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What if you can't remember much of your childhood?

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Anonymous:
Hi – This is my first post. I’m thrilled to have found a group dealing with issues that are so familiar to me, but hard to discuss with anyone who hasn’t been there. The generosity, insight and humor in many of your posts are wonderful!

The discussion on the “Healing” thread among CG, Wildflower and Rosencrantz really got me thinking because I’m so interested in the whole issue of the Bad Mommy Taboo, and also the question of “forgiving” your parent(s).

I’ve just been reading “Banished Knowledge” by Alice Miller, and the following is a quote from the book:

"In the many group discussions I conducted…almost all the therapists clung to the idea that one must forgive one’s parents to get rid of one’s symptoms. While my counterarguments seemed convincing, the most they would say was that, while they would not directly demand forgiveness, they would put it to the patient that he “would feel better” if he could forgive. They failed to notice that they were thus carrying on a… manipulation… whose purpose was to serve only traditional morality but not the interest of the patient, who was once an injured child and must confront the origin of those injuries. He will not achieve consciousness of past events until he recognizes that the morality exerted by his parents was life-negating and life-destroying….

"When the capacity to feel has been achieved in therapy, the patient will become not less but more aware of events in his childhood that were never allowed to be consciously experienced. Through the increasing familiarity with his own feelings and his own history, it is possible for a new memory to emerge years later….If a person is not allowed to acknowledge the newly awakening anger—because, of course, he has already forgiven his parents during therapy—the person is in danger of transferring these feeling to others. Since, to me, therapy means a sensory, emotional, and mental discovery of the long-repressed truth, I regard the moral demand for reconciliation with parents as an inevitable blocking and paralyzing of the therapeutic process."

This speaks to so many issues I’m dealing with, because I was raised by an N mother and an emotionally damaged, passive father. I’ve known something was wrong with my family for a long time, but only discovered the concept of narcissism recently. It has been a huge revelation for me, because I’ve finally been able to make sense of what’s been going on my whole life. I’ve had to go back and rethink my mother’s version of a lot of earlier events to figure out the truth about my life.

In the course of doing that, I’ve gone to a number of therapists. Looking back on them, I can say that one caused me real damage, a couple were middling – supportive but didn’t really help me figure out the truth – and one – at last – understood what I was dealing with and supported me in cutting off contact with my mother and dealing with her reaction (I eventually started talking to her again). It’s probably not surprising that the “neutral” therapists didn’t help much, because our family looked perfect from the outside much of the time, and I had been brainwashed to think my mother was wonderful, brave and accomplished, and I was the one who was fearful, depressed and dependent. But I do feel that more than one of the therapists didn’t have a clue about the insidious, soul-destroying experience of being raised by an N, and so tried to convince me that I should “get over” the anger I was starting to feel.  

The weird thing is that in looking back at my childhood, I realize how little of it I actually remember. I have virtually no memories of my early childhood, and only vague memories of my life until I was around 11. I can remember the houses we lived in and people I knew and some incidents, but very few details of my day-to-day life. I wonder if  I have blocked out bad things, but am uncertain what to do about it. I feel that I haven’t reached the end yet in truly understanding what happened during my childhood, but at some level the prospect of learning the truth scares  me s**tless! I would be very interested to hear how well other people remember their childhoods and whether anyone has suggestions about dealing with missing memories.

Meanwhile, my mother has aged, has had a couple of small strokes, and is starting to lose her mind – her short-term memory isn’t great, and I’ve noticed that she is behaving in ways that suggest the normal controls on her social behaviour are breaking down.  I am faced with the prospect of my mother descending into senility (which could well exaggerate the worst aspects of her personality), while I’m in the process of digging up the truth about my childhood and dealing with my anger toward her. Fortunately she lives in another city, so this is not a day-to-day issue, but sometimes I can’t bear to be around her, and I hate her touching me. So at a time when her behaviour is likely to require the maximum in understanding and tolerance from me, I feel less and less that I have those feelings in me for her. This could well create conflict with the rest of my family, and I am feeling very confused about how to handle it.

Thanks for any comments.

Guest

sjkravill:
Welcome Guest!
Thank you for your insightful post.  I am sorry I don't have any wisdom for you.  I wish you the best in finding something helpful in dealing with your mother.  It sounds like a difficult situation.

Your post brings up so many interesting issues for me.

First, I am just wondering if forgetting childhood memories is another "voiceless" issues.  I am too young to have forgotten my childhood.  But I can't remember much before the third grade.  Bits and pieces, but not much...  I remember more after that, but still not what I think I should be able to remember.  I keep wondering if I have blocked the bad things too. As I have been contemplating it over the last few days I am slowly remembering more from later childhood and adolescence. I am getting the general idea of what it was like.

When my therapist asked me if I felt loved as I child my automatic response was "yes, of course I felt loved."  I guess I said it without really thinking about it. Actually, I felt invisable.  I do walk around with this notion that my parents are saints. My therapist has said she thinks they have N tendancies.  Strange how we can get things intellectually, but can't control denile, or whatever.  The other day I was reading about symptoms of emotional abuse.  I thought. "I see myself in all of those... that's odd!  I thought my childhood was pretty great!... Well there was that time when... but that was just... etc."  

