About how to get your power back and repressed memories

It might be strange to write this while being on a trip and then again it all feels so right. Also this text took many turns to write -

I started to write it while being on Sardinia and finished it two weeks later back home as I could strongly feel fear coming in and always had to stop in between. Especially bringing „on paper“ what happened in the hospital was incredibly scary.. I want to share this so deeply as I hope it can benefit someone else out there too who experienced something similar, as I never ever questioned my own memory.

I never thought it was even possible to lose a part of your memory.

I had these strong fears growing up. They got especially strong when I was a teenager. But from a very young age I had this weird fear of being sexually abused or that someone would cross a boundary in a way.
And fear might be even too little to describe that - I’d even call it panic. I will never forget how after my mom died we had to move to a smaller apartment because there was simply almost no money left, and I remember being alone in the evening, seeing a shadow of a man in the other building across the street and how he waved his hand when he saw me standing at the window. I was 12 years old and had my first panic attack. Or at least the first moment of intense fear that turns into panic I can really remember. Even though there was obviously no thread it felt like one. I felt watched and unsafe and I didn’t knew why it just felt incredibly unsafe and I immediately called my dad - of course he didn’t understood the problem and I didn’t understood it either but I also didn’t needed to understand as my body just showed me pretty clearly that it felt like a huge thread. From that moment on that feeling stayed in many situations. When I met Nora in my early 20’s , sometimes the fear was so strong that I couldn’t sleep at night when we were in the countryside. Or on vacations it was especially strong. The more people were with us on a trip the safer I felt. After 4 am I usually could fall asleep since it felt safe then. Nothing could happen to me after 4am, I was so sure about that. This feeling was so interwoven with me, that I just thought it WAS me. It never occurred to me, that maybe there was reason for this fear. That maybe something lies underneath this panic. I never really questioned it. It was just what it was. And meditation and therapy somehow also helped to ease this fear and panic, it just got less present in the past years. It became more like a subtile sound in the background that somehow was there but not overwhelmingly present. But then slowly in 2019 it came in stronger again during strange and strong panic attacks in the car while driving, and then also while being on vacations or work trips. As soon as it got dark and it was time to go to bed at some point I got intense fears that someone could come and sexually abuse me. But I thought the car panic and these intense fears while being on vacation had nothing to do with each other.
After the break up with Nora strange things started to happen. I remember especially three situations and I want to share one of them here, as it was one of the moments that got the first memories to really come back:

I accidentally cut my finger really deep while cutting bread and needed to go to the hospital in June. Luckily my dad was around and drove me there. I felt insanely unsafe and couldn’t really say why. The doctor was male and obviously my dad is male too. And then suddenly I just panicked. When the doctor said to me „lie down“ (to treat my poor finger) I got into a panic attack that was so strong that I needed to hide in a corner of the room and my whole body was shaking. ALL in me just wanted to get out. So so badly. Somehow I managed to feel that there was obviously no thread and this was just something else. It was nothing about the present moment but my body felt in danger. In that moment I just felt like a completely crazy person. Shame mixed with a feeling of being threatened is definitely not a nice combination I can say.
So somehow I made it and at some point finally laid down. The doctor left to me, my dad on the right. When I got the anaesthetics in my hand, so the doctor could sew the wound, I completely lost it. My whole hand obviously got numb but to my system that felt like not having any power. Being between these two men , feeling so powerless and helpless just activated something inside of me. And I just couldn’t stop crying. Not to mention that obviously the pain of the cut in the finger was absolutely not the problem.

I felt so helpless but knew that I and everyone around me too had to get through this - so I turned to my language of safety - reciting English poetry. At this point I couldn’t care less what everyone around me would think and just started to say „The journey“ by Mary Oliver out loud. And it helped. Even though very little, but it helped. And I could slowly breath again. And stop crying. And arrive back in the present moment where no one abused me but quite the opposite just helped my finger. I remember saying to the doctor „I’m so sorry but my hands hold a lot of trauma“. I had no idea where that was coming from. It just came out of me.

When I finally made it through I just felt sick. And went out to get some fresh air. And then it started. Images coming back, from a trip to France when I was 12 years old. And got sexually abused. Where someone came into my bedroom at night and I couldn’t get out- there was no way to get out of the situation. There was no help. There was no mom. There was no one that could help and I lost my voice. I remember that I looked for the door and the window and everything felt so far away.
Never ever have I actively tried to repress memories or thoughts when something sad or heavy came into my mind, but this time, I really tried to give these thoughts no space. I remember standing there, in front of the hospital, just feeling so disgusting. And just had this intense wish to bath in the ocean to get clean again. The following weeks the images came back more vividly again and again. I spent a weekend in bed, my body just shaking, randomly crying and with the huge need to sleep. It felt like a nightmare. And yet something inside of me still just tried to push it away so badly. I didn’t even trusted my memories and these images. I remember telling my therapist about what happened at the hospital and being quite judgmental about myself - I remember saying what if something worse ever happens to me? I mean how can you react so sensitive just because you cut in your finger?

And how helpful it was to hear when she said that this was obviously not about my finger. She said „ Your body is wise, it remembers something“ and somehow these words gave me the courage to listen more closely. Not to push these images away and instead to hold them. To see them and integrate them. I will never forget the session where finally everyone inside of me allowed to speak about what happened. To give these images a voice. To bring into language what my body felt for so long, to bring into language what I started to see in pictures internally and to have someone witnessing it- the power of entering that situation and to hold that child that felt so disgusting and worthless with care and love was so freeing. We took her out into the ocean and bathed her in salt water and light. And I held her in the softess blanket you can imagine while driving her back home safely.

I don’t want to get into any details here, as it already feels incredibly vulnerable to share this but my strongest fear during panic attacks I get in the car is the feeling of having no control, the feeling of everything around me being too fast and then my hands get numb. I took these pictures in the past months, trying to find a visual language for something where there were no words yet. And it was so helpful to capture that. As a first step not to push the fear away but to really see it. Still, never have I ever thought what could lie underneath that. The most beautiful and powerful moment was, to really bath in the ocean and in the softes sunlight in Sardinia earlier this month. To really transform this fear part and this feeling of being so disgusting, in finally allowing to understand where it actually came from. In finally being able to hold what lied underneath. And in finally understanding that these feelings ARE not me, they are a part of me but it’s not me. I have a huge amount of gratitude for these moments of swimming with a dear friend in the softess and most tender water while seeing and feeling the sun set on my skin. And I’m still trying to integrate all of what came back into my memory and maybe this text is a little help on the way too. And maybe it can encourage someone else too not to judge yourself so hard but rather encounter yourself with the kindness, softness and presence your body and whole system deserves! Slowly my panic attacks in the car could ease a bit in the past weeks, but I still have a way to go! I will write an update about how the driving goes in a few months but the feeling of integrating back every part of mine and stepping out of the shame and self blame about what happened feels so empowering that I’m so positive about hopefully feeling more safety again while driving soon.

And I want to end this text with a favorite line in one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver. And it goes:

“….
the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
and put your lips to the world.

And live
your life.”

From “Mornings at Black Water” by Mary Oliver

I hope that can give some strength to somebody else who went through something similar.