Best Dissociative Amnesia Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Dissociation is the common response of children to repetitive, overwhelming trauma and holds the untenable knowledge out of awareness. The losses and the emotions engendered by the assaults on soul and body cannot, however be held indefinitely. In the absence of effective restorative experiences, the reactions to trauma will find expression. As the child gets older, he will turn the rage in upon himself or act it out on others, else it all will turn into madness.”

Source: Satan's High Priest

“After writing the letter Sybil lost almost two days. "Coming to," she stumbled across what she had written just before she had dissociated and wrote to Dr. Wilbur as follows: It's just so hard to have to feel, believe, and admit that I do not have conscious control over my selves. It is so much more threatening to have something out of hand than to believe that at any moment I can stop (I started to say "This foolishness") any time I need to. When I wrote the previous letter, I had made up my mind I would show you how I could be very composed and cool and not need to ask you to listen to me nor to explain anything to me nor need any help. By telling you that all this about the multiple personalities was not really true I could show, or so I thought, that I did not need you. Well, it would be easier if it were put on. But the only ruse of which I'm guilty is to have pretended for so long before coming to you that nothing was wrong. Pretending that the personalities did not exist has now caused me to lose about two days.”

Source: Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“Theirs was the eternal youth of an alternating self, a youth with the constant although unfulfilled promise of growing up”

Healing Abuse Mental Health Recovery Sexual Abuse Psychiatry Dissociative Identity Disorder Dissociation Psychotherapy Amnesia Multiplicity Multiple Personalities Dissociative Amnesia Mpd Fugue

Book:Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

Source: Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

“She's terrified that all these sensations and images are coming out of her — but I think she's even more terrified to find out why." Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing.”

“We say, "It wasn't that bad. It was all my fault. I’m making all this stuff up. " All my life, I spoke bitterly of my mother's treatment of me as a child. Friends asked, “What did she do to you?“ I couldn't really describe it, and in frustration would say, “Well, she didn't lock us up in closets." in fact, my mother behaved much worse than that, but by focusing on the empty closet, I avoided looking at what waited beyond it.”

Mother Fear Hatred Betrayal Rage Resentment Child Abuse Avoidance Amnesia Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Pedophile Protector

Book:Becoming One: A Story of Triumph Over Dissociative Identity Disorder

Source: Becoming One: A Story of Triumph Over Dissociative Identity Disorder

“To most of the outside world I am 'Kim Noble'. I'll answer to that name because I'm aware of the DID and also because it's easier than explaining who I really am. Most of the other personalities are still in denial, as I was for the majority of my life. They don't believe they share a body and absolutely refuse to accept they are only out' for a fraction of the day, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I know how they feel, because for forty years that was me.”

Dissociative Identity Disorder Dissociative Amnesia Didmpd Identity Confusion Dissociative Denial

Book:All of Me

Source: All of Me

“Identity confusion... is as if somebody lost their mental road map and has no appreciation of who they are or what is going on in their life. They may know they know but become blustered or baffled as to why they don't. The information is inaccessible and likely would remind a person about things that have gone on in their life that are simply unacceptable and unknowable, in a given moment, because of the emotional gravity involved.”

Unbearable Dissociative Amnesia Dissociative Disorders Fugue Unknowable Identity Confusion

Book:Intensive Psychotherapy for Persistent Dissociative Processes: The Fear of Feeling Real

Source: Intensive Psychotherapy for Persistent Dissociative Processes: The Fear of Feeling Real

“In this chapter I restrict myself to exploring the nature of the amnesia which is reported between personality states in most people who are diagnosed with DID. Note that this is not an explicit diagnostic criterion, although such amnesia features strongly in the public view of DID, particularly in the form of the fugue-like conditions depicted in ﬁlms of the condition, such as The Three Faces of Eve (1957). Typically, when one personality state, or ‘alter’, takes over from another, they have no idea what happened just before. They report having lost time, and often will have no idea where they are or how they got there. However, this is not a universal feature of DID. It happens that with certain individuals with DID, one personality state can retrieve what happened when another was in control. In other cases we have what is described as ‘co-consciousness’ where one personality state can apparently monitor what is happening when another personality state is in control and, in certain circumstances, can take over the conversation.”

Source: Trauma, Dissociation and Multiplicity: Working on Identity and Selves

“Dissociative symptoms—primarily depersonalization and derealization—are elements in other DSM-IV disorders, including schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, and in the neurologic syndrome of temporal lobe epilepsy, also called complex partial seizures. In this latter disorder, there are often florid symptoms of depersonalization and realization, but most amnesia symptoms derive from difficulties with focused attention rather than forgetting previously learned information.”

Amnesia Schizophrenia Dissociative Borderline Personality Disorder Dissociative Amnesia Dissociative Disorders Depersonalization Derealization

Book:Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders

Source: Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders

“Dissociative Disorders have a high rate of responsiveness to therapy and that with proper treatment, their prognosis is quite good.”