My husband is emotionally abusive in some subtle, and insidious ways.  I have read that the only reason one would continue to make excuses for him is because one leaned to accept this kind of behavior in childhood.  
Actually, my parents are better now than they were in my childhood (maybe it helps to live a 17 hr. drive from them).  I don't know if I have ever allowed myself to feel anger toward them for participating in my voicelessness.  I just automatically forgive them, I suppose because it's the "right" thing to do.  
It is certainly the case with my husband, that I cannot really forgive him until I have felt angry at him and have validated my anger.  I did not start really feeling and validating my anger toward him unil about a year and a half after his unacceptable behavior started and I realized my asking him nicely was not going to stop it.   When I was not allowing myself to feel  or validate my anger with him, I would be angry at a man I worked with who reminded me of of my husband.  Talk about displacement! ... I digress!  

Currently, I am not sure how I feel about my husband and the issue of forgiveness.  I so appreciated that thread on forgiveness and how it is different from reconciliation.  I will look for it, because it might add to this discussion.  

Welcome again guest! Thanks for the thought provoking post!
Peace! sjkravill

Anonymous:
I hardly remember my childhood. And I don't care to. It was emotional abuse, not physical. What triggers my memories is seeing how my parents now treat their grandchildren. That's how they treated me.

As for forgiving them, I accept that they are limited people with big emotional problems. I don't think they intended to do any harm, but they did harm anyway. I forgive them in that I concede their limitations. But I don't really love them, and that's the price they're paying.

bunny

Tokyojim:
Guest,
Your post is very thought-provoking.

First, in remembering one's childhood, we have to go back to a cliche - It depends on the person.  For some people, it may be a nonproductive and useless exercise, and for others it may be very important and seem necessary.

In remembering, one thing can cause resistance sometimes: Wanting or wishing things to be different.  There could be a conscious or unconscious mechanism that wants to "fix" a dysfunctional family or parent.  This could stand in the way.  Rather than forgiveness, I would think a degree of resignation is in order.  That is simply because, no matter how much we "understand" the dysfunction of the other, we will bang our head into walls if we try to fix or change it.  This may not apply to you at all.

Another way of trying to understand how the family functioned, and thus lead to memories, is to look at siblings.  We learn how to react to others in our families, and especially when we choose a mate.  My brother, for example, is unnecessarily terrified of his wife, and I overreact with a feeling of being controlled and become stubborn when a lady in my life makes reasonable demands.  It therefore seems pretty obvious that each of us created a different response to an overcontrolling mother.  In other words, by looking at the result (i.e., the present behaviors), we can infer the past.  This can lead to memories.  It lead to some for me.  

I hope that this can be of some help.

I guess a final question to consider is why you seem to feel so strongly about remembering.  Do you feel that this will help heal you?  Will it make you feel more "normal?"  Do you feel different because of this inability to remember?

Feline...:
I don't ever  exuse or forget deliberate intentonal abuses.I don't care who it is.

I  can feel  the pain inflicted long ago and I can put blame on the perpretrator  who harmed me instead of hurting myself with shame today, I never deserved simply because I was victimized in the past. Our culture loathes  facing suffering ,weakness,fallibility and vunerability. That does not mean I need to play that same game about my own  vunerabilities.I put the burden of blame where it belongs, right  on the people who CHOSE to hurt me. Abusive people are just as responsible for thier own choices as I am. It took years to even aknowlege compassion  to myself when whom I needed to forgive wasent the perpetrators ,it was myself..Having detached understanding and even empathy for some asshole who suffers like you do, who hurt you in the past  is not any'moral highground' it does not even have to occur to heal. Having understanding of the bigger picture does not require  you to go excusing and denying an abusive act was done to you as if that erases what happened.
Perpretrators of abuse would rather you do the standard simplistic  forget and forgive routine because it gives them  permission and ecuses  by omission of your condemnation.They don't deserve forgiveness or excuses.If you feel guilty for what you did not choose you carry on thier hateful work by hating yourself and consuming yourself with fear anger sadness and shame that is not your own.Because while you blame yourself for an abuser's choice to abuse,you never point the finger at the source.And this is one reason abusers get away with abuse sometimes.

My father was an asshole. My mom was a bitch. I was a vunerable kid in a bad situation.
But I don't have to let that fact eat me up with anxiety,make me feel ashamed,and occupy my mind /heart when I live my life right now.This is not denial, it's  deliberately taking control over  ones own power to feel as one chooses at the moment. I have put boundaries around these memories.I can wait until I am in therapy or in a safe place.Boundaries  are not walls that shut out the truth,they are limits on the power and hold the past has on me today ,Boundaries arethere  so that these thoughts will not dominate my emotions  like the perpretrators intended to do long ago.

Sometimes I think our  entire society is in so much denial  like has Stockholm syndrome.
But just because the whole world plays games and runs away,does not mean I have to nor does it mean thier running away has anything to do with healing or me..I get "new" memories sometimes  and it's scary,it's looks like a monster until I see it fully.  I have found with every abreaction I go through  I become more aware of things my own mind(s),and I get stronger and more self-empowered and able to help others..I become more free to lbe present .In a weird way I look forward to this abreaction process because everytimeI remember and connect with my emotions about it  I find I have healed  something.

Take care Ok.

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