When I was 17 I was taking a piss and I remembered that when I was 13 my dad put a gun against my head and threatened to kill me. There was no suggestion whatsoever and I was completely alone. I later confirmed this with my parents, but somehow I forgot such a signifigant event from just a few years back. I know for sure it happened because once it surfaced I remembered it as if it had never been repressed.
Drew Molinet I had a very similar experience. When I was 6 I was trapped in a playhouse with my 8 year old brother by a 18 year old neighbor. He was a paedophile, but luckily he never physically got us, but made some really... Memorable suggestions. I blanked it all out until I was 18, it just snapped back into my mind like it was yesterday, and now I can't forget it. I was just crossing a road and it randomly pushed to the fore of my mind. It's all corroborated by my brother and family.
@Martha Speaks Do you want too talk with me here in the comments? You sound like you are having a ruth time and you can talk with me about it if you'd like
I watched an extremely traumatic motorcycle accident in which the motorcyclist lost his head, me and the other girl in the vehicle at the time went into shock.... and then proceeded to drink ourselves into Oblivion the rest of the day over what we had seen!!! over the next couple of months I slowly stop thinking about that incident and then didn't think about it again, didn't even know it happened for years until I saw a another motorcyclist get hit and all I saw was decapitation and blood, mind you this guy wasn't even injured... I started screaming from all the blood on my windshield.... so yeah they're real and they're scary but they're probably not anywhere near what Freud thought they were
I hate and distrust my own memories, so much so that I've developed a method to make myself forget memories I don't want. When a bad memory I don't want to keep comes up, I visualise that memory in my mind and paint over it with black, like using a brush or eraser tool on ms paint or photoshop. I don't know if this is a well known technique, but it works for my depression, I guess I'm intentionally suppressing if not erasing my own memories.
That sounds like a great technique! I just recall a memory with my eyes closed then squeeze them tight for a few seconds and open them. Repeat that a few times 'til the memory has completely faded. With traumatic memories, it's a good idea to find a positive memory to counter balance the negative. So if you were socially awkward and embarrassed yourself, find a memory of when you were confident speaking; could be with a friend or family memory. Doesn't matter specifically, just one with the outcome you'd prefer. Then do your black washing tricking or whatever works best. Then check back to the traumatic memory again. You should notice the difference the next time whatever triggers you comes up. It's really powerful. From personal experience I've found that washing out negatives makes you smarter and washing out positives gets rid of the negative and gives you the confidence and motivation boost as well.
Danny Vasquez Yea I've thought of learning experiences from bad memories, which is why I choose memories to erase. Most of the time it is just memories that make me cringe, or things I don't want to see again. For traumatic memories, I'll need to chop up the sequence of events and erase them part by part. When I try to recall memories to see if I still remember them, I will see a black screen in my mind which I feel that I can push through if I try really hard, but never actually tried.
That's really awesome! Yeah, I think I know what you mean by chopping them up. If it's a short memory I wipe it out from my perspective, then focus into the other people and sometimes maybe the environment if it was a particular place associated to it. It's really neat being able to recode your own memories.
Susan Kaiser I'm not sure if everyone can do it, but I'm an animator so I'm a very visual person and used alot of drawing programs like photoshop and even mspaint. What essentially happens is I think of that memory like it is on a computer screen and I visualise the exact process of how I would use photoshop's eraser or brush tool and erase away that frame of memory and remember that memory as a blank image. Sometimes when I feel like I have too many thoughts running at the same time, I also think of them like windows on a computer screen or internet tabs and I close them away by clicking on the X so I can stopping thinking and focus. I'm very visual and use a lot of computers, so this is how I visualise my thoughts, you can try other methods of replacing/ erasing memories by using activities and techniques you are familiar with, maybe like crumpling/ tearing piece of memory like paper, washing a plate etc. But I'm no expert and I'm not even sure if this technique is ultimately helpful because sometimes I feel that I might over do it and erase important memories.
I got a false memory that I recently realized lol. I heard a child being run over when I was probably 8. My cousin used to describe the way the kid rolled under the wheel and his face being hit. I thought that I had seen it but I was inside the house and only heard the screams. But I recently confronted a memory I’ve had for years that no one told me about. I might have been a victim of child SA and I have bits and pieces of memories but it all makes me sick to my stomach. I finally came clean to my mother. She remembers the time I was talking about and said I wouldn’t let anyone bathe me or touch me for a long time. I had night terrors up until high school. I’m currently in my mid 30s and fear intimacy. The people who were supposed to care for me during those times swore up and down nothing happened to me but now with these memories I don’t know.
It seems amazing to me that most people don't feel like writing their memories down. Not even considering the fact that memories are very susceptible to change, we don't remember most of the stuff that happens to us. What happens when you grow old and forget everything? It'll almost be like you never lived a life. This is why I write about my day, every day. Not only because it will help me revisit my life when I'm old but also because even after I'm gone, a part of me will remain and people will be able to see what kind of person I was. It's almost like leaving behind a bit of consciousness.
Not my joke. I read this somewhere, but I can't remember where. Perhaps 4chan? I'd like to forget everything I've ever seen from that site... the trauma...
I don't know if you can get those memories back. My understanding is that your brain forgets what it doesn't like. I had cancer a few years ago and I don't remember a lot of it and it's getting less and less vivid as time goes on
I'm a person who suspects I have repressed memories. My early childhood was kinda rough and my mom got mixed up in some bad company. I don't really remember much of it at all, but I know for a fact I saw plenty, because other relatives have told me about me recalling what I saw. It's possible I simply forgot that entire period of my life, but it _seems_ pretty significant. Frankly, there's no real need for me to try dragging up these memories. If they're repressed or just forgotten, I'm probably better off either way!
No, keep learning. You’ve spent your whole life hiding from it, hiding from yourself. You’ve lost your ability to trust everyone. even your own intuition. You see evil in everyone, especially yourself. If not, then u can rest easy knowing nothing happened to u. Children aren’t conditioned to hate everyone and everything around them. You weren’t supposed to start feeling uneasy about your place in the world until puberty. But you, you never felt like you belonged anywhere did you?. You never had the chance to feel happy about life, you had your guard up from day 1. At least as early as you can remember. This set you back developmentally, you knew you were different from everyone else but you could never understand why. If you keep telling yourself the things you feel aren’t real you’ll keep convincing yourself that whatever way you feel towards life is normal. Heal my friend. You deserve it. It will make sense when it’s supposed to. ❤️
I have first hand experience with people who have PTSD, and know very well how real repressed memories are. The effects of past experiences (in the case of PTSD) will mannefest themselves in day to day life whether a person is aware of the source, or not. And when after working with them, and never being suggestive (I've never told the person what I think happened, or what I think is the cause, my styles and techniques revolve around letting them find it themselves.) When one day those memories start to come up, when you see the correlation between the trauma they are describing in their unconscious state, and all of the fears and triggers they present in day to day life, it becomes quite clear just how real repressed memories are.
I've had them and I've never understood the controversy on whether or not they're real because I had literal flashbacks when they came back and it completely felt like I was there... Also I feel like the argument that they don't is based off of unethical things therapists did rather than a real way to disprove them. Also,they're literally a crucial component of more severe trauma disorders like PTSD and DID so how would they not exist?
*False memories can not create the neurological changes to the brain that come from abuse and cause PTSD.* Confusing what false memories actually are with how PTSD actually is caused and how it affects the brain development and can not be recreated by mere suggestion, is highly stigmatizing and hurtful to all survivors of childhood trauma. Furthermore, it's not "repressed memories" it's memories that are being dissociated. I am survivor of severe abuse, and the memories randomly came back once I was safe. How do I know they are not just made up? By now I have significant proof of the things that happened, enough so that I could sue my abusers once I am ready for that.
Do you notice each time that you review the traumatic memories they change slightly or fade out a little more each time? Like if you review the same one 5 times in a row with a 30-60 break between each review, it changes them each time and eventually fades them out?