Mental Illness Therapy Dissociative Identity Disorder Dissociation Abuse Survivors Psychotherapy Mental Disorder Traumatized Dissociative Disorder Dissociative Amnesia Dissociative Disorders Mpd Depersonalization Ddnos Prognosis Derealization Depersonalization Disorder Dissociative Fugue

Book:Interviewer's Guide to the Structured Clinical Interview for Dsm-IV Dissociative Disorders

Source: Interviewer's Guide to the Structured Clinical Interview for Dsm-IV Dissociative Disorders

“Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing. So they fragment the memories into hundreds of shards, leaving only acceptable traces in their conscious minds. Rationalizations like "my childhood was rough," "he only did it to me once or twice," and "it wasn't so bad" are common, masking the fact that the abuse was devastating and chronic. But while the knowledge, body sensations, and feelings are shattered, they are not forgotten. They intrude in unexpected ways: through panic attacks and insomnia, through dreams and artwork, through seemingly inexplicable compulsions, and through the shadowy dread of the abusive parent. They live just outside of consciousness like noisy neighbors who bang on the pipes and occasionally show up at the door.”

Healing Abuse Mental Health Addiction Mental Illness Denial Survivor Child Abuse Dread Subconscious Ptsd Alcoholism Insomnia Avoidance Dissociation Abuse Survivors Nightmares Survivors Incest Healing Insights Fragmented Traumatic Experiences Childhood Abuse Conscious Awareness Rationalization Mental Disorder Traumatized Panic Attacks Dissociative Disorder Alcohol Addiction Self Protection Child Rape Dissociative Amnesia Healing From Abuse Minimizing Flashback Abusive Parents Healing Abuse Trauma Memory Defense Mechanism Flashbacks Parental Abuse Effects Of Child Abuse Minimization Denial Of Abuse Trauma Memories Denial Of Child Abuse Traumatic Memories Abusive Parent Intrusive Sadistic Abuse Denial Of Incest Incestuous Psychological Defence Bad Childhood Irrational Fears Abusive Childhood Intrusions Minimizing Issues Dissociated Amnesia Compulsions Compulsive Eating Fear Of Truth Body Memories Compulsive Behavior Compulsive Overeating Seemingly Inexplicable Behavior Sex Addition

Book:The Couple Who Became Each Other: Stories of Healing and Transformation from a Leading Hypnotherapist

Source: The Couple Who Became Each Other: Stories of Healing and Transformation from a Leading Hypnotherapist

“The case of a patient with dissociative identity disorder follows: Cindy, a 24-year-old woman, was transferred to the psychiatry service to facilitate community placement. Over the years, she had received many different diagnoses, including schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder. Dissociative identity disorder was her current diagnosis. Cindy had been well until 3 years before admission, when she developed depression, "voices," multiple somatic complaints, periods of amnesia, and wrist cutting. Her family and friends considered her a pathological liar because she would do or say things that she would later deny. Chronic depression and recurrent suicidal behavior led to frequent hospitalizations. Cindy had trials of antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and anxiolytics, all without benefit. Her condition continued to worsen. Cindy was a petite, neatly groomed woman who cooperated well with the treatment team. She reported having nine distinct alters that ranged in age from 2 to 48 years; two were masculine. Cindy’s main concern was her inability to control the switches among her alters, which made her feel out of control. She reported having been sexually abused by her father as a child and described visual hallucinations of him threatening her with a knife. We were unable to confirm the history of sexual abuse but thought it likely, based on what we knew of her chaotic early home life. Nursing staff observed several episodes in which Cindy switched to a troublesome alter. Her voice would change in inflection and tone, becoming childlike as ]oy, an 8-year-old alter, took control. Arrangements were made for individual psychotherapy and Cindy was discharged. At a follow-up 3 years later, Cindy still had many alters but was functioning better, had fewer switches, and lived independently. She continued to see a therapist weekly and hoped to one day integrate her many alters.”

Source: Introductory Textbook of Psychiatry, Fourth Edition

“The term dissociation is ordinarily used to describe the phenomenon of compartmentalization or fragmentation of mental contents. It does not ascribe any particular mechanism by which the dissociative process occurs. Does dissociation occur as a result of automatic, nonconscious processes, or are there other specific mechanisms by which it occurs? Especially in the context of describing amnesia, the term repression is widely used in connection with several different mechanisms. As it is commonly used, it often implies how individuals may block our memories of uncomfortable or conflictual experiences. If done consciously, the mechanism is more accurately called suppression, which results from actively trying not to think about negative experiences.”

