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Based upon my own experience as a severe infant abuse survivor (followed by an accumulated history of 18 years of child abuse) I will say that I do not believe that dissociation is the same thing as ‘forgetting’ such as the kind of forgetting that the research in my last post seems to suggest.  In fact, I believe dissociation accomplishes the exact opposite of forgetting.  Dissociation allows-forces us to retain the ability to remember trauma in a very unique way.  Under the ‘right’ circumstances I believe we survivors are able to remember everything about every trauma that happened to us in  our childhoods (if not also in much of our infancy).

If anyone should ever need a recount of a specific trauma told to them in order to help a similar trauma from never happening again to someone else, or if a recounting of such a trauma was needed to help a survivor of a similar experience reach some healing – dissociators are the people to ask.  I believe we are a treasure-trove of memory about trauma.  We do not forget.  We dissociate.

I will also say that saying that a trauma is/was ‘overwhelming’ is not the same thing as saying that a trauma is/was ‘unbearable’.  I make this distinction because while I had vast experience of suffering overwhelming brutal traumas over 18 years caused by my mother, I did not ‘turn out like her’.  Even though my traumas were probably MUCH more extensive and intolerable than were the ones my mother suffered when she was little, I was somehow able to BEAR my overwhelming traumas in ways that my mother evidently could not.

The fact that my mother was overwhelmed by traumas that were unbearable to her meant that her body-brain-mind changed in response in ways that mine did not.  I have do doubt that my mother continually dissociated, but my mother was ACTING OUT her traumas by projecting them outside of herself while I – most fortunately — do not.

When it comes to an early recognition of the completely-alone and suffering self, and when it comes to an early ability to attach ongoing experience in memory form to this self, and when the experiences the early self is enduring are brutally traumatic, dissociation is the only way out.  The memories of such a self are simply ‘put somewhere else’.  But they are NOT forgotten.

I don’t believe that dissociation works that way.  I suspect that for severe infant and child abuse survivors, dissociation actually works to preserve memory of overwhelming traumas rather than to evaporate it.  I personally make absolutely NO EFFORT to EVER recall any memory of my traumas.  On my own, I see no purpose to doing so.  If, however, I lived among a different culture that valued what trauma has to teach and knew how to ‘handle’ trauma wisely, I have no doubt that my own experience of being a survivor would be far different than it is – and would be better.

I leave my packed-to-the-rafter memory banks alone.  Often I can sense-feel trauma memories as if they are physically in another part of my house.  I make conscious effort to ignore even the fact that I know those memories exist and are a living part of me that COULD be remembered accurately if I wanted to or chose to.

Without having a clear and direct reason to allow any of my memories to appear – and that reason would ONLY be to assist someone else somehow through what a trauma memory might offer them – I will NEVER make any effort to associate myself with what the wisdom of my body-brain-mind-self has selected to dissociate myself from.

That of course means that I do not allow myself to THINK about most of the experiences of my infant-childhood.  What I DO know is enough for me to deal with.  In fact, I don’t want to say another single word about this topic.  Goodbye.

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+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART ONE): WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT?

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART TWO): FIRST, SELF-RECOGNITION

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART THREE): ‘GROUPTHINK’ and ‘GROUPFEEL’

+THINKING ABOUT THINKING (PART FOUR): SEVERE INFANT ABUSE SURVIVORS’ UNIQUE WORLDVIEW

These posts follow along my line of thinking presented in the posts at this link:

WE the U.S. and the WORLD

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