Can sexual abuse be forgotten?

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Between the ages of 9 and 12 my father would come into my room nearly every night to do 'his thing'. I was also severely physically abused, there are scars as testimony.

At the time I must have known and remembered. However between the ages of 13 and about 23 I had no recollections of my childhood.

Anything before the age of 13 I could not recall. Around 21 years of age I started drinking - rather heavily. Around 23 I started having 'nightmares' indistinct but terrifying dreams which surrounded 'bad things' 'bad sex'. I then started snorting coke, which eventually lead to meth which eventually lead to me slamming meth.

Around this same time I met my first male partner who wanted to 'do that' to me. The experience of anal sex was the worst thing in my life. I am, needless to say, a total top - I can not have any man touching me around the butt without horrible feelings.

At the time I was doing all of those drugs I didn't fully understand that the reason I was doing meth was to keep from sleeping. I hated my bed, I fought sleep even when I wasn't using. For several years this continued until I was about 28 where I went from 'weekend warrior' tweaking to tweaking as often as possible. I started keeping out of bed as often as possible, 'sleeping' was merely deep crashes from 2-3 days of tweaking, this grew to week long 'wide awake' sessions and 2-3 days crashed and basically in a coma.

By age 29 I was near death, having slept far too little in a year's time... At 6'2 I weighed in at 129 pounds. A tad too thin.

I made a choice to get clean and sober, and then is when the memory recalling began.

I fought sleep so hard because my dreams were reminding me of what daddy had done. My brain had decided it was time to pull out all of the old garbage and get down to the business of sorting through it. I, whatever that is that makes me me - fought it.

The first floods of recall hit me when I was 32 - nearly 2 years clean and sober, at first it was remembering where the scars came from that I never fully had an answer for. The physical abuse was my first recalls. At first shadowy, indistinct 'images' but heavy 'rushes' of intense fear and 'anguish'. After a few months I started having crystal clear memories, 'flashes' so real as if I was actually there again. Then the other memories started coming in. The ones that took place in my bed room, at night.

I struggled with 'repressed memories'. Events have been confirmed by conversations with my father's then fourth wife. Who had on more than one occasion 'caught' my father in my bed, and who could testify to the physical abuse. She herself had been severely beaten on many occasions. Domestic violence was my father's way of life, thus he had 5 wives.

I still do not have full memory of my whole childhood. I do have the occasional 'nightmare' where I still, after all these years wake up screaming.

Trauma can do strange things to the mind, many people do repress memories of events and will 'act out' in other ways. I had poor grades as a teenager, I was 'diagnosed' all over the board especially when I tried my first attempt of suicide when I was 15 after being shipped back to my father (I had been shipped off to my biological mother at age 12 nearly 13).

While at age 15 I wasn't recalling my childhood, something inside of me was so terrified and wanted away from the man so badly that suicide became an option.

Again I didn't fully understand back then why. Today it makes perfect sense to me.

So yes, you can have repressed memories of trauma, it happens, and if left on their own they will manifest when your brain is able to deal with it.

Frankly I would discourage a hypnotherapist or attempting to otherwise force your recall of repressed memories.

And if you have a choice in the matter, I would strongly advice that you never attempt to recall those memories.

Trust me, I am not better off knowing and recalling.