I only remember them in flashbacks. I do not consciously try to think about them, the only time I look at the proof is when bs videos like this one make denial stronger "it didn't happen" "it couldn't have happened" "my childhood wasn't that bad" etc. But usually I do not ever try to think about it. I am not stable enough to process them yet. Some of them either seem as if it happened to someone else or just an image. just suddenly a specific scent or taste, sometimes body memories like severe pain in certain areas without any reason, sometimes a combination of it all. I also get triggered easily (the ptsd kind of triggered) when hearing about a certain topic or talking about things myself. I'll start to shake as if I am freezing no matter the room temperature
Sorry, didn't realize you were the one person who actually perfectly understood how the brain works. Maybe you should share this with scientists and doctors, instead of people on UA-cam? **cough**sarcasm**cough**
Throttle Kitty To add some more studies europepmc.org/abstract/med/10553030 "The hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex play important roles in memory and emotional regulation, and dysfunction in these areas may underlie memory deficits and pathological emotions in PTSD." ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.158.11.1920 www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632239600162X But I'm sure Throttle Kitty must know better than all neurologists studying PTSD and Dissociative disorders
Cookie Panda as a person who finally got my diagnose of ptsd (also called complex trauma) the repressed memory thing is hard to deal with. There are plenty of flashbacks when I get triggered (still working on finding said triggers) but I struggle with remembering good things from my childhood. Do you have the same problem? Also to everyone who will comment : go to a doctor. I already am, that's how I got this diagnose after 17 years of unnecessary suffering and self loathing. And she is doing awesome job at helping me
My parents told someone else about weird stuff I said about not wanting to go to kindergarten anymore when I used to love it, my excuse was that I didn’t like the kids show they played, but for me to cry about not wanting to go only because of a kids show is really suspicious to me. It’s so weird because I can’t remember being unhappy there, but I can recall telling my parents I hated the kids show, I used to have this blurry memory about a place in the kindergarten that I didn’t understand, but that’s long gone now, I have a lot of trauma related to sexuality, and wanted to be traumatized when I was young (From what I know that’s a trauma response) it’s kind of scary to think that something might’ve happened when I was a kid but it would make sense as to why I’m so fucked up
I was adopted when I was around age 5, I pretty much did a memory flush to protect myself, but after the memory flush, weird things that had no correlation to my surroundings happened without prompting. I'd say things in Korean. One time I looked up a word from a scenario I felt was true of a word I didn't consciously know and it fit the scenario. (I didn't remember Korean grammar at the time at all either and I found out later it was also proper grammar in dialect form) Oddly enough I looked up the name of my childhood toy and though I'd forgotten the reason I named the toy that, when I looked it up, it fit the toy. People constantly said I was making it up, I could not remember, used all those studies against me. But then weirder stuff occurred--things like when I relearned Korean, not only did I speak it in a "child" way, which my professors corrected, but I also used dialect, which they couldn't understand how I knew since they didn't teach it and I'd not heard it since I left Korea. There were other things along the way--I fixated on things like glass ceilings over market places, hated motorcycles for no apparent good reason, liked apples for no good reason, etc. After working really hard, I remet my Korean father. And then weirder things happened that I can't explain. One... I brought to him, not him to me, memories I had in this gigantic mind dump, I would describe it, like my brain stitching itself back together. I brought him the list and described it. He confirmed all but one of them because he wasn't there. Then I went to Korea--my fixations on things like the glass ceiling over the market place--something rare within the US, in my hometowns--both of them. The motorcycles I had a fear of, they zip through the marketplace with a really loud noise. The apples I fixated on were at eye level. The flash I had of canopies... the exact color and perspective was the same. It went beyond correlation bias. Things I never vocalized before and recorded(wrote down) before my trip were confirmed. (I was afraid of memory corruption). The marketplace tables--exactly like in the flashes I had. And there were places in one of the home towns where it was like an old trauma was there. I froze in place and thought I was going, "Let's go!" in my head my body would not move no matter how hard I tried. In one recovered memory, I described a market, took a stab at it, to guess where it was based on a recovered piece, and asked someone in Korea to help find it. I HAD NOT gone to that market in the present. It was from a memory dump. In fact I'd accidentally refused from a somatic memory recovery. And the person up front said that they thought it was the one I thought it was. In the somatic memory recovery, I predicted things that were there before I saw them. I knew what was coming before I saw it. There are other adoptees who report similar things, too. But the anti-repressed memory movement often discounts this as made up, can't collaborate, you just put that together from somewhere else. But the thing is there were no pictures of my hometown at the time. There was no one from there that could check it for me prior, and even if I watched Korean dramas, none were set in either of those towns. So how was I so sure that those things existed before I got there? How was I so sure on the color of things? I don't think memory is linear, and explainable as the same sort of thing. I think more research has to be done on traumatic memory recovery. It can't be linear--because believe me, I was in the "you're making it all up" camp before my trip. I was forced to convert and believe myself after the trip. Plus there was that study where children who usually go through a memory wipe after that age of 3, were able to remember traumatic memories before the age of three where their parents said they never reported it until later. Clearly, it's not a singular story.
My mother physically and verbally abused to a psychopathic degree my sister and I until I was nine. I moved to be with my father and Within two years I had repressed all but a few yelled statements. 45 years later it all came flooding back to me after two days of deep reflection following a heated argument with my mother. She spent 45 years convincing me I was a bad person for not spending time with her and i was left feeling guilty for not really caring. You’re damn straight it exists. The mechanics of this situation render it untestable with any reliability in a lab. It happens in the field. I never suspected I had repressed memories as I had undergone intensive three years of therapy 18 years before and thought I knew my mind inside an out. That experience gave me powerful tools to easily understand the shocking, but unsurprising, recovery. I knew it sucked bad, I just forgot that it was sheer terror. It surely identified the source of many emotional issues I’ve had.
but what about people who recall trauma much later in life, without a therapist suggesting it? i've heard plenty of anecdotes (not evidence, i know) of older people remembering sexual abuse they had as children. they find evidence that it did or very likely happened, too. and what about trauma survivors who remember little of their childhood? those sound like repressed memories to me, and those examples weren't addressed here.
What about if you just remember memories of abuse that you hadn't thought about in years? And if you're finally able to label it abuse? It doesn't feel like they were lost. They just weren't thought about for a long time. I didn't have the vocabulary or knowledge to call it abuse as a child. Recently I remembered it and it's been painful. I just wish he had covered this in the video, because now it makes me doubt my own memories of abuse, even though they are true, and can be corroborated by my family.
Same. I think you just have to focus on fixing how its affected ur behavior and reactions to things. It seems to be the only way to truly move past it even if you doubt its happened.
I think talking to a therapist or counselor would be extremely helpful, but know that it did indeed happen but that you didn't know at the time. My friend has been in a relationship for 3 years and has only realised now, after talking to me and another close friend, that she was being gaslighted by her boyfriend.
Hank I love you and this channel, but this could not possibly be more wrong. As both a therapy client and psychology student, I can emphatically state repressed memories are real and there is research to back it up. In cases of extreme trauma, it’s not uncommon for survivors to block out entire experiences while consciously retaining others. It’s real, but gets a bad rap because-like much of early psychology-early studios weren’t exactly ethical.
No it's not real and the evidence shows that repressed memoriy therapy is complete quakery. Love how everyone has an opinion in this subject and is always the folk psych one the claims that Al this is real with any evidence
@@a.b.1727 Why do you think I have no idea about psychology? Repressed memories have no scientific support and therapies claiming to be able to recover thes repressed memories have been proven to be unscientific during the 90s. People love the concept though which is why they keep it alive, in scientific circles no one ever talks about it anymore
@@TheXtremeDrums No, Elizabeth Loftus is a quack. The fact that she always testifies in defence of sexual predators is just the natural byproduct of her ‘research’.
Gosh, I suspect this video is going to invalidate so many people's experience, especially those of trauma victims who have just begun to come to terms with their abuse. Hank, well meaning therapist might sometimes suggest something that patients will take on board, but it is also the therapists' job to interpret that interaction and figure out why some patients are so suggestible. Is the patient trying to please the therapist? Is the patient just going along with what the therapist suggested to avoid dealing with other issues? etc. It's all what we call, 'the grist for the mill'. But you could also be a well meaning educator, Hank, who inadvertently invalidated many people's experience by saying their repressed memory 'might not exist'. It could be devastating. Sigh, please practice caution when talking about topics like these especially when you have failed to lay out more context in the background.
Circe I agree. This made me feel that way because I can’t remember everything but I had dreams and mini flashbacks but couldn’t put a whole timeline together. Because I can’t remember everything exactly I already feel so much shame about it. Then basically I watch this video and it’s like “yup, this doesn’t happen. False memory” and it made me instantly feel so much worse.
@@---nobody--- yes same with me, I've had like 30 full on flashbacks and body memories of a traumatic thing but this made me feel it just didnt happen and I've recently just gotten over my denial.
So because people don't like the truth we should not say it since it might offend someone? Got it! If you have been manipulated by a quack Into believing in "repressed memories" you shouldn't demand scientists to accept the lies instead use this new real information to proceed and help yourself.
See I feel like I'm being gaslit. I have always had this one consistent memory ever since I can remember. And it's SUPER vivid and I've never had anyone suggest it. And the only person I told about it until I was an adult was my mother. So there's NO way a therapist suggested it to me. I was very young (about 4 or 5) and I climb into bed with a fully nude, adult man. But I can't see the face and it stops there. My family has told me it's not real and I'm making it up but I had all other symptoms of CSA growing up. So am I crazy? Because I've had several therapists tell me people don't actually block out traumatic memories. But this has been consistent, never changed, and super vivid. And idk what to think anymore.
I'm genuinely glad you guys posted this today. I'm soon to be off to help a friend talk to her mom and this video is directly pertinent to the issues they are facing.
Trauma can form emotional or behavioural patterns. But it has always been a leap to think that sustaining those patterns requires memories of the trauma, repressed or otherwise. Learned behaviour or emotional responses can certainly be influenced by memories, but all of us have been formed by innumerable events we no longer have. In some ways, memories are like family oral history, religious stories, or national historical myths. They may be true, false, or a mixed bag, but they give us a framework of the past, and we use that to act in the present.
fake memories have always been my greatest fear and it's why i can't even trust myself. sometimes painful memories would pop out of nowhere and i want to throw up bc i feel like im "playing the victim" by crying over memories that might not even exist.
