What If I Don’t Remember My Trauma?

One of the most common concerns people bring to therapy involves questions about how memories are stored. Some people express feeling blocked from their memories or an inability to access details. They worry that therapy may be ineffective for them if they can’t access their memories. Other people express that their memories are too much, that they work hard at not thinking about painful memories by avoiding, distracting or burying them and worry that therapy will be too much for them – that once the memories are unlocked, it may be impossible to manage. Both are very valid concerns and should be discussed and explored as part of the treatment process.

The Brain & Body’s Job Is To Protect

It’s important to first understand how our brain and our body protects us from pain and distress. When we experience something threatening or traumatic, our brains and nervous systems work to learn from the experience. In many cases, this is an adaptive survival process. As an example, think about a young child that touches a hot stove and burns their finger. They only have to touch it once to remember this lesson. That’s useful information for our brain to store and protect us in the future.  

But sometimes, especially with more complex traumatic memories, the experience can overwhelm our brain’s usual ability to process and integrate what is happening. If the physical or emotional pain exceeds our capacity to process what is happening in the moment, we might dissociate. Dissociation, despite often being spoken as something negative or necessary to rid ourselves, is actually a useful and adaptive way of protecting ourselves from significant pain.

What is Dissociation?

During overwhelming experiences, some people may dissociate. Dissociation is a protective response in which a person may feel detached from themselves, their body, or what is happening around them. Although it can feel confusing or frightening, it is thought to be one of the nervous system’s ways of helping us cope when an experience exceeds our capacity to manage it. Because dissociation can disrupt how an experience is encoded, some people later remember traumatic events in a fragmented, incomplete, or sensory way rather than as a clear, chronological narrative.

It’s also completely normal for adults to have incomplete memories of childhood. Most of us don’t remember every event from our early years, and memories naturally become less detailed over time unless they’re revisited or especially meaningful. Sometimes a memory is still intact, but it is not activated until we are reminded, or sometimes “triggered” by another event or experience.

Do I Have To Remember Details To Have Success in Therapy?

No, many people make meaningful progress in trauma therapy without remembering every detail of what happened. Therapy focuses on reducing distress, helping the nervous system feel safer, and changing the way traumatic memories affect the present – not on recovering every missing piece of the past.

Should I Try To Recover Memories?

Generally, no. Most trauma therapists don’t encourage people to search for forgotten memories. Instead, therapy follows your nervous system’s pace. If memories naturally emerge during treatment, they can be explored safely. If they don’t, meaningful healing is still possible by working with the symptoms and distress you’re experiencing today.

What If I Remember Too Much?

On the flipside, some people are bothered by intrusive memories: Memories that seem to loop on repeat, or “flash” into focus when they are not wanted. No matter how hard they try, these memories refuse to step back. Intrusive memories may be a sign that the experience has not yet been fully integrated and continues to trigger distress even if the threat is no longer present.

Evidence-based trauma therapies aim to help reduce that distress and help people relate to the memory differently. Sometimes it can feel as though the brain is shouting, “This memory still needs attention!”.  Because people are usually bothered by multiple memories, one of the interventions we would use to support people bothered by intrusive memories is to learn how modulate or contain them. While our natural inclination might be to try to avoid them (i.e., keeping busy, drowning out the noise with TV or music, using substances), ultimately, we first need to learn how to recognize and contain them so they can be thoughtfully dealt with what the time is right.

Therapy focuses on reducing distress, helping the nervous system feel safer, and changing the way traumatic memories affect the present – not on recovering every missing piece of the past.

What if My Memories Aren’t Factual?

People also worry that their memories may not be factual. They wonder if they actually remember what happened or if they are remembering a story that has been told to them or they created to make sense of their experience. Research tells us that memory is reconstructive rather than a perfect recording of events. Most traumatic experiences are remembered, although details may change over time, and some people experience fragmented or incomplete recall. Therapy isn’t about proving exactly what happened; it’s about helping people reduce the distress associated with the memories, emotions, and beliefs they carry.  A line I often repeat to clients is, “We aren’t the fact police”. Whether a memory is complete, fragmented, or uncertain, therapy focuses on helping you reduce the distress associated with it rather than proving exactly what happened.

How To Contain Intrusive Memories?

Many trauma therapies include imagery-based strategies to help people regulate overwhelming memories before working with them directly. We can use our imagination to push the memory further back by picturing that the image is on a teeny TV screen on a wall far away from us; we can image that we have a filter, like 3D glasses, that can distort or dull the picture.  Although the event itself may have happened exactly as remembered, the way our brains store and retrieve memories isn’t like playing back a video recording. Memories are reconstructed each time we recall them, which means our emotional experience of them can change over time. Imagery exercises don’t erase what happened, they simply help us change our relationship with the memory so it feels less overwhelming.

If you’ve been contemplating therapy but have been hesitant to do fears around under accessing or over accessing memory, therapy can provide the necessary support to help you engage in therapy in a safe and productive way. You may wish to meet our therapy team and consider if now is the right time for you to start your own healing journey.