Question about repressed memories

[renata]

A long time ago I took a basic Psych course. There I learned that some believe that certain traumatic experiences become forgotten or repressed, and may reemerge later in life, when the person is capable of dealing with them. Later I read that that notion has been largely discredited, that repressed memory episodes retrieved through hypnosis is mostly invented and suggested by therapists.

So, at the fear of being flamed, here is my situation. I believe I have experienced some sort of an episode which I originally assumed to be repressed memory. In college I seemed to reexperience an episode from when I was 6-8 years old. I was not in therapy at the time I reexperienced or prior to that. Later, I was briefly treated for depression. I never took any drugs. Let me explain what I mean by reexperience. I was hurrying to class down the stairs, and all of a sudden felt that I was almost transported to my old apartment building, and was hurrying to class as a little kid. It was an uncanny hallucination. I shook it off, thinking I was just stressed, but the hallucinations came coming back with more detail. The way I established the age, 6-8 was because from 1-3rd grade we wore a blue skirt uniform, and that is how what I saw when I looked down in my "vision". The hallucinations continued when I was awake, over a period of a few months, becoming more frequent, lengthy and vivid. I will not post the details here, it is suffice to say they were of an unpleasant nature.

Finally, I decided to ask my family about this. Strangely enough some members of the family said I was making things up, but my mother and my brother supported me in it, and told me the events happened as I recalled them. As soon as this was confirmed, hallucinations stopped immediately.

I went into therapy after that, and my therapist thought it was repressed memories. Now that I hear repressed memories don't exist- what the hell was that? It has not bothered me for years, because with confirmation that I was recalling an actual event, the issue appeared resolved. Now, however, I wonder if I made it up, and my family humored me, but I am reluctant to ask them. This scares me, because I am afraid of being seriously ill- it is not fun to admit I had hallucinations! It has been bothering me more and more recently. I know it is impossible to diagnose over the web, and I am not asking for a free diagnosis, merely an explanation of what it could be.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dancing David]

I don't belive in repressed memories, but I believe that hey exist next to the 'normal' memories and there is a choice to not acsess them due to the truama.

There was a study once that showed 60% of repressed memories could be verified by a family member. I think that were there not active family denial then the statistic would be higher.
I do not believe in memories recovered by hypnosis.

I had a similar experience when I began to have panic attacks in my twenties whenever I thought about a particular house we lived in, I talked to my brother who reminded me of somethings that I had chosen to not recall regularly. Then unfortunately I did remember what happened. I can not verify everything but I have been able to verify a lot by asking my brother what he remembers and comparing. There is still one incident that is a blank in my data set.

Sounds like PTSD to me, the thing about the intrusive visual memories is a hallmark of it.

Unfortunately there is alot of active denial of child abuse in our society.

Glad to read that you healed.
Peace

 

[Skeptical Greg]

It's funny how I can remember that I once had more vivid memories of things I can't really visualize very well anymore. I'm sure this is part of getting older.

I believe 'repressed' memories have gotten a bad rap, but this is because people ' made stuff up ' after being fed suggestions and had professional concurrence that it was ' repressed memories '..


I feel sure there are forgotten events in our life that can be revived with appropriate coaching, but we have to be careful not to have those events created for us, by our own mind or at the suggestion of someone else.

 

[renata]

So far nobody tld me that I am a kook- good start!

Dancing David, I am not sure I understand your post. First you say you do not believe in repressed memories, and then you say they exist next to normal memories. Which is it?

When someone experiences PTSD ( I do not know much about it, is there a link a layman can understand) is it normal for hallucinations to go away and not reappear? I guess I am concerned I will have another recurrence, although 8 years has now passed.

I do not think I had any particular prompting. I was in school, and normally stressed, but I was not dwelling on the topic altogether. I am not sure what could have triggered it.


Edited to say: I am reading this link http://www.nimh.nih.gov/anxiety/ptsdfacts.cfm

It says PTSD usually begins within 3 months of the event, but if my recollection is correct, then 12-14 years passed.

 

[JeffR]

Renata,

Were the two family members who confirmed your experience in a position to know whether or not it really happened? What about those who said it didn't happen, and on top of that do they have a reason to deny the events?