From what I remember about how Freud, he didn't believe in guided imagery techniques. He believed in free association, and that the therapist should get out of the way so they don't influence the process. He also suspected later in life that his patients weren't all abused, but were remembering distorted versions of the past (distorted by their psychosexual desires).
I had forgotten about something I did and was so full of regret and shame I managed to forget about it, was writing about the events that led up to it when those memories all came flooding back. It happens.
the best way to describe my memory is like having a video play but having only certain parts of it be a black screen, even though I know what happens during that scene.
I've always thought about repressed memories as blocked memories. Like when my step-dad cussed me out and I remembered it had happened but could not recall any of what he had actually said later. He apologized later and I had talked to my Mom about it soon after, but I can no longer recall the actual event...
I'm in my 40's and I have a vivid memory of me and my sisters on a porch and we saw King Kong walking down the street! It was a scary experience, and we discuss this today and she remember it as well! We were living in Cleveland Ohio and if you are from Cleveland then you will know exactly what we saw! The opening to Big Chuck and lil John Show! I can remember screaming and running scares because King Kong was rampaging tearing up buildings! That's why it's so important to not let children watch inappropriate programming at such a young age because it could have severe consequences!. Also keep in mind that when you're young you simply sleep more, therefore there will be gaps in your memory, for instance you may fall asleep on a couch and someone will pick you up can carry you to car and you wake up the next day back at home in your bed, that's very different than when you grow up and control when and where you fall asleep and wake up!
I remember when I was little I convinced myself that I had stabbed myself in the eye and that's why it was blind, though I of course was just born that way.
I consciously suppressed my own memories. I remember the process I used to do it better than the memories, but I did give the memory holes "expiration" dates when the memories would come back. The process I used was fairly similar to Sherlock's Mind Palace but in reverse. I took the memories that were too painful for me to process and imagined being shoved into jars then placed in a cupboard. Any time the memory tried to pop up, I would imagine the jar having fallen off the shelf and I would pick it up and stick it back into the cupboard. This didn't take one or two tries, either, I spent months on setting up each memory jar and there are about a dozen of them. Each jar has its own expiration date on it when it will come open which was integrated into the process of making the jar, but once the entire thing was complete I lost conscious access to the memories until the expiration date. The only rule for the expiration dates was that it was something that could actually happen on a reasonable time scale, so one was a terrorist attack in Paris, another was my 25th birthday, that kind of thing.
I remember very little of my childhood until I was 12. I don't know what my home life was like, but I remember a lot of school. My brother was a huge bully, and I kinda blame him for that. I remember a lot more once he left for college.
My repressed memories are always just embarrassing moments 😂 maybe I'll start telling myself it's fake next time another embarrassing memory from my teen years is uncovered
I didn't have continuous memories of a traumatic experience, it just came back to me when discussing a vaguely related topic a few years later. I remember walking back after the incident and thinking that I didn't want to upset my parents and that might be viewed poorly for being in a situation in the first place. I told myself it didn't happen and when I woke up i would forget and I did. I "knew' it had happened I just didn't happen to actively remember it, the experience of recalling it was similar to when you see photos of your childhood and they trigger a memory you had not thought about in years.
I was sexually assaulted at 6 till I was 9. It was so well repressed I don't even remember it till the first I saw a sexual assault scene online. And flash of memory start coming back. Even now I can't give u full detail of my assault. Just bits and pieces. Oh these repress memories are real. I still have the stickers given to me when he tried to lure me.
My sister passed away when I was a kid, and I have no memory of it. It was pretty traumatic and I go to therapy 3 times a week. Dissociation from unwanted feelings and events is a very real thing. Also Emotional flashbacks are a thing.
Traumatic amnesia is as well documented as false memories. There are parts of a recent trauma I experience that I cannot remember despite the fact that it absolutely and indisputably happened. Repressed memories are as much about what's not there as what is, such as implicit memories that are tied to an event but have no cause that the person dealing with them is aware of. These can be intrusive thoughts, unexplained emotional responses to certain smells, sounds, people, places, etc, and a slew of other physiological symptoms. False memories are certainly a thing, which is why it's recommended that those with repressed memories shouldn't try to dig for them. “Delayed recall memories” or “recovered memories” are more accurate terms too.
No. This is the same as a mechanic saying “do you hear that weird winding sound? Better let me take it in my shop and fix it.” Meanwhile he’s scamming you out of money
When I found out my cousin was abused by a family member in that moment I suddenly remembered how it was done to me, it wasn’t exactly like I forgot that it happened I just hadn’t thought of it since I was so young it like realizing a dream I had was actually a couple traumatic memories
*HOW. IS. THIS. NOT. REAL?* I had an extremely close call with death when I was in my teens. Treating cancer and other mental issues. My mom was my 24/7 caretaker. I also had nurses that would regularly be in and out my house to monitor me. I’m older now and when people talk about highschool, I (dropped out)I can’t remember anything past that because that was the start of my sudden rapid decline.. I get little snippets here and there so I ask my mom and nurses and look into my medical history for proof of these memories. ALL of them were correct. I only get snippets when have similar smells or situations happen. How is this not a repressed memory? It’s almost insulting that people do not believe me because they believe it is a myth. That I’m a liar and that couldn’t have possibly happened. I have pictures and medical documents from doctors of these events. Now can someone tell me how these weren’t repressed??? Genuinely baffled by this being called a myth. The brain is powerful beast and still so much is unknown. *HOW. IS. THIS. NOT. REAL?*
*Not an expert* I think there might be a small but meaningful difference between repressing a memory and forgetting a memory. Without knowing your situation, you could be remembering forgotten details of things that happened which is more along the lines of normal remembering. While repression would be forgetting the who traumatic situation as a defense mechanism. Basically, it may be that situations in your life now are reminding you about times previously forgotten and you might be able to use positive memories coming back to build upon going forward.
This explains neverything! At school in the 1950s and 60s, "The Russians are comming, the Russians are comming. Watch this um... jerky 8mm movie of Hiroshima and all the death. The USSR will decimate us all". Fast forward to 2015 onwards "We better become friends with the Russians or NYs premier hotel will become Anniahlated Towers and we will all die in excruciating pain".
My mom has told me stories of significant things that happened when I was a teenager and I don"t remember any of it. If I was big enough why can't I remember?
They take it way too easy on Sickman Fraud, I don't get why they talk soo much about psychoanalysis, which is clearly a pseudoscience and they don't even metion that. I think someone of Sci show psych is biased about it.
Sergio_ montevideo LOL no. 99% of what Sigmund Freud said was pure conjecture, loudly claimed as fact. Regardless of how he "revolutionized the field of psychology", he was not good friends with the scientific method.
December 21st 2007 i was sitting on my living room couch eating crab legs while watching suit life of zack and cody AND playing pokemon pearl using an action replay. HA!
"...imagination and memory are but one thing, which for divers considerations hath divers names." Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan (1909-14) by Thomas Hobbes
I'm curious as to why the video completely focused on the recall of repressed memories, leaning toward the skeptical/debunking side. Without touching on the fact that people can live through horrible trauma and forget it. Repressed memories aren't specifically about recall. When it can be documented by others and verified that a person went through trauma and the person is unable to recall said memory and did not suffer brain damage. That's a repressed memory.
I did remembered my playmates forcing me to have sex with a boy (a playmate too) in a slightly secluded area when I was seven or eight. I was one of the oldest if not the oldest. I remembered that incident after I had my second sexual partner and before that, I had a toxic and submissive sexual relationship with a friend I'm obsessed with. What triggered it was when he (the second partner) had touched my scar on the back (something I was puzzled about for a long time months after the "playmate" incident occurred. I do know how I got my scars except that one). I happened to have a healing wound on my back when one of the kids touched them (because they're really forcing me) and it bled. I was wearing white that time and when I went home my mom asked (and I was probably scolded) what happened and I didn't say a thing about it.
I've been struggling with drugs and memories and unsure if thoughts and memories are real or delusions, writing them down helps, but in the end I want proof to sway me one way or the other, I'm tired of being stuck in the middle.
What about people who had something traumatic happen to them, then something triggered their memory to come back into clear focus, but in the interim they never really remembered? Like I had a friend who had been raped when she was 10. She said that she spent her tweens and teens mostly unaware of it. She had certain unexplained avoidance's and issues, as well as regularly got nightmares about sexual violence, but didn't understand why she got them. Then when she was 19 she saw the man that did it to her on the street in her hometown. It brought everything back, and she even started having intense flashbacks that would cause her to scream. And like... she would remember a lot of specific details about the incident afterwards, mostly from the flashbacks. It was just from seeing his face though. No one told her that she had been raped or anything, and she had been experiencing unexplained PTSD symptoms all the while. So like.... would this be an example of an ACTUAL repressed memory?
This is a really relevant topic, you’ll see some of this in recent tv shows in true crime and how repressed memories can have an impact in courts. The legal system is becoming less and less appreciative of repressed memories. Also, we can always open Freud up to some critique. It’s clear we need a deeper understanding in this area! Thanks for another great video!
