#abuse and memory

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“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.” ― Renee Fredrickson, Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse

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“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.” ― Jennifer J. Freyd

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Some things we experience are so unbearable and so painful, that we shut them out. The major systems for protection of the self, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal fight flight response, the polyvagal response, to play dead, to dissociate, to be unaware of something, they’ll come right into play, in order to protect the self from harm.

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