I know someone who had a similar experience. Though she sought therapy and even underwent hypnosis, I'm pretty sure the "memories" came first. I was with her when they started and it was not a pleasant thing (for her or for me). Her parents denied the remembered events, but I think they would deny them even if they really did happen.

This was all a few years before it came to light that recovered memories might not be real. We never really questioned the reality of the memories back then. I'm not sure how my friend feels about it now. I guess until she tells me otherwise, I'll continue to think the memories were probably real.

Jeff

 

[renata]

Re: Re: Question about repressed memories

Were the two family members who confirmed your experience in a position to know whether or not it really happened? What about those who said it didn't happen, and on top of that do they have a reason to deny the events?

I believe all the family members would be in a similar position to know what really happened. I do not know of a reason why any of them would deny it if it really was true.

 

[JeffR]

Re: Re: Re: Question about repressed memories

I believe all the family members would be in a similar position to know what really happened. I do not know of a reason why any of them would deny it if it really was true.

That doesn't help much, does it?

I think that the fact the two family members confirmed the events carries much more weight than the fact that many deny it. Maybe they just forgot, or it didn't seem all that important to them in the first place. I'm pretty sure I remember things that happened when I was young much differently than my brother and sisters do.

Anyway, I don't think you should worry too much. People have hallucinations sometimes. Also this sounds like it happened some time ago and not since. Here's a link to some information that I found by searching for "stress" and "hallucination". Look at the "Causes and symptoms" and you'll see many possible causes that could effect anybody.

Jeff

P.S. As far as I'm concerned, you may come out from under the rock of shame anytime.

 

[kitsune]

Repressed memories are one of those tricky things... so's repression, in my opinion. I don't know if they do or don't exist. I have had loved ones suddenly remember very traumatic events in stressful situations, and I believe this person.

I have trouble with people who recover memories from hypnosis. I think some well-meaning people have hurt others by suggesting memories that didn't exist. It's rather easy to cause false memories... there's a Scientific American article that I had to read for a cognitive science class recently. It'c salled "Creating False Memories", and is a really interesting read. So is the one on hypnosis... which the name escapes me and I'm being too lazy to grab the folder with all t his information in.

Regardless of if it did or did not happen, the thought of it was obviously traumatic. The fact that you had family members confirm your memory is also a sign (to me) that it likely happened.

Memory is a funky thing. So's trauma. Glad to know that you have healed from the memory, or the thought of that happening in your past.

 

[Marvel Frozen]

My sister had an experience with what would normally be considered "repressed memories". Basically there were some traumatic events in her life when she was young (under 10), and she "repressed" the memories for over a decade. I don't know the exact circumstances of how she came to remember the events again, but I know it was very traumatic for her, almost as if the events has just happened recently. I know these aren't false memories either, as 4 people (including myself) can verify that the events happened basically as she remembers them. I don't know if these are actually repressed memories, but that's generally what experiences like these are called.

 

[renata]

I have to say I am simultaneously relieved and saddened that my experience is not unusual. Like Marvel's sister, recollection of the events were very unpainful. For weeks I thought I was losing my mind, as it felt like I was transported into the past to reenact the events.

Repressed memories always made some sense to me in this way: if a mind can't deal with something, it locks it away until the owner of said mind can deal with it. I always thought the hallucinations started because I was now an adult who could deal with the revelations.

But still I keep reading that repressed memories is first grade psychobabble, and wonder what mechanism is at work in such cases.

 

[Dancing David]

I don't view the memories as repressed, they are there, they are just avoided for some reason, I believe that we have memories we may not want to recall. The original idea was that somehow the tauma locked the memories away and then you had to use some techniques to unlock them.

I just don't like the idea of the ideas being retrieved by hypnosis or regression.

Soory, PTSD just came to mind because of the 'intrusive visual memories'.

Peace

 

[athon]

Renata,

More and more evidence is mounting against the whole repressed memory thing. Sorry - the jury is far from decided, but the idea has little support any more.

An interesting study done recently has found that memory is far from a solid, unchangable thing. It is not a warehouse of 'facts', but a library where the books are rewritten every time they are borrowed out.