Every time I have a dream I have false memories of things I was doing in the dream before it even starts. It really messes with me, and often makes me think the dream is real.
My Friends and family always tell me things i did or say when i was younger and i feel like they are talking about someone else... Sometimes i do remember those things like oh yeah i forgot that
10 years ago today I was at home playing video games and watching anime, I can't tell you which is either just what I was doing knowing what I did at the time...
Sometimes "repressed" memories can have independent verification - like if someone else was there, or if there you wrote down your experiences immediate. I do think Freud was right, that the unconscious exists, and it processes our experiences even when our conscious mind doesn't want to deal with something, but I agree just because something exists doesn't mean we have any clear idea how it works, and can't depend on the unconscious to tell us anything except about things inside us, which don't depend on accurate objective memories.
I do have repressed memories. It's a little strange. I know that the events occured, but my brain doesn't allow me to access more than that. But I know that the memories are there. I'm glad that they are repressed, but I suppose if I really wanted to know the details, I could access them again one day. But for now, my brain puts up that barrier between me and my trauma, and I allow that barrier to exist.
I am very happy for Hank that he grew up in a normal home, but please stick to your wheelhouse. Repressed memory is absolutely a real thing. My brothers and I were horribly abused and none of us remember much of anything before 18 and very little before 30
I can tell you exactly what I had for breakfast exactly 3 years ago. A piece of bread with hagelslag. It is not hard for me to know that since I eat that pretty much any day (Non-school days might be different though)
My experience is that if i experience something really painful, in the moment, I can chose to not register the event in my brain and shut off until the event has ended. Then, I don't remember the part of the event that was painful. It all hapenned very quickly both time I did it. But I did it consciously, but now I wish I remembered
I have a few decent sized gaps in my childhood memory. I have had fragments of memories come back up. Some are complete enough that I have an idea what supposedly happened. Others are not quite there yet, and I’d rather keep them i my subconscious where I put them in the first place. I don’t know if they are accurate. I don’t want to know. I know I had some childhood trauma and have done all the therapy and I don’t want to have to go through the early processing and healing again.
Another thing is that some people simply confuse dreaming and reality, some can't remember dreaming at all, my daughter can't recall any dreams! When I tell her about my dreams she just don't understand why I dream, but she claim she don't dream at all
what i remember about 2007 is that umbrella by Rihanna was really big that year . In my country it was called the summer anthem of 2007. I don't remember anything else I think we had a rainy summer that year.
The one experiment had four groups: control, remembered trauma, supposedly recovered memories, and those who suspected they had repressed memories. You didn't say how the last group did in the experiment.
Um... yeah... as someone who has experienced them in full blown panic attack settings they are real. I don't know about other people, but for me it was going back to the memory and putting 2+2 together to see that it was horrible because i was ignorant at the time.
I don't remember what I was doing 10 hours ago. My memory is terrible. I can learn things, but whatever part of my brain deals with long term memory is pretty poorly developed.
Dude freaking pragerU is really sketchy to me... a lot of their claims are thoroughly debunked, the statistics they cite not only have no reliable studies behind them, many of their statistics have never had any study behind them, they are literally just random numbers which pragerU made up. The sketchiest thing of all to me though is the fact they are trying to impersonate an academic institution, I.E. a university, something that is supposed to be unbiased and based in fact not opinion. Even though they themselves explain that they are "a political activism committee" or something like that. Does that not seem misleading, claiming to be "Prager University" when in reality you are neither a university or even any form of academic institution? It seems like someone claiming to be a doctor with no degree.
I've had memories of abuse by family members planted in me by a well-meaning counselor but I chose not to confront the people about it. I kept doubting the memories. Now, years later, I've found the source of my anxiety, that made me go for counseling, was traumatic religious indoctrination and OCD intrusive thoughts. It could've gone horribly wrong if I'd taken those memories seriously.
I feel like that could be the case for me as well. I went to a mini panic attack thinking the worst happened to me as a kid by a family member, but I think and I’m hopeful that it’s just OCD intrusive thoughts.
@@hobisoon I think that’s the case for most ppl I don’t believe repressed memories it sounds like a lie planted in peoples mind Almost as if their in a delusion. I think people who claim they have repressed memories most, likely have ocd intrusive thoughts and they’ve made it a bigger deal than it is and basically a delusion all in their minds. Anyone can research repressed memories then think they might have some towards family it kind of starts of like ocd intrusive thoughts and then becomes bigger. People who actually go through trauma want to bury those memories as for people with repressed memories try look for these memories. When people are victims of abuse and they saw it’s struck to their minds and that’s why they have to go through so much and there’s no scientific evidence to support the repressed memory theory
@@yasirhussain5192 Eh? Well I have read a few accounts from people on here and a friend in real life, that had been abused as children but had forgotten about it + most of their childhood because that was how their undeveloped brains that couldn’t really process what was happening tried to protect them from the trauma as children. And that only years later some unknowing or unintentional trigger happened in whatever way that lead the memories come gushing through. I’ve seen it from someone that has DID, and a comment here saying that they forgot they were abused by a neighbor as a kid and at the age of 18, the first sight of him made her body react repulsively and she cried and threw up immensely. I mean the human brain is a weird thing that doesn’t always exactly work the same with every single person, and pushing the narrative of a perfect victim is not the way to go on to situations like these as it could be very real and there’s still research being made on it.
My father was abusive back then and would beat me till I bleed but I remember this memory of him banging my head into a wall several times and im not sure if its real of not I remember feeling dizzy after he banged my head into the concrete wall when I was maybe 6 or 7 years old.
what about repressed memories coming back from a night you dont remember? there is a night i dont remember from when i was 18, i had a drink, blacked out, woke up the next day in a... compromising position. i remember all my trauma, except what happened that night. until last week when i had a flashback of something happening. it came on because i talked about the dentist. i remember at the dentist i seemed to have a trauma response when i had them around my mouth. there is also evidence that something happened that night because of certain jokes people made and stuff. my therapist says there is no way to know for sure, but it is very possible based on it coming out of no where, feeling like a normal flash back, and my bodies reaction to it. but i dunno. i realy dont want it to be real .
That doesn't make a ton of sense to me since I remember trauma extremely clearly. I mean, there's times where it's the only thing i can fixate on and it really takes me out of whatever I'm doing
When I was 17 I was taking a piss and I remembered that when I was 13 my dad put a gun against my head and threatened to kill me. There was no suggestion whatsoever and I was completely alone. I later confirmed this with my parents, but somehow I forgot such a signifigant event from just a few years back. I know for sure it happened because once it surfaced I remembered it as if it had never been repressed.
Drew Molinet I had a very similar experience. When I was 6 I was trapped in a playhouse with my 8 year old brother by a 18 year old neighbor. He was a paedophile, but luckily he never physically got us, but made some really... Memorable suggestions.
I blanked it all out until I was 18, it just snapped back into my mind like it was yesterday, and now I can't forget it. I was just crossing a road and it randomly pushed to the fore of my mind. It's all corroborated by my brother and family.
yeah i was at my grandmas house and i remembered my ‘friend’ beating me and drowning me for no reason. yikes
@Martha Speaks Do you want too talk with me here in the comments? You sound like you are having a ruth time and you can talk with me about it if you'd like
Your parents confirmed it true or false?
I watched an extremely traumatic motorcycle accident in which the motorcyclist lost his head, me and the other girl in the vehicle at the time went into shock.... and then proceeded to drink ourselves into Oblivion the rest of the day over what we had seen!!! over the next couple of months I slowly stop thinking about that incident and then didn't think about it again, didn't even know it happened for years until I saw a another motorcyclist get hit and all I saw was decapitation and blood, mind you this guy wasn't even injured... I started screaming from all the blood on my windshield.... so yeah they're real and they're scary but they're probably not anywhere near what Freud thought they were
Damn that's crazy I'm so sorry you went through this. hope yo7 can heal
Honestly saw the title of the video and immediately thought "repressed memes" and then realized that I need to get more sleep.
sleep well little guy or girl.
LoL or yes the internet less hahaha
"Do you remember what you were doing exactly 10 years ago?"
Easy, sucking at life.
Alfredo Lubrano _woah you had one?_
Do you remember what you were doing exactly 4 years ago?
I hate and distrust my own memories, so much so that I've developed a method to make myself forget memories I don't want. When a bad memory I don't want to keep comes up, I visualise that memory in my mind and paint over it with black, like using a brush or eraser tool on ms paint or photoshop. I don't know if this is a well known technique, but it works for my depression, I guess I'm intentionally suppressing if not erasing my own memories.
That sounds like a great technique! I just recall a memory with my eyes closed then squeeze them tight for a few seconds and open them. Repeat that a few times 'til the memory has completely faded.
With traumatic memories, it's a good idea to find a positive memory to counter balance the negative. So if you were socially awkward and embarrassed yourself, find a memory of when you were confident speaking; could be with a friend or family memory. Doesn't matter specifically, just one with the outcome you'd prefer. Then do your black washing tricking or whatever works best. Then check back to the traumatic memory again. You should notice the difference the next time whatever triggers you comes up. It's really powerful.
