What it’s Like to Remember
When repressed memories start knocking.
TW: Sexual abuse.
In second grade, as the rest of the class was fumbling through picture books, my kind, blonde-haired teacher Mrs. W pulled me aside and gave me a new copy of Charlotte’s Web. It smelled like freshly printed paper. She had created a personalized assignment for me. I sped my way through the chapters of that thick book, feeling immense concern for Wilbur the pig, and soft gratitude for Charlotte the generous spider. The book had heavy themes for someone my age. But I loved reading, and I was good at it, so I burned my way through the essay assignments and chapter tests, then through the rest of the 8th grade reading curriculum.
Later that year, we learned multiplication tables. I remember memorizing 2 x 2, inky black numbers on a white page, then 3 x 3 and onward, and later my dad taught me a nice finger trick that helped me shortcut the 9s.
It was the year that a teacher asked us if anyone knew what a group of geese was called, and I raised my hand and said “Gaggle!” I earned extra credit.
Outside in the summer, my younger brother and I would ride our swing set in “horse races,” narrating who pulled ahead in an always-tight competition (sometimes I let him win.) We’d capture imaginary Pokemon in the day and real-life lightning bugs at night. I remember every word to the theme song of my favorite computer game, “B-l-a-s-t-e-r!” We sang it as we ran around the neighborhood with all our friends.
Then, the eve of third grade rolls around. And suddenly, a black curtain drops over my memory as it all fades to black.
As a kid, I had lots of nightmares, of the recurring type. In them, I ran around in the dark house, frantically trying to lock all the doors, which kept unlocking. Or there was a dark shadowy stranger trying to break into my room, and I was trying to escape, to tell someone. Or sometimes on more wishful nights, I flapped my arms, trying impossibly to lift off the ground and fly away. I’d make it five, ten feet up some nights, but always float back down.
I can’t pinpoint the nightmares — how old I was, what I felt or said when I woke up. I only knew them as a vague presence in my life.
I also remember lots of stomachaches, untraceable but persistent. I had phobias, too — emetophobia, mainly, which kept me from eating school lunch or engaging well with other kids for an entire year. Once I stopped an entire youth soccer competition because I was too frantic about a boy who showed up in a lime green arm cast. All of my fears were, in retrospect, about losing bodily control. They controlled me day and night, whether I showed my fear or hid it. I preferred to hide away in dark, quiet places: closets, basements, my dad’s car.
Besides the fear, I can’t remember anything about home or school life. I look at photos of myself then and have no memory attached.
Because on the eve of third grade, I didn’t want to go to school anymore. I didn’t want to make friends. I didn’t want to run around outside. I certainly didn’t want anyone coming in my room to say goodnight. Through all the pain and confusion, I just stopped remembering.
Through cognitive behavioral talk therapy for the past two years, I started peeling back “layers of my onion.” I talked about my dad’s death, about different irrational fears I had, about my relationships. I worked through a lot of things, and I became healthier and happier and stronger. But somewhere along the progress of processing my past, the night terrors started.
All of a sudden, my nightmares reappeared in the form of panic attacks. Big spiders dropped down on my face in sleep paralysis. I’d see them above me, yell, and then realize they weren’t there. Many nights I’d wake up drenched in a cold sweat, breathing heavily, in a state of utter fear. Just like back then.
I went to the neighborhood doctor in my corner of Brooklyn, convinced there was something physically wrong with me. But there wasn’t. I tried to push through life anyway. I did pretty well. I traveled solo for months, and I pursued my personal goal to be a mental health writer. I made new friends and drew closer in my relationships.
But those dark, fuzzy years nagged at me.
Recently one night, I wracked my brain trying to recall my third- and fourth-grade teachers’ names. I simply could not do it. It was like there was a blinder on my brain, hiding my memories between years seven and 13. For an hour straight, I pushed and pushed to eke some simple truths. It was like having a word trapped on the tip of my tongue, except entire years of my life.
Finally, it came to mind: Mrs. Watters and Mrs. Pregler. Yes! That year I got to take home the class hamster, MJ. I renamed him Oreo, but he bit my brother. I did a school project on orca whales and mountain lions. We raised soft, fluffy chicks in a pen. And then came a dark, twisted, horrifying memory that electrocuted through my body — I was sexually abused —and a PTSD flashback that lasted through the morning.
Through the course of several weeks, every night as I’d lay down, hovering in that point between waking and sleeping, flashbacks would grip me. I first remembered the atmosphere of the room —dark, nighttime—and the flash of artificial yellow light that bathed me as the door opened wide. Then I remembered the texture of the bed: an orangish blanket, slightly scratchy and fluffy like cotton balls. (I hate cotton balls.) Then I remembered the fear response in my body. Adrenaline raced through all my limbs. I curled up in a tight fetal position. I covered my neck and face with my hands, arms crossed tightly against my chest.
More than anything, I would just wake up knowing things on a cellular level. Like that something terrible had happened to me, and how old I was, and who it might be who could hurt me in such a way.
I had crowbarred opened a big, black hole to some terrifying glimpse of my past life. And suddenly every night became treacherous.
I began waking up in various states of panic. Sometimes I would shoot awake at 4 a.m. and couldn’t breathe. Other times I felt like throwing up. I’d often be reaching out to people like my dad to help me, “Don’t leave me!” or pushing away the onslaught of a darkly lit, dangerous figure. It was like my body remembered with acute accuracy, but my brain just couldn’t catch up, or didn’t want to.
There was, and is, the persistent feeling that I am not safe. I am not an irrational person; I am not superstitious or cautious about my daily life. I’m the kind of gal that walks home late at night — I know I’m fast and smart and strong. But the child in me has lost her security blanket. And my body and my mind can no longer find calm.
The science seems to be out on recovering repressed memories, and I am not a psychologist, though sometimes I wish I was. I consume dozens of articles every week on the subject. I read forums, I ask friends, I chat with my therapist about my situation. She believes me, and I believe me, and for now, that’s all I need to know. My young life is not a mystery to me anymore. My fears and withdrawals make sense. My lingering resentments are not cruel.
The pain and fear is deep, but the hope of healing is stronger. It’s difficult to say these things — let alone write them out—but as I cannot find the relatability I need anywhere, I know I need to pave that space myself.
As I work through the memories, I know healing will come. It’s what keeps me pushing forward with all my might. It keeps me strong as I wrap myself in a compassionate hug, telling myself it’s alright, that I’ll be here for me, that I’m not alone now like I was then.
And the little third-grader inside me believes it. She’s got a story to tell, one she’s kept buried for far too long. And she’s going to give it to me piece by piece, until again she feels whole.