Source: Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders

“Treating Abuse Today (Tat), 3(4), pp. 26-33 Freyd: I see what you're saying but people in psychology don't have a uniform agreement on this issue of the depth of -- I guess the term that was used at the conference was -- "robust repression." TAT: Well, Pamela, there's a whole lot of evidence that people dissociate traumatic things. What's interesting to me is how the concept of "dissociation" is side-stepped in favor of "repression." I don't think it's as much about repression as it is about traumatic amnesia and dissociation. That has been documented in a variety of trauma survivors. Army psychiatrists in the Second World War, for instance, documented that following battles, many soldiers had amnesia for the battles. Often, the memories wouldn't break through until much later when they were in psychotherapy. Freyd: But I think I mentioned Dr. Loren Pankratz. He is a psychologist who was studying veterans for post-traumatic stress in a Veterans Administration Hospital in Portland. They found some people who were admitted to Veteran's hospitals for postrraumatic stress in Vietnam who didn't serve in Vietnam. They found at least one patient who was being treated who wasn't even a veteran. Without external validation, we just can't know -- TAT: -- Well, we have external validation in some of our cases. Freyd: In this field you're going to find people who have all levels of belief, understanding, experience with the area of repression. As I said before it's not an area in which there's any kind of uniform agreement in the field. The full notion of repression has a meaning within a psychoanalytic framework and it's got a meaning to people in everyday use and everyday language. What there is evidence for is that any kind of memory is reconstructed and reinterpreted. It has not been shown to be anything else. Memories are reconstructed and reinterpreted from fragments. Some memories are true and some memories are confabulated and some are downright false. TAT: It is certainly possible for in offender to dissociate a memory. It's possible that some of the people who call you could have done or witnessed some of the things they've been accused of -- maybe in an alcoholic black-out or in a dissociative state -- and truly not remember. I think that's very possible. Freyd: I would say that virtually anything is possible. But when the stories include murdering babies and breeding babies and some of the rather bizarre things that come up, it's mighty puzzling. TAT: I've treated adults with dissociative disorders who were both victimized and victimizers. I've seen previously repressed memories of my clients' earlier sexual offenses coming back to them in therapy. You guys seem to be saying, be skeptical if the person claims to have forgotten previously, especially if it is about something horrible. Should we be equally skeptical if someone says "I'm remembering that I perpetrated and I didn't remember before. It's been repressed for years and now it's surfacing because of therapy." I ask you, should we have the same degree of skepticism for this type of delayed-memory that you have for the other kind? Freyd: Does that happen? TAT: Oh, yes. A lot.”

“Scientists, doctors, and trained ordinary citizens use drugs and torture to render children machines that do others' bidding. The commands these perpetrators put in the victims are called "programming". They take an isolated, barricaded piece from one stream in the mind and another and another and sometimes tie them together at the bottom and twist them together and tell them to act but not remember.”

Dissociative Identity Disorder Multiple Personality Disorder Traumatized Alter Personalities Dissociative Amnesia Dissociative Parts Mind Control Programming Compartmentalization

Book:White Witch in a Black Robe: A True Story About Criminal Mind Control

Source: White Witch in a Black Robe: A True Story About Criminal Mind Control

“In general, the more dysfunctional the family the more inappropriate their response to disclosure. Never expect a sane response from an insane system.”

Insane Child Abuse Repressed Incest Disclosure Dysfunctional Family Childhood Abuse Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Family Torn Apart

Book:Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

Source: Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

“Among DID individuals, the sharing of conscious awareness between alters exists in varying degrees. I have seen cases where there has appeared to be no amnestic barriers between individual alters, where the host and alters appeared to be fully cognizant of each other. On the other hand, I have seen cases where the host was absolutely unaware of any alters despite clear evidence of their presence. In those cases, while the host was not aware of the alters, there were alters with an awareness of the host as well as having some limited awareness of at least a few other alters. So, according to my experience, there is a spectrum of shared consciousness in DID patients. From a therapeutic point of view, while treatment of patients without amnestic barriers differs in some ways from treatment of those with such barriers, the fundamental goal of therapy is the same: to support the healing of the early childhood trauma that gave rise to the dissociation and its attendant alters. Good DID therapy involves promoting co-consciousness. With co-consciousness, it is possible to begin teaching the patient’s system the value of cooperation among the alters. Enjoin them to emulate the spirit of a champion football team, with each member utilizing their full potential and working together to achieve a common goal. Returning to the patients that seemed to lack amnestic barriers, it is important to understand that such co-consciousness did not mean that the host and alters were well-coordinated or living in harmony. If they were all in harmony, there would be no “disease.” There would be little likelihood of a need or even desire for psychiatric intervention. It is when there is conflict between the host and/or among alters that treatment is needed.”

Mental Illness Psychiatry Dissociative Identity Disorder Dissociation Multiplicity States Of Consciousness Mental Disorder Alter Personalities Dissociative Disorder Dissociative Amnesia Alters Dissociative Identities Altered States Of Concsciousness Amnesiac

Author:David Yeung

“When a personality is created out of a trauma situation, the personality can watch and learn by looking and hearing out of your eyes and ears. The personality doesn't have to be the one in charge of the body to know what is going on. If the personality is created while you are of a very young age that personality can remain at that age, even though you are growing and maturing. A personality can also be hidden within the memory that created them and they don't realize time has moved on.”