From personal experience I've found that washing out negatives makes you smarter and washing out positives gets rid of the negative and gives you the confidence and motivation boost as well.
Danny Vasquez Yea I've thought of learning experiences from bad memories, which is why I choose memories to erase. Most of the time it is just memories that make me cringe, or things I don't want to see again. For traumatic memories, I'll need to chop up the sequence of events and erase them part by part. When I try to recall memories to see if I still remember them, I will see a black screen in my mind which I feel that I can push through if I try really hard, but never actually tried.
That's really awesome! Yeah, I think I know what you mean by chopping them up. If it's a short memory I wipe it out from my perspective, then focus into the other people and sometimes maybe the environment if it was a particular place associated to it. It's really neat being able to recode your own memories.
What I want to know if how do you imagine things like that? Is that a normal thing that everyone can do?
Susan Kaiser I'm not sure if everyone can do it, but I'm an animator so I'm a very visual person and used alot of drawing programs like photoshop and even mspaint.
What essentially happens is I think of that memory like it is on a computer screen and I visualise the exact process of how I would use photoshop's eraser or brush tool and erase away that frame of memory and remember that memory as a blank image.
Sometimes when I feel like I have too many thoughts running at the same time, I also think of them like windows on a computer screen or internet tabs and I close them away by clicking on the X so I can stopping thinking and focus.
I'm very visual and use a lot of computers, so this is how I visualise my thoughts, you can try other methods of replacing/ erasing memories by using activities and techniques you are familiar with, maybe like crumpling/ tearing piece of memory like paper, washing a plate etc.
But I'm no expert and I'm not even sure if this technique is ultimately helpful because sometimes I feel that I might over do it and erase important memories.
I got a false memory that I recently realized lol. I heard a child being run over when I was probably 8. My cousin used to describe the way the kid rolled under the wheel and his face being hit. I thought that I had seen it but I was inside the house and only heard the screams. But I recently confronted a memory I’ve had for years that no one told me about. I might have been a victim of child SA and I have bits and pieces of memories but it all makes me sick to my stomach. I finally came clean to my mother. She remembers the time I was talking about and said I wouldn’t let anyone bathe me or touch me for a long time. I had night terrors up until high school. I’m currently in my mid 30s and fear intimacy. The people who were supposed to care for me during those times swore up and down nothing happened to me but now with these memories I don’t know.
It seems amazing to me that most people don't feel like writing their memories down. Not even considering the fact that memories are very susceptible to change, we don't remember most of the stuff that happens to us. What happens when you grow old and forget everything? It'll almost be like you never lived a life. This is why I write about my day, every day. Not only because it will help me revisit my life when I'm old but also because even after I'm gone, a part of me will remain and people will be able to see what kind of person I was. It's almost like leaving behind a bit of consciousness.
Feynstein 100
How old are you now?
I'm 24. Been writing since early 2008 and even so, I feel like I started too late. There's so many things I missed.
Effort
+Anonymous Candle Ah I get it but given what's at stake here, I think people should be motivated enough. Guess everyone doesn't think like me.
I do this too.
I recently bought a repressed Memory Foam mattress. It holds me just like my uncle used to.
Not my joke. I read this somewhere, but I can't remember where. Perhaps 4chan? I'd like to forget everything I've ever seen from that site... the trauma...
This is gold, cracked me up for real. lol
Master Therion 😂
I was so ready to say how awesome your joke was... Until read your response
Master Therion
That's dark
I don't know if you can get those memories back. My understanding is that your brain forgets what it doesn't like. I had cancer a few years ago and I don't remember a lot of it and it's getting less and less vivid as time goes on
I'm a person who suspects I have repressed memories. My early childhood was kinda rough and my mom got mixed up in some bad company. I don't really remember much of it at all, but I know for a fact I saw plenty, because other relatives have told me about me recalling what I saw. It's possible I simply forgot that entire period of my life, but it _seems_ pretty significant. Frankly, there's no real need for me to try dragging up these memories. If they're repressed or just forgotten, I'm probably better off either way!
I'm feeling the same way right now, so I'm glad you wrote this comment. Good to see that there's people in the same boat as me :)
No, keep learning. You’ve spent your whole life hiding from it, hiding from yourself. You’ve lost your ability to trust everyone. even your own intuition. You see evil in everyone, especially yourself. If not, then u can rest easy knowing nothing happened to u. Children aren’t conditioned to hate everyone and everything around them. You weren’t supposed to start feeling uneasy about your place in the world until puberty. But you, you never felt like you belonged anywhere did you?. You never had the chance to feel happy about life, you had your guard up from day 1. At least as early as you can remember. This set you back developmentally, you knew you were different from everyone else but you could never understand why. If you keep telling yourself the things you feel aren’t real you’ll keep convincing yourself that whatever way you feel towards life is normal. Heal my friend. You deserve it. It will make sense when it’s supposed to. ❤️
I have first hand experience with people who have PTSD, and know very well how real repressed memories are. The effects of past experiences (in the case of PTSD) will mannefest themselves in day to day life whether a person is aware of the source, or not. And when after working with them, and never being suggestive (I've never told the person what I think happened, or what I think is the cause, my styles and techniques revolve around letting them find it themselves.) When one day those memories start to come up, when you see the correlation between the trauma they are describing in their unconscious state, and all of the fears and triggers they present in day to day life, it becomes quite clear just how real repressed memories are.
I've had them and I've never understood the controversy on whether or not they're real because I had literal flashbacks when they came back and it completely felt like I was there... Also I feel like the argument that they don't is based off of unethical things therapists did rather than a real way to disprove them. Also,they're literally a crucial component of more severe trauma disorders like PTSD and DID so how would they not exist?
But will we remember this video accurately in 5 years?
Nope
Maybe no, but probably our knowloedge will keep track of these ideas
*ignores new message*
U mean in 5 minutes?
I- swear- this is the third time Hank has said he can't remember his breakfast. Is it just me? Did I just repress something lol?
Traumatic breakfasts are nothing to laugh about. Breakfast (sometimes brunch) can be the most important repressed memory of the day.
*False memories can not create the neurological changes to the brain that come from abuse and cause PTSD.* Confusing what false memories actually are with how PTSD actually is caused and how it affects the brain development and can not be recreated by mere suggestion, is highly stigmatizing and hurtful to all survivors of childhood trauma. Furthermore, it's not "repressed memories" it's memories that are being dissociated.
I am survivor of severe abuse, and the memories randomly came back once I was safe. How do I know they are not just made up? By now I have significant proof of the things that happened, enough so that I could sue my abusers once I am ready for that.
Do you notice each time that you review the traumatic memories they change slightly or fade out a little more each time? Like if you review the same one 5 times in a row with a 30-60 break between each review, it changes them each time and eventually fades them out?
I only remember them in flashbacks. I do not consciously try to think about them, the only time I look at the proof is when bs videos like this one make denial stronger "it didn't happen" "it couldn't have happened" "my childhood wasn't that bad" etc. But usually I do not ever try to think about it. I am not stable enough to process them yet. Some of them either seem as if it happened to someone else or just an image. just suddenly a specific scent or taste, sometimes body memories like severe pain in certain areas without any reason, sometimes a combination of it all.
I also get triggered easily (the ptsd kind of triggered) when hearing about a certain topic or talking about things myself. I'll start to shake as if I am freezing no matter the room temperature
Sorry, didn't realize you were the one person who actually perfectly understood how the brain works. Maybe you should share this with scientists and doctors, instead of people on UA-cam?
**cough**sarcasm**cough**
Throttle Kitty To add some more studies
europepmc.org/abstract/med/10553030
"The hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex play important roles in
memory and emotional regulation, and dysfunction in these areas may
underlie memory deficits and pathological emotions in PTSD."
ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.158.11.1920
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632239600162X
But I'm sure Throttle Kitty must know better than all neurologists studying PTSD and Dissociative disorders
Cookie Panda as a person who finally got my diagnose of ptsd (also called complex trauma) the repressed memory thing is hard to deal with.
There are plenty of flashbacks when I get triggered (still working on finding said triggers) but I struggle with remembering good things from my childhood. Do you have the same problem?
Also to everyone who will comment : go to a doctor.
I already am, that's how I got this diagnose after 17 years of unnecessary suffering and self loathing. And she is doing awesome job at helping me
My parents told someone else about weird stuff I said about not wanting to go to kindergarten anymore when I used to love it, my excuse was that I didn’t like the kids show they played, but for me to cry about not wanting to go only because of a kids show is really suspicious to me. It’s so weird because I can’t remember being unhappy there, but I can recall telling my parents I hated the kids show, I used to have this blurry memory about a place in the kindergarten that I didn’t understand, but that’s long gone now, I have a lot of trauma related to sexuality, and wanted to be traumatized when I was young (From what I know that’s a trauma response) it’s kind of scary to think that something might’ve happened when I was a kid but it would make sense as to why I’m so fucked up
I was adopted when I was around age 5, I pretty much did a memory flush to protect myself, but after the memory flush, weird things that had no correlation to my surroundings happened without prompting.
