Is there such a thing as repression? If so, can one really repress memories of such dramatic and personally traumatic events as the horrors of war or sexual abuse, committed by such perpetrators as close family members, clergy, satanic cults or simply the neighbor next door? If so, can these repressed memories be retrieved intact, even after many decades, free from fabrication or distortion? The many issues raised by such claims have become among the most controversial in the history of psychology. Efforts of each side to provide convincing evidence to the other have almost completely failed, although widespread demonstrations of the capacity of common clinical memory “recovery” procedures to induce false memories have inspired greater caution in some segments of the therapeutic community.īeginning in the 1980s and escalating into the 1990s, scores of legal claims were filed by purported victims alleging that they had recently “recovered” memories of sexual abuse that had been “repressed” for periods of time spanning years or decades (Loftus & Ketcham, 1994 Pendergrast, 1995).
Those contesting the phenomenon of repression and arguing for the potential to create false memories for traumatic events have been memory and clinical scientists largely. Those arguing for the validity of repression and recovery of traumatic memories have been practicing therapists largely. Critics have argued against the phenomenon of repression, focusing upon the potential for suggestive influences and procedures to produce false memories of abuse and other autobiographical events. Don’t stop fighting.Among the most controversial topics in modern psychology has been that of whether memories of traumatic life events can be repressed, pushed out of conscious awareness and inaccessible to the victim for long periods of time but nevertheless be “recovered” and remembered accurately years or decades later. If your wounds feel like too much, don’t give up. The damage is too deep, and I spent years without treating it because I didn’t know I had damage. And I provide emotional support for them. It’s only a handful of people, but it’s a start. I’m only now starting to get emotional support from other people. I have a long journey ahead of me and I feel I won’t be able to have a healthy romantic relationship for many more years. I spent nearly 30 years without emotional support from anyone. I grew up being ridiculed and treated like I was nothing. When someone did, if they poked fun or ridiculed me, I would leave. They didn’t understand my perspective and I didn’t see the joy in life they all saw. As I aged and went to high school and college, I had trouble relating to my peers. There are so many things I don’t remember and part of me doesn’t want to remember.Īfter those years, I became emotionally detached. She said I did it for three or four years. My older sister recalled I would rock back and forth with my arms crossed every time my parents started arguing. I’m told its normal for people to not remember much from their early childhood, but I feel the trauma has something to do with my lack of memories. This was the first incident and I have few memories from anything prior.
I lived in the trauma for so long I thought it was “normal.” I thought domestic violence was normal. As I continued researching, more memories returned repressed memories. This is when I first started contributing to The Mighty. I didn’t have an official diagnosis, but I knew I had anxiety and I researched everything. I was 30 before everything started coming back. Growing up, I never realized my childhood wasn’t “normal.” I thought my life was similar to everyone else’s but with a different order of events or situations.