdoorsman, and an artist.
Are you concerned that you too have forgotten memories of past trauma hidden away inside? I sought help to locate the answer. I resolved that the process of finding the story behind repressed trauma was important enough that I chose to dedicate time, effort, and money to finding and facing the answers. I wanted to know the truth and rid the troubling fear and dread that wouldn’t let go of me. And during the time I spent tackling the past, I learned to balance and live a normal life by reserving a small portion of time each week to address the details of the memories I repressed with ceasing the many more hours left over living in the present.
It is a joy to heal. Because the joy that resonates in me expresses victory over hardship and over pain after trauma. Today, life ahead and all its imperfections, is something I look forward to.
Additional Resources:
Zach Clinton, M.A, Clinical Mental Health Counseling) is a resident counselor at Light Counseling
Light Counsel (Counseling Services)
John Piper on groaning from the injuries of the flesh in a fallen world that we live in. (
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Be brave. Be wise. Be safe.
Seek professional help immediately if you or someone you know is being harmed. And/or Call 911.
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