I'd say things in Korean. One time I looked up a word from a scenario I felt was true of a word I didn't consciously know and it fit the scenario. (I didn't remember Korean grammar at the time at all either and I found out later it was also proper grammar in dialect form) Oddly enough I looked up the name of my childhood toy and though I'd forgotten the reason I named the toy that, when I looked it up, it fit the toy.
People constantly said I was making it up, I could not remember, used all those studies against me. But then weirder stuff occurred--things like when I relearned Korean, not only did I speak it in a "child" way, which my professors corrected, but I also used dialect, which they couldn't understand how I knew since they didn't teach it and I'd not heard it since I left Korea.
There were other things along the way--I fixated on things like glass ceilings over market places, hated motorcycles for no apparent good reason, liked apples for no good reason, etc.
After working really hard, I remet my Korean father. And then weirder things happened that I can't explain.
One... I brought to him, not him to me, memories I had in this gigantic mind dump, I would describe it, like my brain stitching itself back together. I brought him the list and described it. He confirmed all but one of them because he wasn't there.
Then I went to Korea--my fixations on things like the glass ceiling over the market place--something rare within the US, in my hometowns--both of them. The motorcycles I had a fear of, they zip through the marketplace with a really loud noise. The apples I fixated on were at eye level. The flash I had of canopies... the exact color and perspective was the same. It went beyond correlation bias.
Things I never vocalized before and recorded(wrote down) before my trip were confirmed. (I was afraid of memory corruption). The marketplace tables--exactly like in the flashes I had.
And there were places in one of the home towns where it was like an old trauma was there. I froze in place and thought I was going, "Let's go!" in my head my body would not move no matter how hard I tried.
In one recovered memory, I described a market, took a stab at it, to guess where it was based on a recovered piece, and asked someone in Korea to help find it. I HAD NOT gone to that market in the present. It was from a memory dump. In fact I'd accidentally refused from a somatic memory recovery. And the person up front said that they thought it was the one I thought it was.
In the somatic memory recovery, I predicted things that were there before I saw them. I knew what was coming before I saw it.
There are other adoptees who report similar things, too. But the anti-repressed memory movement often discounts this as made up, can't collaborate, you just put that together from somewhere else. But the thing is there were no pictures of my hometown at the time. There was no one from there that could check it for me prior, and even if I watched Korean dramas, none were set in either of those towns. So how was I so sure that those things existed before I got there? How was I so sure on the color of things?
I don't think memory is linear, and explainable as the same sort of thing. I think more research has to be done on traumatic memory recovery. It can't be linear--because believe me, I was in the "you're making it all up" camp before my trip. I was forced to convert and believe myself after the trip. Plus there was that study where children who usually go through a memory wipe after that age of 3, were able to remember traumatic memories before the age of three where their parents said they never reported it until later. Clearly, it's not a singular story.
Wow
My mother physically and verbally abused to a psychopathic degree my sister and I until I was nine. I moved to be with my father and Within two years I had repressed all but a few yelled statements. 45 years later it all came flooding back to me after two days of deep reflection following a heated argument with my mother. She spent 45 years convincing me I was a bad person for not spending time with her and i was left feeling guilty for not really caring. You’re damn straight it exists. The mechanics of this situation render it untestable with any reliability in a lab. It happens in the field. I never suspected I had repressed memories as I had undergone intensive three years of therapy 18 years before and thought I knew my mind inside an out. That experience gave me powerful tools to easily understand the shocking, but unsurprising, recovery. I knew it sucked bad, I just forgot that it was sheer terror. It surely identified the source of many emotional issues I’ve had.
but what about people who recall trauma much later in life, without a therapist suggesting it? i've heard plenty of anecdotes (not evidence, i know) of older people remembering sexual abuse they had as children. they find evidence that it did or very likely happened, too. and what about trauma survivors who remember little of their childhood? those sound like repressed memories to me, and those examples weren't addressed here.
thats what i was thinking! i'm quite disappointed in this video.
What about if you just remember memories of abuse that you hadn't thought about in years? And if you're finally able to label it abuse? It doesn't feel like they were lost. They just weren't thought about for a long time. I didn't have the vocabulary or knowledge to call it abuse as a child. Recently I remembered it and it's been painful. I just wish he had covered this in the video, because now it makes me doubt my own memories of abuse, even though they are true, and can be corroborated by my family.
Same. I think you just have to focus on fixing how its affected ur behavior and reactions to things. It seems to be the only way to truly move past it even if you doubt its happened.
I think talking to a therapist or counselor would be extremely helpful, but know that it did indeed happen but that you didn't know at the time. My friend has been in a relationship for 3 years and has only realised now, after talking to me and another close friend, that she was being gaslighted by her boyfriend.
Same here.
Story of my life 😞😞😞😞😞
Same here
Hank I love you and this channel, but this could not possibly be more wrong. As both a therapy client and psychology student, I can emphatically state repressed memories are real and there is research to back it up. In cases of extreme trauma, it’s not uncommon for survivors to block out entire experiences while consciously retaining others. It’s real, but gets a bad rap because-like much of early psychology-early studios weren’t exactly ethical.
No it's not real and the evidence shows that repressed memoriy therapy is complete quakery.
Love how everyone has an opinion in this subject and is always the folk psych one the claims that Al this is real with any evidence
@@TheXtremeDrums Reading your comments:
I kinda get the feelig, you were/are a perpetrator?!
You surely have no idea about psychology?
@@a.b.1727 Why do you think I have no idea about psychology? Repressed memories have no scientific support and therapies claiming to be able to recover thes repressed memories have been proven to be unscientific during the 90s.
People love the concept though which is why they keep it alive, in scientific circles no one ever talks about it anymore
@@TheXtremeDrums No, Elizabeth Loftus is a quack. The fact that she always testifies in defence of sexual predators is just the natural byproduct of her ‘research’.
This channel is recommending me their videos on Gaslighting and Dissociative Identity Disorder while claiming repressed memories don’t exist 😂
Gosh, I suspect this video is going to invalidate so many people's experience, especially those of trauma victims who have just begun to come to terms with their abuse.
Hank, well meaning therapist might sometimes suggest something that patients will take on board, but it is also the therapists' job to interpret that interaction and figure out why some patients are so suggestible. Is the patient trying to please the therapist? Is the patient just going along with what the therapist suggested to avoid dealing with other issues? etc. It's all what we call, 'the grist for the mill'.
But you could also be a well meaning educator, Hank, who inadvertently invalidated many people's experience by saying their repressed memory 'might not exist'. It could be devastating. Sigh, please practice caution when talking about topics like these especially when you have failed to lay out more context in the background.
Circe I agree. This made me feel that way because I can’t remember everything but I had dreams and mini flashbacks but couldn’t put a whole timeline together. Because I can’t remember everything exactly I already feel so much shame about it. Then basically I watch this video and it’s like “yup, this doesn’t happen. False memory” and it made me instantly feel so much worse.
@@---nobody--- yes same with me, I've had like 30 full on flashbacks and body memories of a traumatic thing but this made me feel it just didnt happen and I've recently just gotten over my denial.
So because people don't like the truth we should not say it since it might offend someone?
Got it!
If you have been manipulated by a quack Into believing in "repressed memories" you shouldn't demand scientists to accept the lies instead use this new real information to proceed and help yourself.
Cheshire CAT Scan look at the comments above you.
See I feel like I'm being gaslit. I have always had this one consistent memory ever since I can remember. And it's SUPER vivid and I've never had anyone suggest it. And the only person I told about it until I was an adult was my mother. So there's NO way a therapist suggested it to me. I was very young (about 4 or 5) and I climb into bed with a fully nude, adult man. But I can't see the face and it stops there. My family has told me it's not real and I'm making it up but I had all other symptoms of CSA growing up. So am I crazy? Because I've had several therapists tell me people don't actually block out traumatic memories. But this has been consistent, never changed, and super vivid. And idk what to think anymore.
Hank - "I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning!"
J.A.R.V.I.S - "Gluten-free waffles, Sir."
I'm genuinely glad you guys posted this today. I'm soon to be off to help a friend talk to her mom and this video is directly pertinent to the issues they are facing.
Trauma can form emotional or behavioural patterns. But it has always been a leap to think that sustaining those patterns requires memories of the trauma, repressed or otherwise. Learned behaviour or emotional responses can certainly be influenced by memories, but all of us have been formed by innumerable events we no longer have. In some ways, memories are like family oral history, religious stories, or national historical myths. They may be true, false, or a mixed bag, but they give us a framework of the past, and we use that to act in the present.
fake memories have always been my greatest fear and it's why i can't even trust myself. sometimes painful memories would pop out of nowhere and i want to throw up bc i feel like im "playing the victim" by crying over memories that might not even exist.
From what I remember about how Freud, he didn't believe in guided imagery techniques. He believed in free association, and that the therapist should get out of the way so they don't influence the process. He also suspected later in life that his patients weren't all abused, but were remembering distorted versions of the past (distorted by their psychosexual desires).
I LOVE this channel. THANNNNNNNNNNK YOU for bringing scientifically, well-thought out information in a time where we're in desperate need for it.
