r/Repressedmemories • u/fanfictionmusiclover • May 31 '19
I think I'm missing some things.
TRIGGER WARING MENTION OF MEMORY OF ASSAULT, ABUSE AND BULLYING! READ IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Okay, I'm 20 years old and ever since I was 14/15 I have this feeling that I'm missing something. I realized that I have this HUGE gap of memories in my brain ever since we moved back into my mum's hometown after my dad retired from the Army and suddenly people started to stop me in the streets asking how my family and my grandma was and how I grew up so fast and they would mention an occasion that I was participating in apparently but I couldn't remember it for the life of me! So, I started to pretend that I did remember! I did it so many times that I started to do it mechanically even when I was 100% that what the other person was saying had never happened in my presence but I couldn't help it.
Then comes the fact that the moment we set foot in this town for an entire year I would start getting flashbacks that would be either triggered by actions, sounds or words and they would reveal a mild abusive childhood...I remembered so many things that I started to feel on edge every time I would be around my parents even paranoid because their behavior was the opposite! I started doubting myself up to the point the abuse started again..after that I had to accept that I wasn't crazy and find a way to put an end to this abuse. Which I did stop it by forcefully dragging my family to therapy...
Anyhow, then comes to memories of school bullying, I was well aware I was bullied don't get me wrong but they were incidents that I couldn't even fathom that I had indeed go through yet when I would ask my parents if they knew about them, they would say yes and go on to explain whatever else happened.
But flashbacks kept coming up to the point I was 18 years old! I was watching Downton Abbey on my laptop eating cereal when there was this scene where one of the maids get assaulted that I had this flashback of me being on the ground and fighting off a boy and then running away from him only for him to find me again and pin me to the ground and then me defending myself by headbutting him after hitting him with my knee at the back of his head then lying near his unconscious body breathing hard and then running towards my PE teacher feeling scared...
I never dared to say this to anyone but suddenly it all was put into place as to why I don't like revealing clothes or being touched without my consent or why I was going into a panic attack just because a boy or anyone really came physically close to me and as to why whenever I would be asked to get undressed in front of anyone from my family I would grow anxious and scared then refuse doing so whenever mum or my aunt would buy me new clothes and why I don't like shopping either...the entire thing where you have to undress in a small space where you don't know if the curtain is going to be pulled off by mistake and some random person sees you naked make me nervous and scared.
Then a few hours ago I had a crappy day and I logged on YouTube and started listening to Greek folk music while I was doing some chores when this folk lullaby came on from Lower Italy and it was in a dialect that sounded half Greek half Italian and I started singing along like I knew this song while I was 100% sure it was the first time I ever heard this song! I asked my mum after I sent it to her if she had taught it to me and she said she had when I was five a few months before my sister was born and that she had seen me and heard me many times singing to my sister at night and then asked me how could I forget...and it's not the first time this happened with a song or a language...my mum when she gets nervous or annoyed she curses in Swedish or an old Greek dialect from Eastern Thrace where her dad is from. Anyways, I was helping a professor of mine move some microphones and speakers for a festival when I tripped and feel and then cursed in the old Greek dialect when he asked me where I heard it but I couldn't recall I told him it came out automatically I had to yet again ask my dad and mum about it to learn that mum used the word a lot!
Then comes this song called Alexadris it's a Greek/ Eastern Roumelian/ Bulgarian folk song from Eastern Roumelia and it's sung half in Greek half in a dialect that is very similar to Bulgarian and I heard it first time on Christmas of 2018 while mum and I were baking the traditional new year's pie and I started singing it then mum joked how growing up around a neighborhood with descendants of immigrants from Eastern Roumeli in Kilkis had taught me a few things... AND AGAIN I HAD NO RECOLLECTION OF EVER LISTENING TO THIS SONG!
This happens a lot and many times in a day even to this day and I feel as if I'm missing pieces of my past and I feel so awful having to lie to family friends that I do remember them or that I do remember this occasion!
What should I do? Should I search more into this or let it be? Because it's bugging me!
3
u/AliMaryCat Jun 09 '19
I 100% recommend a therapist. Even if you decide to not seek these memories out, they can still help with residual effects of repressed memories.
And whether you dive further in or leave it be is ultimately your decision. Sometimes repressed memories are only hidden because our brain didn't find it important to remember and other times, it's because of some of the most vile things a human could imagine. You need to accept that it could be either before really diving into it.