Mental Illness Child Abuse Dissociative Identity Disorder Multiple Personality Disorder Traumatic Experiences Multiple Personalities Alter Personalities Dissociative Disorder Dissociative Amnesia

Book:Who Am I? Dissociative Identity Disorder Survivor

Source: Who Am I? Dissociative Identity Disorder Survivor

“So you really have the same conversations with two or or three people who look exactly like me?' She nodded. 'Don't you feel embarrassed repeating yourself like that?' 'Not at all,' Dr Laine said. 'Remember, I'm not saying the same thing three times to you. I'm saying it once to three different people.' That would take a while to sink in. At least it explained my history of people looking exasperated at work or school or even in shops when I sometimes asked questions. They'd obviously just gone through it with someone else who looked exactly like me!”

Mental Health Dissociative Identity Disorder Dissociation Multiple Personalities Alter Personalities Dissociative Amnesia Losing Time

Book:All of Me

Source: All of Me

“It seems like someone new is here?" I nodded. "Is it okay to talk to you?" I nodded again. "Are you the one who doesn't like the grocery store? "Yes," came the same soft voice. "What is it about the grocery store?" "It's not the store; it's the people. We get scared that some big person is going to hurt us. So we don't let her go places where there are lots of people." I felt dizziness in my head and then a different voice—a little stronger but still young—came out: "And then there's all that noise. We won't let her go in places with too much noise." "Is there someone new here?" "Yes." Is it okay if we talk together?" "Yes." "What's the problem with the noise?" "It was always noisy. A lot of yelling and crying. There was too much going on." "Is that the same kind of problem, the other part has?" "Yes. It's too hard for her to watch everyone to figure out who is going to hurt us next." "Don't you think Olga can take care of you?" "We want to think that, but we aren't sure." "Why is that?" "Because she couldn't take care of us before." "Do you all know what year it is?" "1968?" "Oh, I see. No, it's 1996, and Olga is big now. You all live inside her, and she has learned about you. She is also learning how to stop people from hurting you. She is strong and powerful. Were you there when she stopped the woman in the office from yelling at you?" It's 1996? She's big?" I paused to let the information sink in to all the parts that were listening. "She stopped people from yelling at us?" "Yes." Dr. Summer watched and waited. Home had been so chaotic. I had to watch Popi, Mike, Alex, and my mom very carefully. But I don't live there anymore. I'm grown up now.”

Therapy Dissociative Identity Disorder Psychotherapy Alter Personalities Dissociative Disorder Dissociative Amnesia Dissociative Parts Therapy Session

Book:The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

Source: The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“The major goal of the Cold War mind control programs was to create dissociative symptoms and disorders, including full multiple personality disorder. The Manchurian Candidate is fact, not fiction, and was created by the CIA in the 1950’s under BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE mind control programs. Experiments with LSD, sensory deprivation, electro-convulsive treatment, brain electrode implants and hypnosis were designed to create amnesia, depersonalization, changes in identity and altered states of consciousness. (p. iii) “Denial of the reality of multiple personality by these doctors [See page 114 for names] in the mind control network, who are also on the FMSF [False Memory Syndrome Foundation] Scientific and Professional Advisory Board, could be disinformation. The disinformation could be amplified by attacks on specialists in multiple personality as CIA conspiracy lunatics” (P.10) “If clinical multiple personality is buried and forgotten, then the Manchurian Candidate Programs will be safe from public scrutiny. (p.141)”

Source: Bluebird: Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists

“There is a much greater skepticism toward the memories of those who claim abuse than toward the memories of those who deny it.”

Repression Child Sexual Abuse Society Denial Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Recovered Memories Trauma Memory False Memory Syndrome Memory Wars Traumatic Amnesia False Memory Syndrome Campaign

Book:Relational Remembering: Rethinking the Memory Wars

Source: Relational Remembering: Rethinking the Memory Wars

“I came to understand intellectually that my mind used dissociation as a way to protect me from knowing things. Dr. Summer repeatedly explained, "If you had woken up every morning and knew that later that day or evening you would be abused, you would have killed yourself". I would always nod, as if in agreement. It all made sense in a theoretical way, but I could not and did not want to truly understand or accept what had happened to me.”

Child Abuse Dissociative Identity Disorder Dissociation Child Sexual Abuse Dissociative Disorder Dissociative Amnesia Child Abuse Survivor

Book:The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

Source: The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“Whatever proponents of false memory syndrome may claim and however persuasively they tell their stories and anecdotes, dissociative amnesia typically involves fragmented recall of trauma and is rather a retrieval inhibition than a forgetting (Spiegel et al., 2011). It may also involve complete loss of recall for sexual and physical abuse but most commonly, dissociative amnesia is partial, variable, and coexists with memories of trauma (Dalenberg et al., 2014). Studies addressing the accuracy of recovered abuse memories show that these memories are no less accurate than continuous memories for abuse (Scheflin & Brown, 1996). Memory is reconsolidated each time it is accessed and therefore potentially distorted (Bridge & Paller, 2012). Evidently, this does not disprove the possibility that some clinicians are too suggestive, one way or another, pushing their patients to adopt views that serve to confirm the therapist’s own perspective and beliefs.”

