One of my ongoing fears has been whether all of my memories are true or not. I'm scared that for some reason my brain created new memories. My reasoning is kind of convoluted.... I minimize what I know really happened to me so I feel like my feelings aren't valid - so I'm worried that my brain made up even more stuff so that I don't feel like I'm overreacting. Except that having these new memories obviously don't make me feel better so I'm not really sure why I think I would make them up.
I spent some time thinking about why I question it so much, even after three different therapists have heard at least parts of my story and how I recalled it and have told me that it's likely that my story is true, even if I don't have all of the details exactly right. I realized that I spend so much energy on questioning the truth of my memories that I don't have to spend any time thinking about what it means if they're true. Sometimes it takes so much energy that I don't even have to let myself process the feelings associated with what I do know is true. So I'm sort of starting to believe that it could be a defense mechanism against accepting what happened to me. For now, I've decided to try to let it sit in my head as something that happened and try to accept it rather than constantly question and worry about it.
Yes or No?
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| May, 2012 |
The grey line through the middle of this drawing is the confusion about whether the memories are true or not. The top half of the picture, above the grey line, represents the feelings that are involved if the memories are true. The reds and oranges represent the pain, anger and hurt that I would have to start accepting. The browns and greens represent the humiliation, shame and guilt that I feel when I think about what happened. Below the grey line is how I would feel if I found out that my memories aren't true. I would feel like I was crazy, thus the jagged lines that go all over the place. I would also feel really horrible about myself for making something like that up, which is portrayed through the colors I used. Both sides are really scary so it's actually easier to stay in the middle in the grey confusion.
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