I had forgotten about something I did and was so full of regret and shame I managed to forget about it, was writing about the events that led up to it when those memories all came flooding back. It happens.
Memory works a little bit more like a Wikipedia page: You can go in there and change it, but so can other people.
- E. Loftus
the best way to describe my memory is like having a video play but having only certain parts of it be a black screen, even though I know what happens during that scene.
I've always thought about repressed memories as blocked memories. Like when my step-dad cussed me out and I remembered it had happened but could not recall any of what he had actually said later. He apologized later and I had talked to my Mom about it soon after, but I can no longer recall the actual event...
I'm in my 40's and I have a vivid memory of me and my sisters on a porch and we saw King Kong walking down the street! It was a scary experience, and we discuss this today and she remember it as well!
We were living in Cleveland Ohio and if you are from Cleveland then you will know exactly what we saw! The opening to Big Chuck and lil John Show!
I can remember screaming and running scares because King Kong was rampaging tearing up buildings!
That's why it's so important to not let children watch inappropriate programming at such a young age because it could have severe consequences!.
Also keep in mind that when you're young you simply sleep more, therefore there will be gaps in your memory, for instance you may fall asleep on a couch and someone will pick you up can carry you to car and you wake up the next day back at home in your bed, that's very different than when you grow up and control when and where you fall asleep and wake up!
I remember when I was little I convinced myself that I had stabbed myself in the eye and that's why it was blind, though I of course was just born that way.
I consciously suppressed my own memories. I remember the process I used to do it better than the memories, but I did give the memory holes "expiration" dates when the memories would come back.
The process I used was fairly similar to Sherlock's Mind Palace but in reverse. I took the memories that were too painful for me to process and imagined being shoved into jars then placed in a cupboard. Any time the memory tried to pop up, I would imagine the jar having fallen off the shelf and I would pick it up and stick it back into the cupboard. This didn't take one or two tries, either, I spent months on setting up each memory jar and there are about a dozen of them. Each jar has its own expiration date on it when it will come open which was integrated into the process of making the jar, but once the entire thing was complete I lost conscious access to the memories until the expiration date. The only rule for the expiration dates was that it was something that could actually happen on a reasonable time scale, so one was a terrorist attack in Paris, another was my 25th birthday, that kind of thing.
I remember very little of my childhood until I was 12. I don't know what my home life was like, but I remember a lot of school. My brother was a huge bully, and I kinda blame him for that. I remember a lot more once he left for college.
My repressed memories are always just embarrassing moments 😂 maybe I'll start telling myself it's fake next time another embarrassing memory from my teen years is uncovered
Do a video on gaslighting. I have been seeing that used a lot on Reddit lately.
they already have
Thanks! Didn't know. Only subbed to this channel recently
No, you haven’t. You’re just imagining it.
lel, doesn't work at all when there is digital evidence. :)
Leon Yu You're hallucinating digital evidence too? That's serious!
Facebook keeps reminding me what I did every day from all those years ago. It takes just a picture or a statement/post to bring it right back.
I didn't have continuous memories of a traumatic experience, it just came back to me when discussing a vaguely related topic a few years later. I remember walking back after the incident and thinking that I didn't want to upset my parents and that might be viewed poorly for being in a situation in the first place. I told myself it didn't happen and when I woke up i would forget and I did. I "knew' it had happened I just didn't happen to actively remember it, the experience of recalling it was similar to when you see photos of your childhood and they trigger a memory you had not thought about in years.
I was sexually assaulted at 6 till I was 9. It was so well repressed I don't even remember it till the first I saw a sexual assault scene online. And flash of memory start coming back. Even now I can't give u full detail of my assault. Just bits and pieces. Oh these repress memories are real. I still have the stickers given to me when he tried to lure me.
"Oh you get to repress memories? Tell me how, magician." -Kyle Kinane
My sister passed away when I was a kid, and I have no memory of it. It was pretty traumatic and I go to therapy 3 times a week. Dissociation from unwanted feelings and events is a very real thing. Also Emotional flashbacks are a thing.
When I was a child I got lost in the mall, and i wandered around crying until a kindly old man helped me find my parents again.
Traumatic amnesia is as well documented as false memories. There are parts of a recent trauma I experience that I cannot remember despite the fact that it absolutely and indisputably happened. Repressed memories are as much about what's not there as what is, such as implicit memories that are tied to an event but have no cause that the person dealing with them is aware of. These can be intrusive thoughts, unexplained emotional responses to certain smells, sounds, people, places, etc, and a slew of other physiological symptoms. False memories are certainly a thing, which is why it's recommended that those with repressed memories shouldn't try to dig for them. “Delayed recall memories” or “recovered memories” are more accurate terms too.
This is why we have people claiming “Mandella Effect” every time they remember something incorrectly.
No. This is the same as a mechanic saying “do you hear that weird winding sound? Better let me take it in my shop and fix it.” Meanwhile he’s scamming you out of money
THIS IS SO ACCURATE. I NEEDED TO SEE THIS. THANK YOU!!
After my auto accident I can remember my childhood well, but anything new gets forgotten. Damn Traumatic Brain Injury...
The weirdest thing that ever happened to me was, me remembering someone else's memory they'd told me. Then I remembered it as if it was my own 😂😂😂
When I found out my cousin was abused by a family member in that moment I suddenly remembered how it was done to me, it wasn’t exactly like I forgot that it happened I just hadn’t thought of it since I was so young it like realizing a dream I had was actually a couple traumatic memories
*HOW. IS. THIS. NOT. REAL?* I had an extremely close call with death when I was in my teens. Treating cancer and other mental issues. My mom was my 24/7 caretaker. I also had nurses that would regularly be in and out my house to monitor me. I’m older now and when people talk about highschool, I (dropped out)I can’t remember anything past that because that was the start of my sudden rapid decline.. I get little snippets here and there so I ask my mom and nurses and look into my medical history for proof of these memories. ALL of them were correct. I only get snippets when have similar smells or situations happen. How is this not a repressed memory? It’s almost insulting that people do not believe me because they believe it is a myth. That I’m a liar and that couldn’t have possibly happened. I have pictures and medical documents from doctors of these events. Now can someone tell me how these weren’t repressed??? Genuinely baffled by this being called a myth. The brain is powerful beast and still so much is unknown.
*HOW. IS. THIS. NOT. REAL?*
*Not an expert*
I think there might be a small but meaningful difference between repressing a memory and forgetting a memory. Without knowing your situation, you could be remembering forgotten details of things that happened which is more along the lines of normal remembering. While repression would be forgetting the who traumatic situation as a defense mechanism.
Basically, it may be that situations in your life now are reminding you about times previously forgotten and you might be able to use positive memories coming back to build upon going forward.
It’s like finding a new room in your basement.
These memories aren't "false".
They're just "alternative".
LOL. Thank you, Kellyanne!
This explains neverything!
At school in the 1950s and 60s, "The Russians are comming, the Russians are comming. Watch this um... jerky 8mm movie of Hiroshima and all the death. The USSR will decimate us all".
Fast forward to 2015 onwards "We better become friends with the Russians or NYs premier hotel will become Anniahlated Towers and we will all die in excruciating pain".
10 years ago today at 2:38 pacific time, the wife and I were in our car delivering newspapers near State College, Pennsylvania.
My mom has told me stories of significant things that happened when I was a teenager and I don"t remember any of it. If I was big enough why can't I remember?
According to Sigmund FRAUD, ten years ago penis. That's all that matters, so there's no need to remember anything else.
L Galicki Band You forgot mother
VolvenIV your edgy comment is so edgy.
They take it way too easy on Sickman Fraud, I don't get why they talk soo much about psychoanalysis, which is clearly a pseudoscience and they don't even metion that. I think someone of Sci show psych is biased about it.
carlos guerreiro
Or maybe you are biased about it. Does it make you scared?
Sergio_ montevideo LOL no. 99% of what Sigmund Freud said was pure conjecture, loudly claimed as fact. Regardless of how he "revolutionized the field of psychology", he was not good friends with the scientific method.
December 21st 2007 i was sitting on my living room couch eating crab legs while watching suit life of zack and cody AND playing pokemon pearl using an action replay. HA!
"...imagination and memory are but one thing, which for divers considerations hath divers names."
Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan (1909-14) by Thomas Hobbes
"Everybody's favorite misguided psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud."
I'm curious as to why the video completely focused on the recall of repressed memories, leaning toward the skeptical/debunking side. Without touching on the fact that people can live through horrible trauma and forget it. Repressed memories aren't specifically about recall. When it can be documented by others and verified that a person went through trauma and the person is unable to recall said memory and did not suffer brain damage. That's a repressed memory.
I did remembered my playmates forcing me to have sex with a boy (a playmate too) in a slightly secluded area when I was seven or eight. I was one of the oldest if not the oldest. I remembered that incident after I had my second sexual partner and before that, I had a toxic and submissive sexual relationship with a friend I'm obsessed with. What triggered it was when he (the second partner) had touched my scar on the back (something I was puzzled about for a long time months after the "playmate" incident occurred. I do know how I got my scars except that one). I happened to have a healing wound on my back when one of the kids touched them (because they're really forcing me) and it bled. I was wearing white that time and when I went home my mom asked (and I was probably scolded) what happened and I didn't say a thing about it.