Bias Child Sexual Abuse Dissociative Amnesia Recovered Memories False Memory Syndrome Fake Accusations Raise Memories

Author:Jenny Ann Ryberg

“Memory repression thrives in shame, secrecy, and shock. The shame and degradation experienced during sexual assault is profound, especially for children who have no concept of what is happening to them or why. Sexual abuse is so bizarre and horrible that the frightened child feels compelled to bury the event deep inside his or her mind.”

Shame Sexual Abuse Repression Child Sexual Abuse Sexual Assault Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Forgetting The Past Forgetting The Pain

Book:Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

Source: Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

“It is therefore perfectly plausible that memories of childhood sexual abuse could be buried for years and then recalled, and that motivated forgetting, dissociative amnesia, or some other mechanism could account for some of the allegations in cases that Loftus has testified in. But because of the way in which the entire debate has been framed around the issue of "repression" and "recovery," these nuances have been largely ignored.”

Repression Child Sexual Abuse Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Recovered Memories Trauma Memory Recovered Memory

Author:Moheb Costandi

“The psychological impact of trauma in both the military and civilian arenas has been documented for well over 100 years [1], but the validity of the traumatic neuroses and their key symptoms have been continuously questioned. This is particularly true for posttraumatic amnesia and therapeutically recovered traumatic memories. Freud’s [2] abandonment of his seduction theory was followed by decades of denial of sexual trauma in the psychoanalytic and broader sociocultural realms [3]. Concomitant negation of posttraumatic symptomatology was noted in regard to the war neuroses, emanating equally from military, medical and social spheres [4]. Thus, Karon and Widener [5] drew attention to professional abandonment of the literature on posttraumatic amnesia in World War II combatants. They considered this to be due to a collective forgetting, comparable to the repression of soldiers, but instead occurring on account of social prejudices. He further noted that the validity of memories was never challenged at the time since there was ample corroborating evidence. Recent research confirms the findings of earlier investigators such as Janet [6], validating posttraumatic amnesia of both civilian and military origin. Van der Hart and Nijenhuis [7] cited clinical studies reporting total amnesia for combat trauma, experiences in Nazi concentration camps, torture and robbery. There is also increasing evidence for the existence of amnesia for child sexual abuse. Thus, Scheflen and Brown [8] concluded from their analysis of 25 empirical studies that such amnesia is a robust finding. Since then, new studies, for example those of Elliott [9], have appeared supporting their conclusion. This paper examines posttraumatic amnesia in World War I (WWI) combatants. The findings are offered as an historical cross-validation of posttraumatic amnesia in all populations, including those subjected to childhood sexual abuse.”

Repression Child Sexual Abuse Amnesia Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Recovered Memories Trauma Memory Traumatic Amnesia

Author:Onno van der Hart

“Dissociation, a form of hypnotic trance, helps children survive the abuse…The abuse takes on a dream-like, surreal quality and deadened feelings and altered perceptions add to the strangeness. The whole scene does not fit into the 'real world.' It is simple to forget, easy to believe nothing happened.”

Source: Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

“The unconscious mind always operates in the present tense, and when a memory is buried in the unconscious, the unconscious preserves it as an ongoing act of abuse in the present of the unconscious mind. The cost of repressing a memory is that the mind does not know the abuse ended.”

Healing Abuse Child Abuse Subconscious Sexual Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Abuse Survivors Survivors Healing Insights Unconscious Mind Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Healing From Abuse Recovery From Abuse Healing Abuse Trauma Memory Dissociated

Book:Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

Source: Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

“You may experience waves of disbelief after each memory you retrieve. Whether as a phase or waves, the disbelief is usually accompanied by massive self-hate and guilt. ‘How can I even think such a thing? I must really be warped,’ you tell yourself.”

Child Abuse Disbelief Dissociation Child Sexual Abuse Incest Self Doubt Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Child Abuse Survivor Recovered Memories Trauma Memory Dissociated

Book:Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

Source: Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

“One hundred twenty-nine women with documented histories of sexual victimization in childhood were interviewed and asked about abuse history. Seventeen years following the initial report of the abuse, 80 of the women recalled the victimization. One in 10 women (16% of those who recalled the abuse) reported that at some time in the past they had forgotten about the abuse. Those with a prior period of forgetting--the women with "recovered memories"--were younger at the time of abuse and were less likely to have received support from their mothers than the women who reported that they had always remembered their victimization. The women who had recovered memories and those who had always remembered had the same number of discrepancies when their accounts of the abuse were compared to the reports from the early 1970s. Recovered memories of abuse in women with documented child sexual victimization histories. Journal of Traumatic Stress. 1995 Oct;8(4):649-73.”

