Many survivors have difficulty understanding the nature of memory, why we forget and what causes us to remember. We often doubt what we remember or others doubt what we say. We think we must be crazy to even have certain thoughtss. We have nightmares that keep us awake and we try everything in our power to make the bad memories go away. We have heard stories of created memories and false memories and half-true memories. So how can we be sure that what we do remember is real? How do we trust ourselves and what is contained in our memory.
First let’s talk about what memory is. Many people think that memory is the picture in your head of something that has happened. We rely so much on visual memory that we tend to forget or don’t realize that there are other kinds of memory.
For example how many of you can remember the smell of fresh baked bread (olfactory memory) or the sound of the wind in the trees (auditory memory). What about the softness of your favorite material (tactile memory) or the taste of your favorite foods (gustatory memory). These are all different types of memory. Your mind has the ability to recall information through all of your senses not just sight (visual memory). What about feelings? (emotional memory) How many remember feeling scared or happy, sad or proud. We can also remember what we were thinking or saying in a situation (cognitive memory) or what we were doing (behavioral memory). Those are memories too. And each of these types of memory is stored in your brain in a different place and in different ways.
Triggering one of the sensory memories will usually trigger the other parts of the memory. For example, as a kid I used to go to the fish market with my father on Saturday mornings. Now, whenever I think of cod, it triggers the olfactory memory and I smell cod (not a smell that I like). The smell of cod triggers the picture (visual memory) of us walking into this store (behavioral memory) filled with huge tubs packed full of water and fish. I remember feeling sad (emotional memory) for the fish and wondering how they could breathe in there with so many other fish (cognitive memory). I also remember the sounds of the market (auditory) of people shouting and of fish splashing in the water. I also remember I hated going anywhere with my father because he was always yelling at us which created a lot of anxiety (emotional memory). I could go on but I think you get the point.
In most cases one piece of a memory will trigger the next piece and so on until you have the whole memory. Something that most people have experienced concerning memory is called "Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon". This occurs when you are trying to remember someone’s name. You can see their face and maybe even remember where you saw them last or what they were doing but you can’t remember the name. This is an excellent example of knowing that you know something but not being able to access the part of the memory you want even though other parts are recalled. The more you try to remember the harder and more frustrating it becomes. Most often if you forget about it and start talking about something else the name will pop into your head.
Years ago, Dr. Penfield in Montreal discovered that the brain stored memories in different parts of the brain. In some of his research he was able to map out which parts of the brain were responsible for different kinds of memory. He discovered that when something happens to us we do not put the entire memory in one place in our brain and label it as "Memory of learning to ride bike", for example. Each part of the memory is stored in different places which actually means that there are many pathways to a memory. For example, when learning to ride a bike various senses are used to learn this skill.
Almost any one part of that memory has the power to trigger all the other parts or only a few or on rare occasions none.
This is what happens to a lot of abuse survivors. One part of the memory gets triggered and nothing else. For example I might smell cod and start feeling anxious and not know why because none of the rest of the memory gets triggered. So I am left feeling anxious and not understand why I am having that reaction.. By not being able to make the connection and not understanding the nature of memory I might start to believe that I have an anxiety disorder. By being able to connect the anxiety I can begin to connect the rest of the memory by trying to find the other parts of the memory (This should initially be done with a therapist who understands the nature of repressed memory especially if there is a history or suspicion of abuse).
When I went to college there was a candy factory across the street from the building where I had to go for some of my classes. One morning they were making something that smelled like coconut cream pie. A good memory of a special candy that I loved as a child. But it took me almost the whole semester to remember the connection to the candy. For a long time I went in to school every morning and I was the only one smelling coconut cream pie. The smell had connected with going to school. So I didn’t need the smell anymore to make the connection. School was enough to trigger the memory of the candy.
For those of us who have been abused it is very important to understand how memory works and how some of your dignosed problems may be related to memory.