Memories

midlandsmissus

Hi guys I'm not seeking medical advice so I thought this would be okay to post here. It's more of a musing really.

I've long felt that I was sexully abused as a child, I suppose it's something you intrinsically know. However I have NO memory. Well a few small memories but my brain seems to block them out any time I try to think of them, which I don't too often as it is hard.

I've recently read research that if you can't remember much of your childhood, this could be a symptom of abuse, So my question is at what stage developmentally should you start to have memories? What is a normal age to have memories of?

I cannot remember a thing before age 7 and then it's very very hazy from 7 until 16. Like I know techincally where I was at that time - primary and secondary school, but I couldnt't give you one detailed memory of primary school and very few of secondary school up until this age.

I would be interested in opinions, thanks.

Valmont

I'm hope you don't mind if I play the devil's advocate here

midlandsmissus wrote: »

I've long felt that I was sexully abused as a child, I suppose it's something you intrinsically know.

I don't think so. An argument of that kind could me made for all sorts of things that one may not have evidence for.

midlandsmissus wrote: »

I've recently read research that if you can't remember much of your childhood, this could be a symptom of abuse,

That's really clutching at straws. I suppose it's a possibility but probably a very slim one. It's also important to note that the theory of repressed memories isn't as cast iron as some groups would have you think. Look at this abstract for example. Memory is slippery and not absolute and the controversy surrounding false memories is well documented- I'd advise you to read these articles before jumping to any conclusions. I hope I don't appear insensitive but considering the seriousness of any accusations that may arise out of such internal inquiries, it would be wise to read up on things first.

Loftus- Remembering Dangerously
and
http://www.fmsfonline.org/

Good luck.

JuliusCaesar

It seems to be fairly common - a few of my clients have told me this, and I don't have a lot of memories myself! Sometimes they can be revived by other people telling me of events that happened, other times I just don't remember at all.

Some comments from people here

Some discussion here

looksee

I am the same, I have just a few fairly clear memories as a child and later, but vast swathes of my life have vanished, sometimes I can even look at a photograph or other evidence and it might take a couple of days for even a glimmer to come back to me.

However, I am totally confident I was not abused as a child or at any other time. This does not prove that you were not, of course, but I don't think it is unusual to have a poor memory.

Have you any actual records - photographs, school reports, anything from your childhood that might trigger your memory? But if you don't feel that your life is disturbed or you have issues that might be related, then why be concerned about it?

I think the whole business of memory is quite interesting. Why can some people remember everything they read, or incidents in chronological order, and others have very poor memories. Why can't a rubbish memory be treated like, say, dyslexia, instead of something that you should have control over, and you are stupid if you cannot commit to and retrieve from memory?

Waking-Dreams

Don't read 'The Courage To Heal' whatever you do.

I know people can repress traumatic memories, but isn't the opposite true? Where victims can't help but remember?

Bernard99

found this - http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/06/3003364.htm?section=world - interesting slant.

The idea being that the real trauma is experienced by the adult as they begin to understand the gravity and real adult world understanding of how they were mistreated. That it's not the memories that are traumatic in themselves.

I'm really just starting out in this field of enquiry and i'm always surprised by how little people actually understand, even now, about so many of these processes......

JuliusCaesar

Bernard99 wrote: »

That it's not the memories that are traumatic in themselves.

People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.
(Epictetus )
as CBT therapists keep saying..............

Gibs

Daniel Schacter has written a couiple of good books on the subject. This one is very good in terms of explaining the limits and essential unreliability of memory, while this one analyses the evidence for and against the idea of repressed memories in a comprehensive and scientifically literate way.

This article from a few years ago is another very useful summary of some of the different schools of thought on 'memories' of abuse.

Also, Here's what the American Psychological Association think about the subject.

Personally I think that one of the most useful things to consider regarding memory is the developmental perspective. Here's a developmental explanation for why we can't remember much of our early years. It's based on the idea that the memory system in our brains that deals with facts and events is organised and managed by certain structures in the brain (primarily the hippocampus) that are immature until we get a bit older, whereas the memory system in the brain that deals with emotional content and procedures/skills/habits is organisd and managed by other structures (primarily the amygdala, basal ganglia and cerebellum) that are mature and ready to go when you are born. The result is that you learn how to walk and remember how to do it but don't remember the day you took your first steps.

I think this concept of implicit memory (i.e non-declarative memory) could be viewed, paradoxically, as an argument against and a support for the notion of represssed/recovered memory. Because of the time-lag between the maturation of different types of memory system, you may remember an emotionally distressing or salient experience and yet have no explicit memory of the event or episode that was associated with the encoding of that impicit memory. It's only later that you remember the feeling and/or the non-declarative aspect of the memory. The argument against repressed memory is that perhaps you then use the (notoriously suggestible) episodic memory system to construct events that explain how you acquired that distressing implicit memory, confabulating a plausible narrative to fit with the emotional content (which could have been caused by something that did not involve abuse). However, the argument in favour of recovered memory is that the implicit,emotionally charged, non-declarative memory could have been encoded as a result of a genuinely abusive experience. There's a great video here from the research channel that looks at the neurobiology of this idea of early abuse causing distressing implicit memories that later cause emotional distress.

