Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group

Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.

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hollygrove 09/17/2012

I am making a mountain of index cards ( and finding myself saying "how did I stay this long?") . I've been depending on journals I"ve written , but there are blocks of time that I didn't write. This afternoon , for some reason, memories are flooding back from when we were first married to the time my oldest daughter was born. We were married in 1985, but I didn't keep a consistent journal until the late 90s when I started writing "I'm so afraid of disappointing you ". That journal lasted a year.
So I have blocks of time that I didn't account for . I think being busy raising the girls, plus the head injury from the car accident in '87 all kept me from writing .
Any ideas on triggering memories? I have about 75 cards just with the journals I have; Heaven knows how many more I'd have if I could remember more . Thanks - Holly

rachelrachel 09/17/2012

I don't have any tips.

but one thing I know-the more I read things here on this forum, and the more I learn about abuse-the more I remember, and the more things I recognize as abuse...

sometimes I'll go weeks or months not thinking about it, and then suddenly, I'll remember a whole wack of things..it's good at that point to take note of it right away so that you don't forget again.

I find, reading back here in my journals, I don't remember half the stuff that happened! I read something, and it's like someone else wrote it, or how did that woman ever live through all of that???

beansprout 09/17/2012

Ive also found, now that I am removed from the abuse, more and more memories of what happened, the things he did to me that Id obviously tried to blank out are returning.

kazb25 09/17/2012

i agree wiv Rachel. I dont think there are really any straight forward methods on remembering Things i just think u have to keep learning more and then sometimes when u learn something then it just clicks and u can relate an incident that u experienced to what u have just learnt about. I too am learning things and doing just that every now and then. I think its a slow process so just give it time but put the effort into gaining more insight into abuse. Sometimes i read something on here that someone puts about what their Laures has just done and i find myself posting saying. "my ex did something like this he did this and that" and its literally like its sparked a memory of which i probably wouldnt have thought about

kazb25 09/17/2012

*abuser not Laures lol stupid phone

IleneW 09/17/2012

Here are things (remember that
everybody's different), that may
serve to bring back memories:

Remembering trips you were on together.

Listening to familiar or old music.

Looking at old photos or videos.

Cooking familiar meals or going to
places you routinely ate ate together.

Thinking of how particular holidays went
over the years together.

Watching movies you saw together.

These are just a few. Don't try them
all at once!

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