They did the following to support it -

A mouse was put into a dark box and shocked until it assumed a classical response of fear towards darkness.

Next they injected the mouse with solution that prevented the creation of new proteins. They put the mouse back in, and it was scared. It remembered.

A few days later they repeated the process, albeit, they reminded the rat of the box, injected it (so no protein-synthesis could occur again for a while), and put the rat back in. It showed no fear.

Along with additional experiments, they demonstrated that on being reminded of something, the brain makes the memory plastic, and it can be altered, or even removed entirely.

Hence we still have much to learn about the nature of memory. But repressed memories are slowly becoming a thing of the 90's.

Athon

 

[Iconoclast]

I went into therapy after that, and my therapist thought it was repressed memories. Now that I hear repressed memories don't exist- what the hell was that?

Renata

From my understanding it's not that repressed memories don't exist, but rather that if a psychologist attempts to get a patient to bring out their repressed memories it is not possible to tell whether the patient is recalling an ACTUAL repressed memory or a FALSE repressed memory that was generated on the fly in response to suggestive questioning.

 

[EvilYeti]

I don't really understand the question.

Did you recall an episode that you had previously forgotten? Was any new information supplied? If not, then its not really a repressed memory.

 

[aggle_rithm]

60 percent?

I am skeptical of the claim that 60% of "repressed memories" are corroborated by family members. The figure I've heard is much, much lower. What study was done that came up with this figure? I'm willing to bet the methodology was flawed.

A few years ago it was discovered that the brain recalls actual memories by exactly the same mechanism that it confabulates false memories. Thus, to the subject, the two are indistinguishable. Only reliable corroboration from outside can determine whether a memory is real or not.

 

[Dancing David]

aggle: I am afraid it was something I read in a pop psych magazine like 12 years ago, so I can't find the original study. I agree that confabulation is also a serious concern.

But what about the stated fact of child abuse by children 12-16 who report child abuse that is substantiated by an adult but then denied by the whole family. Could it not be that denial is as strong as the potential for confabulation?

Peace

 

[BillyTK]

Memory is a bit of a slippery weasel; we tend to think of it as some kind of file storage of our experiences, and repressed memories as files which have been intentionally buried at the bottom of the file storage to avoid recall.

The problem is that memories are not objective records; they are flavoured by our thoughts, feelings and sensory impressions of the time; they’re not fixed either and can be altered after the fact by the way we reflect on them and by the way others can influence are viewpoints about events (like, was I the entertaining story-teller and all round life of the party the other night, or was I just a drunken dork?). This is a pain in the arse wrt anecdotal recall—trying remember particular people and events, but if we couldn’t do this we’d go mad; for instance, can you imagine if, every time you found a better way of doing something, you had to relearn all the steps from scratch?

Memory is not just about conscious recall; you can get home from work without having to remember the precise route or your address. It’s also elicited by your environment, for instance, you don’t have to consciously recall how to drive a car once you’ve learnt how to do it and practiced often enough, and you don’t have to explicitly think, “Okay, I need to depress the brake pedal with my foot,” when you need to at traffic lights or similar.

I think it’s the environmental element and the non-conscious aspects of recall that is involved with memories suddenly appearing in our conscious minds. To give an example, there’s a particular perfume which always reminds me of my first girlfriend; but I experience that memory as a tremendous rush of emotions and a sense of place which I couldn’t put my finger on the first time I felt it (partly because it wasn’t so much a specific place as a number of different places linked by a common emotion); more details came back to me only after the second or third time I experienced this. So why should the memory have taken the form that it did? Well, she was my first girlfriend, which was significant enough in itself, but also that period of my life was very intense anyway and the two aspects are very tangled. The “repressed” aspect of it was our relationship ended really badly, then got worse, and it was something I really tried to put out of mind at the time by focussing on the break-up and subsequent events and trying to forget our good times together. So it’s not so much that I “repressed” the good times as “practiced” the bad times so they were more likely to be remembered.