Trauma Child Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Incest Dissociative Amnesia Recovered Memories Trauma Memory Psychogenic Amnesia

Author:Linda M. Williams

“While some accused and convicted child molesters have inappropriately influenced the media, the public, and many in the clinical and legal professions by claiming that traumatic amnesia does not occur in child sexual abuse, workers in the field of trauma psychology have accumulated solid empirical evidence over the past 100 years that it does occur and is common. Its existence and natural history are documented throughout the clinical literature. from: Traumatic amnesia: The evolution of our understanding from a clinical and legal perspective, Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity: The Journal of Treatment & Prevention, Volume 4, Issue 2, 1997”

Child Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Amnesia Rape Culture Memory Loss Dissociative Amnesia Repressed Memory Rape Myths Trauma Memories Recovered Memory Recovered Memory Therapy Psychogenic Amnesia

Author:Charles L. Whitfield

“One hundred twenty-nine women with previously documented histories of sexual victimization in childhood were interviewed and asked detailed questions about their abuse histories to answer the question "Do people actually forget traumatic events such as child sexual abuse, and if so, how common is such forgetting?" A large proportion of the women (38%) did not recall the abuse that had been reported 17 years earlier. Women who were younger at the time of the abuse and those who were molested by someone they knew were more likely to have no recall of the abuse. The implications for research and practice are discussed. Long periods with no memory of abuse should not be regarded as evidence that the abuse did not occur. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol 62(6), Dec 1994, 1167-1176”

Memory Child Abuse Sexual Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Incest Memory Loss Child Rape Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Recovered Memories Trauma Memory Repressed Memory Recovered Memory Therapy

Author:Linda Meyer Williams

“What daily life is like for “a multiple” Imagine that you have periods of “lost time.” You may find writings or drawings which you must have done, but do not remember producing. Perhaps you find child-sized clothing or toys in your home but have no children. You might also hear voices or babies crying in your head. Imagine that you can never predict when you will be able to have certain knowledge or social skills, and your emotions and your energy level seem to change at the drop of a hat, and for no apparent reason. You cannot understand why you feel what you feel, and, if you are in therapy, you cannot explore those feelings when asked. Your life feels disjointed and often confusing. It is a frightening experience. It feels out of control, and you probably think you are going crazy. That is what it is like to be multiple, and all of it is experienced by the ANPs. A multiple may also experience very concrete problems, even life-threatening ones.”

Source: Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control

“Amnesia, which is a loss of memory, is a symptom of many different trauma and/or dissociative disorders, including PTSD, Dissociative Fugue, Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified and Dissociative Identity Disorder. Amnesia can affect both implicit and explicit memory.”

Source: The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease: The Hidden Epidemic

“Treating Abuse Today (Tat), 3(4), pp. 26-33 Freyd: You were also looking for some operational criteria for false memory syndrome: what a clinician could look for or test for, and so on. I spoke with several of our scientific advisory board members and I have some information for you that isn't really in writing at this point but I think it's a direction you want us to go in. So if I can read some of these notes . . . TAT: Please do. Freyd: One would look for false memory syndrome: 1. If a patient reports having been sexually abused by a parent, relative or someone in very early childhood, but then claims that she or he had complete amnesia about it for a decade or more; 2. If the patient attributes his or her current reason for being in therapy to delayed-memories. And this is where one would want to look for evidence suggesting that the abuse did not occur as demonstrated by a list of things, including firm, confident denials by the alleged perpetrators; 3. If there is denial by the entire family; 4. In the absence of evidence of familial disturbances or psychiatric illnesses. For example, if there's no evidence that the perpetrator had alcohol dependency or bipolar disorder or tendencies to pedophilia; 5. If some of the accusations are preposterous or impossible or they contain impossible or implausible elements such as a person being made pregnant prior to menarche, being forced to engage in sex with animals, or participating in the ritual killing of animals, and; 6. In the absence of evidence of distress surrounding the putative abuse. That is, despite alleged abuse going from age two to 27 or from three to 16, the child displayed normal social and academic functioning and that there was no evidence of any kind of psychopathology. Are these the kind of things you were asking for? TAT: Yeah, it's a little bit more specific. I take issue with several, but at least it gives us more of a sense of what you all mean when you say "false memory syndrome." Freyd: Right. Well, you know I think that things are moving in that direction since that seems to be what people are requesting. Nobody's denying that people are abused and there's no one denying that someone who was abused a decade ago or two decades ago probably would not have talked about it to anybody. I think I mentioned to you that somebody who works in this office had that very experience of having been abused when she was a young teenager-not extremely abused, but made very uncomfortable by an uncle who was older-and she dealt with it for about three days at the time and then it got pushed to the back of her mind and she completely forgot about it until she was in therapy. TAT: There you go. That's how dissociation works! Freyd: That's how it worked. And after this came up and she had discussed and dealt with it in therapy, she could again put it to one side and go on with her life. Certainly confronting her uncle and doing all these other things was not a part of what she had to do. Interestingly, though, at the same time, she has a daughter who went into therapy and came up with memories of having been abused by her parents. This daughter ran away and is cutoff from the family-hasn't spoken to anyone for three years. And there has never been any meeting between the therapist and the whole family to try to find out what was involved. TAT: If we take the first example -- that of her own abuse -- and follow the criteria you gave, we would have a very strong disbelief in the truth of what she told.”