I've been struggling with drugs and memories and unsure if thoughts and memories are real or delusions, writing them down helps, but in the end I want proof to sway me one way or the other, I'm tired of being stuck in the middle.
What about people who had something traumatic happen to them, then something triggered their memory to come back into clear focus, but in the interim they never really remembered?
Like I had a friend who had been raped when she was 10. She said that she spent her tweens and teens mostly unaware of it. She had certain unexplained avoidance's and issues, as well as regularly got nightmares about sexual violence, but didn't understand why she got them. Then when she was 19 she saw the man that did it to her on the street in her hometown. It brought everything back, and she even started having intense flashbacks that would cause her to scream. And like... she would remember a lot of specific details about the incident afterwards, mostly from the flashbacks.
It was just from seeing his face though. No one told her that she had been raped or anything, and she had been experiencing unexplained PTSD symptoms all the while. So like.... would this be an example of an ACTUAL repressed memory?
Yes
This is a really relevant topic, you’ll see some of this in recent tv shows in true crime and how repressed memories can have an impact in courts. The legal system is becoming less and less appreciative of repressed memories. Also, we can always open Freud up to some critique. It’s clear we need a deeper understanding in this area! Thanks for another great video!
Every time I have a dream I have false memories of things I was doing in the dream before it even starts. It really messes with me, and often makes me think the dream is real.
My Friends and family always tell me things i did or say when i was younger and i feel like they are talking about someone else... Sometimes i do remember those things like oh yeah i forgot that
10 years ago today I was at home playing video games and watching anime, I can't tell you which is either just what I was doing knowing what I did at the time...
Sometimes "repressed" memories can have independent verification - like if someone else was there, or if there you wrote down your experiences immediate. I do think Freud was right, that the unconscious exists, and it processes our experiences even when our conscious mind doesn't want to deal with something, but I agree just because something exists doesn't mean we have any clear idea how it works, and can't depend on the unconscious to tell us anything except about things inside us, which don't depend on accurate objective memories.
I do have repressed memories. It's a little strange. I know that the events occured, but my brain doesn't allow me to access more than that. But I know that the memories are there. I'm glad that they are repressed, but I suppose if I really wanted to know the details, I could access them again one day. But for now, my brain puts up that barrier between me and my trauma, and I allow that barrier to exist.
The only thing Freud gave us that is worth much today is his Chicken a la Freud recipe. Better known as 'Freud Chicken'.
don't forget the freudian slip, my favorite sex move
O
Funp
I am very happy for Hank that he grew up in a normal home, but please stick to your wheelhouse. Repressed memory is absolutely a real thing. My brothers and I were horribly abused and none of us remember much of anything before 18 and very little before 30
Let the Freudian jokes flow!
*Let the Freudian jokes blow!
Aunt flow
LUSCID [your user-friendly guide to Science] hahahhaha free association
I can tell you exactly what I had for breakfast exactly 3 years ago. A piece of bread with hagelslag.
It is not hard for me to know that since I eat that pretty much any day (Non-school days might be different though)
The hagel is hellslag?
One of the most common ones I've heard was people "remembering" falling out of a moving car.
My experience is that if i experience something really painful, in the moment, I can chose to not register the event in my brain and shut off until the event has ended. Then, I don't remember the part of the event that was painful. It all hapenned very quickly both time I did it. But I did it consciously, but now I wish I remembered
I read the title as “are depressed mermaids real?”
I have a few decent sized gaps in my childhood memory. I have had fragments of memories come back up. Some are complete enough that I have an idea what supposedly happened. Others are not quite there yet, and I’d rather keep them i my subconscious where I put them in the first place. I don’t know if they are accurate. I don’t want to know. I know I had some childhood trauma and have done all the therapy and I don’t want to have to go through the early processing and healing again.
Another thing is that some people simply confuse dreaming and reality, some can't remember dreaming at all, my daughter can't recall any dreams! When I tell her about my dreams she just don't understand why I dream, but she claim she don't dream at all
i was hoping for a mention of Arthur javnov (potentially spelled completely wrong) ,..he was huge on this kind of stuff..
what i remember about 2007 is that umbrella by Rihanna was really big that year . In my country it was called the summer anthem of 2007. I don't remember anything else I think we had a rainy summer that year.
are you sure you don't remember drinking? or sitting in a sauna?
Could you do an episode on EMDR?
Ah, Sigmund Freud, the most famous scientist who also thought exactly like a 14 year old teenage boy.
I remember the old CD player with kids bop 9 and yellow and blue headphones. Resurfaced when i heard “wake me up when September ends”
The one experiment had four groups: control, remembered trauma, supposedly recovered memories, and those who suspected they had repressed memories. You didn't say how the last group did in the experiment.
Very good video!!
Um... yeah... as someone who has experienced them in full blown panic attack settings they are real. I don't know about other people, but for me it was going back to the memory and putting 2+2 together to see that it was horrible because i was ignorant at the time.
I believe I was being abused by someone when I was little,but I don’t remember anything about it...
I don't remember what I was doing 10 hours ago. My memory is terrible. I can learn things, but whatever part of my brain deals with long term memory is pretty poorly developed.
Love to hear your take on neuropsychoanalysis
Can you do a video on the validity of the rorschach test?
Oh, they're real. I form one whenever I see a Prager U ad.
"Oh my god!! An idea I disagree with!!"
**buries head in sand**
Gawd, those ads are propaganda raised to ad art.
zinger
Piotr Rywczak Thanks for proving my OP
Dude freaking pragerU is really sketchy to me... a lot of their claims are thoroughly debunked, the statistics they cite not only have no reliable studies behind them, many of their statistics have never had any study behind them, they are literally just random numbers which pragerU made up. The sketchiest thing of all to me though is the fact they are trying to impersonate an academic institution, I.E. a university, something that is supposed to be unbiased and based in fact not opinion. Even though they themselves explain that they are "a political activism committee" or something like that. Does that not seem misleading, claiming to be "Prager University" when in reality you are neither a university or even any form of academic institution? It seems like someone claiming to be a doctor with no degree.
My childhood was horrific.
I've had memories of abuse by family members planted in me by a well-meaning counselor but I chose not to confront the people about it. I kept doubting the memories. Now, years later, I've found the source of my anxiety, that made me go for counseling, was traumatic religious indoctrination and OCD intrusive thoughts. It could've gone horribly wrong if I'd taken those memories seriously.
I feel like that could be the case for me as well. I went to a mini panic attack thinking the worst happened to me as a kid by a family member, but I think and I’m hopeful that it’s just OCD intrusive thoughts.
@@hobisoon I think that’s the case for most ppl I don’t believe repressed memories it sounds like a lie planted in peoples mind Almost as if their in a delusion. I think people who claim they have repressed memories most, likely have ocd intrusive thoughts and they’ve made it a bigger deal than it is and basically a delusion all in their minds. Anyone can research repressed memories then think they might have some towards family it kind of starts of like ocd intrusive thoughts and then becomes bigger. People who actually go through trauma want to bury those memories as for people with repressed memories try look for these memories. When people are victims of abuse and they saw it’s struck to their minds and that’s why they have to go through so much and there’s no scientific evidence to support the repressed memory theory
@@yasirhussain5192 Eh? Well I have read a few accounts from people on here and a friend in real life, that had been abused as children but had forgotten about it + most of their childhood because that was how their undeveloped brains that couldn’t really process what was happening tried to protect them from the trauma as children. And that only years later some unknowing or unintentional trigger happened in whatever way that lead the memories come gushing through. I’ve seen it from someone that has DID, and a comment here saying that they forgot they were abused by a neighbor as a kid and at the age of 18, the first sight of him made her body react repulsively and she cried and threw up immensely. I mean the human brain is a weird thing that doesn’t always exactly work the same with every single person, and pushing the narrative of a perfect victim is not the way to go on to situations like these as it could be very real and there’s still research being made on it.
My father was abusive back then and would beat me till I bleed but I remember this memory of him banging my head into a wall several times and im not sure if its real of not I remember feeling dizzy after he banged my head into the concrete wall when I was maybe 6 or 7 years old.
what about repressed memories coming back from a night you dont remember? there is a night i dont remember from when i was 18, i had a drink, blacked out, woke up the next day in a... compromising position. i remember all my trauma, except what happened that night. until last week when i had a flashback of something happening. it came on because i talked about the dentist. i remember at the dentist i seemed to have a trauma response when i had them around my mouth. there is also evidence that something happened that night because of certain jokes people made and stuff. my therapist says there is no way to know for sure, but it is very possible based on it coming out of no where, feeling like a normal flash back, and my bodies reaction to it. but i dunno. i realy dont want it to be real .
I mean, I'm watching this on Christmas Day, so if I try hard enough I can probably remember 10 years ago on this day.
Repression can happen with dissoziative amnesia, with people who are severely traumatized.
That doesn't make a ton of sense to me since I remember trauma extremely clearly. I mean, there's times where it's the only thing i can fixate on and it really takes me out of whatever I'm doing