Repressed memory?

I am 25 years old, and I have long been curious about a certain time period from my past. In 1998, when I was 11 years old, my house caught fire and my family moved to another town, not quite 30 minutes away, but which was about 10x larger than what I then considered my hometown. For the record, we're not talking about huge populations in either town -- the first had 900 people, the second had 9,900. Town B is what I now affectionately refer to as my hometown, as I lived there longer than I lived in town A.

Long story short, I don't remember being especially traumatized by the house fire. We were not home when the fire started, so we were all alive and together, my pets made it out safely, and my dad took an axe to his CD player to retrieve my precious Spice Girls CD. I had everything I cared about AND I was excited to move to a new home and buy all new clothes. But the day of the fire is where my memory stops. I am told that I spent that summer living at my grandmother's house, but I don't remember. I think I remember staying at a hotel for a night or two, but I don't have any solid memories until my sixth grade school year started in the new town. The fire was in June, and school started in August.

What makes me most curious is that at some point during this time period which I do not remember, I believe my personality shifted drastically. I was never popular, but living in such a small town, there really wasn't an in crowd. We were all friends. I was adventurous and outgoing, but I wasn't a daredevil by any means. I had fun with my friends. After the move, and ever since, I have been very shy, frightened of every social interaction. I've grown out of it a great deal in recent years, but that frightened girl still lives inside me.

Could something have happened between June and August that I have repressed? Something terrible which caused my personality change and the lack of memory?

Any comments will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Anybody is capable of repression. If it is something that you are interested in, have a look at hypnosis or psychotherapist to do some regression to get you back to that time. But be aware the mind represses things which may be too painful for us to deal with at the time. If you feel emotionally strong, ready & have a good support network then have a read about the different options. Maybe it was at an age where you jsut developed natrually, but it could also be somehting else- what makes you think it could be somehting which happened?

I think it's a possibility, but it is important to remember that human memory is not perfect. Not only do we tend to forget things for seemingly no reason, even if they are important to us, but it is actually possible to implant or suggest memories to people. (I once read a study about how people began to believe they had been accidentally left at the mall by their parents as a young child, because an interviewer put the thought into their heads.)

Sometimes we don't remember stuff. Sometimes we repress stuff. It can be very hard to know the difference. And when we are children, things tend to affect us in a big way. Even something like a fire where nobody is hurt can greatly rattle a young mind. It may have affected you, scared you, maybe taken a little while to hit you. Or it could have been something else. Or nothing.

I'm afraid I don't have any advice, but I figured I could at least offer that information. I've had memory problems, too, not sure what happened when and the like. Good luck. I hope you can eventually make sense out of things.

Eh, don't really think so.

When I was 13 we moved. We spent some time with my grandmother - new house hadn't closed yet. If you were to ask me what I remember about that summer I couldn't tell you a single solitary thing. I don't think I repressed, I just don't think anything of note really happened.

It's not that I necessarily THINK something happened, it's just that I have never been able to remember that time period. I could have just been bored living with Grandma. Who knows. It's the personality shift afterwards that has always made me curious. Puberty, the size of the town, being the new girl...these could all explain that. But they can't explain the memory loss. And I just have always had a feeling that there was something more going on, that there were answers my brain didn't want me to have...if that makes sense.

I think a person can have repressed memories but have to be very careful because memories can seem so true but are they really what happened?

The mind is a very finicky organ that people never come to understand. What may seem like an actual event of your past may not be the whole of what you're memory is telling you.

For instance, when I get together with my siblings we can reminisce on past events but we all remember them differently. Not saying one is wrong nor the other but every mind will remember what they remember and may not be the whole picture as it was.

Very shaky territory and very susceptible to anyone's suggestion when it comes to the past in my opinion.

There's a very interesting movie called Final Cut about implants that record everything a person sees and the person that puts those clips together into a movie for the memorial service. At one such service, the movie is playing and the deceased's brother comes up to the "cutter" (who put the clips together). The movie is showing a fishing trip with the deceased and his brother and their father, with them in a red boat. The brother says, "I remember this trip! But I could have sworn that the boat was green." The cutter smiles and says, "Maybe it was."

Wow! I haven't seen the movie, but that really got me thinking. Thanks

Funny thing, memory...
I also went thru a housefire... 1992, and my friends and family are STILL telling me bits and pieces that I don't remember in the days right after. Thankfully, we were also not home when it happened.

Unrelated story, but having to do with the memory 'mystery' also... When we were kids, our family was camping and my brother and I got in a fight that ended with me chucking a rock at his head. I remember the blood, I remember his shirt soaked with it, I remember him washing it in the river... BUT in MY memory it's all at night. My brothers AND my cousins all have told me it had actually happened during the day. IDK, maybe thinking I'd killed him was so dark, my memory decided that it'd happened at night!

What drives you to really want to know the events that happened during that period in your life? That (to me) is more curious. Think of the worse possible scenario that could've happen. Would you feel better knowing it? It's probably the fire. Even though you say nothing important was lost, your address was. Your domain, your nest, your bedroom. That is traumatic for a young person to endure.

Check your curiosity. That seems more important to me because it is happening NOW.

J.R.

The one with Robin Williams. I saw that and it was kind of creepy.

But I do believe we tend not to remember most of our past but parts of it and another can add or take away from that memory and it becomes our own after awhile.

Hard to remember all details of last month, I would think that remember all of ones childhood memories would be quite an onus or a gift.

Under no circumstances should you attempt to find the answer through hypnotherapy.

Hypnosis can not bring you back to live out past memories, the brain is simply not built that way. What you 'go back' to will be an internal construct made up just as much by your imagination as by your memories.

It is for this reason people imagine past lives, alien abductions and even if you believe in such things it has been demonstrated to evoke false memories that we can know for sure have never happened. Such as holidays to specific places during childhood that the person has definitely never been to.

Sadly there is also a darker side to this story since people's imagination can also be a dark place. People have created false memories of sexual abuse during hypnotic regression that has then been shown to have never happened. Irreparably damaging relationships and leading to false criminal action in some cases.

If you suspect something happened during that time I would start by talking to your family and friends and seeing what they know. If you can't remember it then there is no clear way to help that other than to investigate with the knowledge that your memory from so long ago is limited and may be misleading even to you. Like when you see a film again and realise that a scene you like is actually quite a bit different from your memory.