“Traumatic experiences in adults generally do not produce multiple personality disorder but rather states of catatonic withdrawal, out-of-body experiences, fugue states, or psychogenic amnesias.”

Dissociative Identity Disorder Multiple Personality Disorder Dissociative Disorder Dissociative Amnesia Dissociative Disorders Fugue Out Of Body Experience Catatonic

Author:Walter C. Young

“Now that she had the diagnosis to explain her sense of reality, she sorted some of the chaotic jumble of thoughts and memories. "I'd feel funny having 'daydreamed' my way through whole seasons," Jo said, "but then I'd hear someone say, 'Time flies,' or 'How did it get to be three o'clock already?' and I'd think that everyone was like me.”

Mental Health Dissociative Identity Disorder Daydreaming Time Flies Dissociative Disorder Dissociative Dissociative Amnesia Ddnos Losing Time

Book:The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

Source: The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

“I cut myself up really badly with the lid of a tin can. They took me to the emergency room, but I couldn’t tell the doctor what I had done to cut myself—I didn’t have any memory of it. The ER doctor was convinced that dissociative identity disorder didn’t exist. . . . A lot of people involved in mental health tell you it doesn’t exist. Not that you don’t have it, but that it doesn’t exist.”

Mental Health Denial Dissociative Identity Disorder Mental Health Stigma Dissociative Amnesia Dissociative Disorders Mental Illness Stigma Mental Health Bias Invalidation Mental Illness Discrimination

Book:Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind

Source: Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind

“Does the person report having had the experience of meeting people she does not know but who seem to know her, perhaps by a different name? Often, those with DID are thought by others to be lying because different parts will say different things which the host has no knowledge of.”

Lying Mental Illness Dissociative Identity Disorder Stigma Multiple Personality Disorder Liar Dissociative Dissociative Amnesia Contradictions Pathological Liar Faking Alter Personalites

Book:Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder

Source: Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder

“I want to remember my past To see before my eyes The image of my parents The house in which I grew up The village in which my family lived for generations I don't want to remember my past I fear for what my memory Might bring before my eyes I wonder whether I can continue my life If I'll rescue from oblivion What I want to recall.”

Holocaust Repression Traumatic Experiences Traumatized Dissociative Amnesia Holocaust Survivor Forgetting The Past Trauma Memories Traumatic Amnesia Horrors Of War Don T Want To Remember

Author:Itta Benhaiem-Keller

“The child who attends school does not remember the abuse that happens at home or via the family; those memories are held in another part of the child's mind. The child does not even remember abuse that happened the preceding night.”

Child Abuse Dissociative Identity Disorder Dissociation Incest Split Personality Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Recovered Memories

Book:Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse

Source: Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse

“One of the most compelling sources on the validity of repressed memories of trauma has been the field of combat trauma. - Advances in Dissociation Research and practice in Israel”

Repression Abuse Survivors Amnesia Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Forgetting The Past Recovered Memories Trauma Memory Memory Wars

Book:Trauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective: Not Just a North American Phenomenon

Source: Trauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective: Not Just a North American Phenomenon

“I can no longer deny that bad things happened to me. I can’t be absolutely sure what happened to me, or who did them to me: I can’t ‘prove’ that 100%. But I have enough evidence to be able to state unequivocally that a lot of bad things happened to me from a very young age for a very long time.”

Denial Dissociative Identity Disorder Dissociative Amnesia Child Abuse Survivor Forgetting The Past Organised Abuse

Author:Carolyn Spring

“THE RETURN OF THE REPRESSED: RELIVING DISSOCIATED EXPERIENCES The reexperiencing of previously dissociated traumatic events presents in a variety of complex ways. The central principle is that dissociated experiences often do not remain dormant. Freud's concept of the “repetition compulsion” is enormously helpful in understanding how dissociated events are later reexperienced. In his paper, "Beyond the Pleasure Principle," Freud (1920/ 1955) described how repressed (and dissociated) trauma and instinctual conflicts can become superimposed on current reality. He wrote: The patient cannot remember the whole of what is repressed in him, and what he cannot remember may be precisely the essential part of it. .. . He is obliged to repeat the repressed material as a contemporary experience instead of remembering it as something in the past. (p. 18) If one understands repression as the process in which overwhelming experiences are forgotten, distanced, and dissociated, Freud posited that these experiences are likely to recur in the mind and to be reexperienced. He theorized that this "compulsion to repeat" served a need to rework and achieve mastery over the experience and that it perhaps had an underlying biologic basis as well. The most perceptive tenet of Freud’s theory is that previously dissociated events are actually reexperienced as current reality rather than remembered as occurring in the past. Although Freud was discussing the trauma produced by intense intrapsychic conflict, clinical experience has shown that actual traumatic events that have been dissociated are often repeated and reexperienced.”