So it might be better to characterise "repressed memory" as "memories of experiences we'd rather not experience again", but the problem with this is the idea of “repression” which suggests some kind of action that a person has to take, when the opposite is more likely to be the case. But we can’t always be sure that the memory is an accurate recall of a particular experience (I think the term is “pseudo-memory”, but this a bit mad ‘cos it suggests there’s such a thing as “genuine” memory) as much as a synthesis of a whole load of different “memory fragments”, with interpretation made after the memory is experienced (which is made even worse if there’s someone else directing the recall activity)--for instance, I have a number of different “versions” of what happened between my and my first girlf; one is the “ideal” version, which absolves me of all blame and places all the guilt on her, the other is the more “honest” version which acknowledges my faults, and there’s another which is made up of comments and bits of conversations passed by our mutual friends.

 

[sickstan]

As far as the rat in the dark experiment, I don't think that may have anything to do with repressed memories. It sounds more like proving the biochemical basis for conditioned response (Pavlovian).

Repressed memories may exist for all we know, but I think that they are few and far between. The repressed memory syndrome for that brief period of psychiatry's insanity did much more harm than good, and the method for confirming the truth behind these recovered memories was abandoned -- the patient was believed at all cost to logic and skepticism. There are still some psychiatrists and odd folks who believe in the stories of alien abduction and ritual cannibalism and rape recovered under hypnosis. I can't remember, but there was one who wrote an entire book about aliens based on recovered memories from his patients. I strongly suspect his patients are much worse off now than when they were merely anxious or depressed.

We have many memories of our youth, some good, some terribly painful to remember. If you had a particularly humiliating event from your childhood, you may have vivid flashbacks that are almost palpable. If these are not accompanied by hypervigilance and nightmares characteristic of PTSD, then it's merely a symptom. (Remember, we all have signs of mental disorders -- as long as we don't let them affect our functioning, we don't consider them a disorder per se).

 

[roger]

Repressed memories always made some sense to me in this way: if a mind can't deal with something, it locks it away until the owner of said mind can deal with it. I always thought the hallucinations started because I was now an adult who could deal with the revelations.

But still I keep reading that repressed memories is first grade psychobabble, and wonder what mechanism is at work in such cases.

I have no idea if they are real or not, but I read an explanation along these lines... What memory could be more traumatic than watching a child die, or conversely, for a child to watch a parent die? Yet there is no evidence, none whatsoever, of people witnessing these things and not remembering. You know, wouldn't it be pretty common for police to show up at a car accident, for example, and to have the survivior say "I remember nothing"? (ignoring when it happens due to physical reasons, such as concussions). Instead, the memory seems to be seared into the brain, and it takes a lot of time and therapy to train the person to stop obsessively dwelling on it and replaying it. Why is it always things that no-one else can collaborate that are repressed, not the shocking things like car crashes, war, etc?

Again, I have no expertise in this area, and it's not my argument but one I read from some unremembered source, but this argument passes the "layman's reasonableness" criteria for me. Of course, we know how useful the "layman's reasonableness" criteria are in accessing things like relativity, so there ya go!

 

[aggle_rithm]

I have no idea if they are real or not, but I read an explanation along these lines... What memory could be more traumatic than watching a child die, or conversely, for a child to watch a parent die? Yet there is no evidence, none whatsoever, of people witnessing these things and not remembering. You know, wouldn't it be pretty common for police to show up at a car accident, for example, and to have the survivior say "I remember nothing"? (ignoring when it happens due to physical reasons, such as concussions). Instead, the memory seems to be seared into the brain, and it takes a lot of time and therapy to train the person to stop obsessively dwelling on it and replaying it. Why is it always things that no-one else can collaborate that are repressed, not the shocking things like car crashes, war, etc?

I agree. I think a lot of the "corroboration" that is claimed is simply another "recovered memory" from another person, where they KNOW what they are supposed to remember and create their own false memories.

An example: a while back a man was accused by his two daughters of satanic abuse. They "remembered" the events at some sort of seminar at their church. The father, of course, had no memory of the alleged abuse, but authorities and his pastor convinced him that it DID happen, he was just repressing it. After intense interrogation, he finally "remembered" and confessed to crimes which neither he nor anyone else had committed. Only after he went to prison did his mind clear and he realized that his memories were false. By then, it was too late to recant. I think he's STILL in prison.

A very dangerous thing, this belief in recovered memories.