In general, I think the only thing that you can say for certain about memory is that it is, at best, highly subjective and prone to distortion at all stages from initial encoding to retention to retrieval.

As a bit of an aside here's some fascinating and scary stuff on the unreliability of eye-witness accounts that would make you fear for the safety of many convictions in the courts.

Torakx

midlandsmissus wrote: »

Hi guys I'm not seeking medical advice so I thought this would be okay to post here. It's more of a musing really.

I've long felt that I was sexully abused as a child, I suppose it's something you intrinsically know. However I have NO memory. Well a few small memories but my brain seems to block them out any time I try to think of them, which I don't too often as it is hard.

I've recently read research that if you can't remember much of your childhood, this could be a symptom of abuse, So my question is at what stage developmentally should you start to have memories? What is a normal age to have memories of?

I cannot remember a thing before age 7 and then it's very very hazy from 7 until 16. Like I know techincally where I was at that time - primary and secondary school, but I couldnt't give you one detailed memory of primary school and very few of secondary school up until this age.

I would be interested in opinions, thanks.

Sorry to butt in here.
I was passing through and its really a shot in the dark but if i could ask some questions as i am also pondering a few things about memory and other behaviour being linked.
Do you happen to have trouble making eye contact with people?
Also have trouble with balance or coordination/clumsyness?
Any sensitivity to light?
A strong willingness to stay on a subject of conversation and find it hard to switch to other topics mid way?
Find it hard to read facial expression?
I ask because i know somebody who cannot remember their past for pretty much the same years you mention and i thought its as i said a shot in the dark but you never know you may have also those symptoms for which i may have an answer.
Pm me if needs be.
Best of luck with this curiosity.

Dave!

I saw this blog post and thought on this thread...

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2315

In three experiments, participants observed actions, some of which they had not performed earlier, and took a source-memory test. Action observation robustly produced false memories of self-performance relative to control conditions.

Human memory is not very good, so be cautious about jumping to any conclusions.

Odysseus

OP for some reason, I have avoided this thread until now. I'm a bit tried tonight so I'll post a few more thoughts I have on the subject tomorrow. However, because of the nature of the topic behind your questions I thought I would post a few comments tonight.

I have encountered similar theories before; the worst I ever heard was if a person is asking such a question then it means they more than likely have encountered such events. Like most of the people here who work in a clinical environment I regularly encounter people who have experienced trauma in their past. Such notions like the one you mentioned would hold no water with me.

Keeping this a general discussion on the topic as opposed to one dealing specifically with your history. People who encountered such experiences do not have no memory of it, in my experience. Additionally, it is very common for people to state at the start of therapy that the have a very poor recollection of their childhood; however, if they take on that piece of work as they work at it through the course of therapy, their recollection of their childhood becomes much more focus and broader.

As I said I'll back up the above over the weekend when I am more alert. I have never encountered "recovered memories" in the course of my career. Just to add I trained as a psychoanalyst, repression is some I encounter; however, this is different to the notion of recovered memories of abuse. Certainly, I seen people gain further insights into their history, but any person I ever worked with who was abused knew about it before they started therapy, yes I have seen people remember it in much better detail, but never, ever discover abuse that they did mot know about on some level before therapy.

As I say I'm quite tired and just to bed, however, I hope the above makes some sense.

avidreader

Here's another view on the memory debate.

"Research has shown that traumatized individuals respond by using a variety of psychological mechanisms. One of the most common means of dealing with the pain is to try and push it out of awareness. Some label the phenomenon of the process whereby the mind avoids conscious acknowledgment of traumatic experiences as dissociative amnesia . Others use terms such as repression , dissociative state , traumatic amnesia, psychogenic shock, or motivated forgetting . Semantics aside, there is near-universal scientific acceptance of the fact that the mind is capable of avoiding conscious recall of traumatic experiences."
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/tm/tm.html

"the Recovered Memory Project. This project began as an archive of corroborated cases of recovered memories of traumatic events. It grew from two dozen cases to over 100, and 5 new cases have just been added, for a total of 106 cases. The archive of corroborated cases of recovered memories" http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/

for more information on memory:

http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/

http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/suggestedrefs.html

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/index.html

http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Recovered_Memories
"The content of recovered memories have fairly high corroboration rates."

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/docs/ShanleyBrief.pdf

http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/abuse/a/cooroborate.htm

This page has information on false memories and the FMSF.

http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=False_Memory_Syndrome
"Members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation have been critiqued for misrepresenting data and for their possible reasons for having created the idea of the syndrome." It also has information on Loftus.

Loftus:
http://users.owt.com/crook/memory/
http://www.kspope.com/memory/memory.php
http://www.rememberingdangerously.com/
http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/#el

Murphy8

In response to whether you were molested or not. I hope you were not molested.

If you were molested, you'll recover memories when you're ready. Until then, take good care of yourself.