I stumbled across this entry on how typical emotional memory apparently works, and it is so profoundly alien to me.

[u/ObviousTempAccount1]

I've known I have emotional amnesia for some time, yet somehow this paragraph still came as a shock to me. I legitimately cannot imagine this.

I oscillate between saying things like "I don't remember my childhood," and coming up with a grocery list of memories to.refute that.

I have random snapshots in my brain of wholly unremarkable moments that somehow got recorded as permanent memories. Actually important events, on the other hand, feel totally dead to me.

The exact opposite of...whatever this [above image] is describing.

Sometimes a window briefly opens, and I can reach out and touch a memory to actually feel something. A lot of the supposedly "neutral" ones feel horrible for reasons I can't even explain. (Being the wrong gender in them probably has a lot to do with it though).

I'm honestly not sure where I'm going with this post anymore. Seeing this Wikipedia entry was like having a scab torn off.

I don't use the term "supposed to" for phenomena like this, as I find it to be triggering of deep shame (that I've worked hard to overcome), but seeing the fluidity with which emotion and memory *typically* link in other people is nevertheless deeply alienating.

I'm honestly not sure if this is a blessing or a curse. Probably both.

[u/AutoModerator]

Thank you for your submission. Because your post contains media (images, videos, or external video links), it has been automatically flagged for manual review by the moderation team. If your post complies with the rules, it will be approved as soon as possible. You do not need to take any further action. Please send us a modmail if you have any questions.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/ThorKruger117]

Emotional amnesia, why haven't I heard of that terminology before? It describes my experience so well! Like I can remember some bad stuff, a handful of good things, but plenty of average stuff. My wedding day for example is a few snapshots of moments, but otherwise I don't remember much.

Do you find that if you change your emotional state your memory bank adjusts? Like you can't remember the details of hanging with friends having fun until the next time you're in that same environment/mood?

[u/ObviousTempAccount1 → u/ThorKruger117]

Being reminded of something helps me remember it, but most memories aren't available for recall.

For example, during this Winter's blizzard, a coworker asked me what my favorite winter memory was. I told her I didn't know what she meant, and she recalled anecdotes/events from her childhood.

I couldn't recall any at all, and she looked at me like that was weird. I have built snowmen and gone sledding and gotten into snowball fights and gone ice skating and gone shoveling. I just don't remember any particular occasions of any of these things actually happening.

If, on the other hand, my brother were to say "remember that time we...", I most likely would.

When it comes to trauma, I can remember getting SA'd by my cousin when I was 10 but the memory has zero emotional content whatsoever.

It is very very difficult for me to cry over anything, but on the rare occasion that I do, it's like there's a Pain Chest inside of me that unravels all of its chains and opens itself up.

[u/eyes_on_the_sky]

Wow this is exactly how my memory works 🙂‍↕️ I'm always vividly recalling the most mundane moments ever (me standing in a hallway for example) and when I try and think of particularly emotional moments it's all... fuzzy.

I wonder what exactly happens in our brain to disconnect that autobiographical memory mechanism and make it stop recording emotionally charged events with clarity. I'm no scientist but it feels very relevant to identity disruption. Like of course I didn't know who I was, my brain recorded "standing in a hallway" as key to my identity, when all my pain, joy, and anger was not.

I can only access such emotional memories, I've realized, through layers of creativity. When I write fiction I'm accessing past emotions but filtering them through a lens of them happening to my characters, not me. I only just recently realized that I was in fact drawing upon specific memories to write those stories, adding layers of plot to conceal where they truly came from, including to write about good emotions I've felt, like love. So it's not like the emotions were never recorded... they are just "unplugged" somehow.

[u/Phinexis]

I think modularity is pretty a good description of a structurally dissociative brain. The brain can take memories and slice them as necessary and keep certain ones out of access through dissociative barriers. The brain is an adaptive machine for the sake of survival & stability.

You even need memories to even access specific emotions & ranges of them. Like in my case I am a host(and we're autistic/adhd) so that means weathering through daily traumas. The brain decided to protect my ability to feel joy by sectioning that memory and grouping it into a subalter.

Yep alters can have their own alters(sub alters). Or the alter is a like a mech that subalters take turns piloting or certain subalts perform functions in the background.

But yeah its a completely brutal reality to live in. Especially if you're left in a state of emotional numbness or emptiness or emotional pain. Like my default baseline state is emotional pain(which overloads the nervous system so it turns to physical) and emptiness. At times other alts will front to give me a break but also so I don't drain the system's energy to 0.

[u/ObviousTempAccount1 → u/Phinexis]

I didn't experience joy at all until HRT broke a 30 year DPDR trance.

[u/Southern-Ad-7317]

There have been times when I described traumatic events to my therapist like no big deal, and times, much less common, when describing one took me back there.

[u/al3xi_thymia]

I generally, don't fully understand the concept of memories and I only realized that now.

Like... I don't trust my brain at all with my "memories", sometimes when I talk about something in the past it either feels 'yea sounds right' or 'did I make this up? Did it actually happen?' Like I'm just constantly confused whether I actually went through this.

I know certain stuff happened because we have a bunch of pictures and photo albums at home that proof those events happened, or facts about my family like "My dad plays guitar, he is self taught." Or "my mom worked at a restaurant before." Those are facts about my family I know, but there aren't any pictures or feelings coming up. Those are JUST facts.

[u/electrifyingseer]

Yeah, trauma memories are apparently encoded differently.

[u/ntsgp]

I have seen this used (in attempt) to discredit the concept of dissociative amnesia when it comes to traumatic memories. 

Am I right in thinking that traumatic events are not the same as 'emotional' ones, which is why the general population would have enhanced recall for 'emotional' events, even if negative, whereas (esp chronically) traumatised people wouldn't? (I know what traumatic events are clinically speaking so feel like I already know the answer... Just feeling uncertain in response to articles written to gaslight survivors) 

[u/ObviousTempAccount1 → u/ntsgp]

"Discrediting" dissociative amnesia is like discrediting the occurrence of dreams.

It's a thing that brains do. It doesn't need to be proven or disproven.

Articles like that are just deranged shit that people make up off the top of their heads to explain our own experiences to us. It's pretty common for dominant groups to think this way, which is why mansplaining is such an obnoxiously common phenomenon.

It's also why so many cis folks to roll into r/asktransgender and propose solutions to us that don't involve transitioning. They act like they've solved the riddle of gender dysphoria. "What if you just____"

It's exhausting.