Repetition Compulsion Repression Traumatized Freud Inner Conflict Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Complex Ptsd Child Sexual Abuse Survivor Recovered Memories Traumatic Memories Repeating The Past Reliving The Past Dissociated Memories Reenactment Repeating Past Mistakes

Book:Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders

Source: Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders

“Despite this documentation for both traumatic amnesia and essentially accurate delayed recall, memory science is often presented as if it supports the view that traumatic amnesia is very unlikely or perhaps impossible and that a great many, perhaps a majority, maybe even all, recovered memories of abuse are false…Yet no research supports such an implication and a great deal of research supports the premise that forgetting sexual abuse is fairly common. and that recovered memories are sometimes essentially true.”

Abuse Survivors Dissociative Amnesia False Memories Dissociative Disorders Recovered Memories Trauma Memory Traumatic Amnesia Abuse Memories

Author:Jennifer J. Freyd

“DID is often dragged into the debates about recovered and false memory. For example, it might be alleged that a person recovered memories from a state of dissociation. Such a claim reflects a misunderstanding of dissociation and a confusion with repression (Mollon 1998). If a piece of mental content (e.g. a feeling, a memory, a fantasy, a perception) is in a state of repression, it is not directly available to consciousness. Its existence may be inferred from its displaced and disguised expression. For example, a patient who is angry with the therapist may speak of anger with someone else - a kind of unconscious hinting. Gradually the patient may become more consciously aware of the previously repressed material. By contrast, the feelings, memories and other mental contents ofdissociated parts of the mind may be quite accessible to consciousness in that state of mind. Those contents may not be available, however, when the patient is in a different state of mind, or when another personality is in executive control. It is not that the objectionable mental content is kept in 'the unconscious (a horizontal splitting, implying a hierarchical gradation of consciousness), but rather that consciousness is distributed among the dissociated parts of the mind. Thus, in state of mind A, the patient may speak of a narrative of events of which he or she appears completely unaware when in state of mind B. When asked what she thought about the accounts of abuse that she had presented, in a childlike state of mind, during a previous session, a patient replied that she had no idea whether the memories were true or not because they were not her memories. In this way, what is claimed in one state of mind may be disowned in another stale of mind. There may be a repudiation not only of the content of what has been said, but also of the fact of ever having said it.”

Ptsd Repression Dissociation Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia Recovered Memories Trauma Memory

Book:Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity: Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder

Source: Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity: Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder

“Lots of people with dissociative disorders are so used to losing time that they don’t even notice it anymore. Switching and the coming and going are so normal for them, and the covering for a “bad memory” are just natural parts of the day. In fact, it can be so natural, that many people with DID/MPD are firmly convinced that they don’t lose any time at all. However, a close examination of that belief can usually prove otherwise, but that is not an uncommon initial assumption.”

Dissociative Identity Disorder Amnesia Dissociative Disorder Dissociative Amnesia Losing Time Osdd

Author:Kathy Broady

“To what extent are such laboratory results generalizable to real traumatic experiences? Pezdek, Finger, and Hodge (1997) demonstrated the importance of event plausibility. Researchers were able to implant false memories of plausible events, such as being lost in a shopping mall, but were unsuccessful at causing participants to form false memories of implausible events, such as receiving an enema or participating in a religious ceremony from a tradition other than their own (Pezdek, Finger, & Hodge, 1997; Pezdek & Hodge, 1999). Besides failing to address event plausibility, laboratory experiments may also fail to capture emotions such as fear, shame, and betrayal that are often linked to interpersonal trauma." KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING ABOUT TRAUMA: IMPLICATIONS FOR THERAPY”

Traumatic Experiences Repressed Memories Dissociative Amnesia False Memories Trauma Memory False Memory Syndrome False Memory Myth Plausibility

Author:Jennifer J. Freyd

“Whatever people say about ‘false memories’ (which is mostly false, anyway) and whatever we feel about possibly making it all up, we can’t fake emotional illiteracy and screwed-up attachment patterns! That’s the real evidence of what happened to us. Someone who has had a car crash might have no memory of what happened, but they’ve got the evidence in terms of a mangled car and broken legs. I think it’s the same for us – we’ve got mangled emotions and broken personalities.”

Dissociative Identity Disorder Dissociative Amnesia False Memories False Memory Syndrome

Author:Carolyn Spring