I do allot of detachment exercises when I am dealing with newly unblocked memories. The sheer force of the experience is allot to process and it is all too easy to force the process into self-gaslighting, harsh judgements, etc., etc. When I can view the memory with a detachment similar to how I watch a movie, the pieces of the puzzle come together more accurately.

But that is me. . .

Gentle support while you find what works for you. It is, indeed, hard to go through. Be gentle with yourself and patient with the process.

Attempted humor alert. . .
I got issues, too. Rolling Stone, Reader's Digest, Mother Earth News, National Geographic. . .
Wanna borrow one of my issues?

@arfie thank you and your issues sound wonderful lol

I had memories unblock aroudn 2013. More emotions attafched to existing memories. And... As I look back (and forward) I view it like standing on a shoreline. Waves hit, stagger me, and I get solid again... and then a bigger wave hits, or a smaller wave hits, and each time, I'm freaking tired of finding that "solid" ground again... But therapy taught me a lot of coping mechanisms to deal with the waves, and being here on DSPTSD did, too. Meds, yes, have also helped me often...

Eventually, I think the tide "ebbs", and we get to see the stuff it leaves behind, and some of it is stinky, to carry on with my beachy metaphor. (Sorry, I am supposed to be in a resort this weeekend, but no due to pandemic so... beach on my mind.) But in that stinky seaweed and driftwood... there are moments of beauty and clarity and miracle.

Healing hopes for you. Forgive my rambling. Puma paw bump of solidarity.

In therapy my doc broke it to me gently that I was raised by two untreated mentally ill parents, a bipolar dad and a mom with borderline personality disorder. He based it on meeting them and having sessions with them, not just on hearsay from me, so I had to accept reality. I love them both, but they were irresponsible and dangerous.

Example: like when my dad got frustrated on a family trip and drove our car into a deep river and nearly drowned us all. A local farmer saved us and towed our car out of the water with his tractor. You should have seen his puzzled face after he got our car and us back up safe on the river bank.

I learned to develop an absurd sense of humor to help me accept these memories once I started to process them aloud with my therapist, something I'd never done before. Like trying to put myself in that farmer's shoes when he was puzzled as to what was going on with this wet family.

My childhood days keep coming back to me and it's like I'm seeing it happening all over again especially with my dad I try and forget things that happened but it's just like I live with it for the rest of my life.
DS is my best support I can ever ask for, keep strong.

So glad DS is good support for you, Littlechef. You give support well, too.

We all come by our issues honestly. It sounds like you might benefit from some therapy. It has saved my life on more than one occasion. Wishing you well. Chloe

Deal with...sigh.

I did alot of screaming. I did alot of crying. I felt shattered like a large window crushed into dust. Tiny pieces of me scattered, crushed, broken beyond reason familiar but completely foreign all at the same time.

I had a really awesome therapist. Eventually i started sorting through all the tiny fractured pieces of myself trying to understand, is this me? or is this from my abuse? Some details were obvious, some were not. Some pieces i swept away, or washed away with my river of tears, some details I kept even when I knew they were from the abuse. There was a sense of relief, at least i understood so many things about myself that i never understood for so many years, but then the horrors of why i now understood, and the trauma of dealing with KNOWING, and facing the reality.

Here is my reality. I was changed forever and irrevocably when i was victimized. It damaged me, Like a vehicle that has been torn to shreds and become unrecognizable after a major car wreck with no survivors. My life was a dark living nightmare of absolute stark terror with no name, until I finally broke the traumatic memory loss and the horror started coming into the daylight.

When I began to remember, it felt like sheer hell and it felt completely overwhelming and it felt over and over like I could not breath, because that is part of what was done to me. Looking back (I was 36 when i began to remember and am 60 now) as horrible as it felt, it was the beginning of my healing. Make no mistake, i am still messy and a total disaster on wheels with my hair on fire but, mostly, i am comfortable, and peaceful and i have managed to learn to stop making my life worse. I suggest, find a good therapist that knows what they are doing. Keep using this group or others like this, unload here. Recovery is a process, It is hard work and we each have to make our own choices

Anyway, you are not alone. You dont ever have to be. We are here.