“The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness.” —Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery, 1992
Throughout these posts I’ll be discussing dissociative amnesia which I’ll sometimes refer to as DA. It’s also known as repression or psychogenic amnesia or just the loss of memories or the inability to recall—there are many ways to refer to it.
I know some readers will be doubting whether we do actually dissociate, repress or block memories, and also whether people do accurately recover memories that were previously inaccessible. I doubted it myself—doubted for decades—and this doubt and ignorance prevented me from understanding myself, addressing my condition (which would now be called complex or developmental PTSD), and moving toward self-knowledge, agency, and health.
There is still confusion, obfuscation, and outright dishonesty around the subject, and this is why I’m writing. I write to bring the clarity I didn’t have, and to show what DA looks like in one particular person, how it’s shown up in my life.
🔸🌿🔸
See my Resources page for links to more information about dissociative amnesia.
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