7 Steps To Recover Your Repressed Memories

You repressed your memories and you want them back? Here’s what you should know.

The environment we live in, society, our jobs, and our families all affect us and are affected by us and our actions.

The extreme stress we come across every day but don’t pay attention to; the little details that bother us but we push to the back of our heads; the abuse we might witness.

All of these could haunt us in the future. “How?” you ask.

Repressing your memories is your ANSWER.

You unconsciously block your memories. You shut down whatever memory that might be bothering you by creating a little box in your head, where you store all the painful, severely stressful memories.

At one point, you needed to do this in order to survive whatever happened to you, but that’s just a temporary fix.

You see, this box is closed and you threw the key down the ocean. However, you can get it back. That’s correct, you can recall your repressed memories.

You might be asking yourself, “why would I ever want to recall these horrific memories?”. “If I wanted them, I wouldn’t have blocked them in the first place.” However, that’s where you’re wrong.

Repressed memories affect you and your daily life in ways you may not be paying attention to, but the damage is there.

It may lead you to hate and avoid certain places, people, and even sensory stimuli such as smells and sounds, it can also cause mental health issues if you further repress it down the line leading to:

Extreme behavioral changes, nightmares, depression, hypervigilance (constant alertness), distractibility and difficulty concentrating, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and constant irritability.

In addition to all of that, some studies have found that repressing your memories can even trigger anterograde amnesia (short-term memory loss).

How to recover your repressed memories

These internal conflicts that are stored in your unconsciousness might randomly come back to you on their own in forms of “flashbacks”, triggered by something in the environment.

For example, you might be watching a TV program, and then a certain scene is played that has similarities with the repressed memory, which triggers those flashbacks.

Another example would be talking with a friend who had a similar experience, and then it suddenly happens; you remember everything immediately.

The thing is: waiting for those vague stimuli to recover your memories could take 2 weeks, 2 months, or even 20 years from now, depending on your traumatic event.

But if you’re looking for an active way to get them back, I’ll provide you in this article with some steps you could follow on your own or with the help of the therapist.

You should know that your mind will deliver when it’s ready, but with the help of a mental health expert, you can set yourself free and detach yourself from whatever these repressed memories are linking you to whether it’s irrational mood swings or an addiction to a certain drug.

You can recover your memories by trying out some of these techniques:

Recover repressed memories on your own 

1. Reading self-help books

Some of these books include methods on how you can exactly get your memories back. There are cases where individuals going through a self-help book alone got visualizations of a past traumatic event.

Some of these books are:

The courage to heal: A guide for women survivors of child sexual abuse by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis.

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Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse (Fireside/Parkside Recovery Book) by Renee Fredrickson.

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Healing from Trauma: A Survivor’s Guide to Understanding Your Symptoms and Reclaiming Your Life by Jasmin Lee Cori.

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Healing Trauma, A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body by Peter A. Levine, Ph.D.

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2. Automatic -Trance- Writing

Automatic writing is encouraged by a therapist but can be done alone. You can write freely without thinking about what you are writing in order for this to work, you can do it first thing in the morning before you’ve had your coffee or very late at night when you’re too tired to think critically.

3. Revisit locations

Physically revisiting the location of a past experience can trigger vivid memories. When you go back to a place attached to an unknown pain or distress, you should try to think of how this place made you feel before it became a repressed memory. This may induce some fear, sadness, or anxiety related to it.

Don’t worry though! It will eventually lead to a connection with your past self, which is a critical step in the process.

Revisiting these locations and experiencing their accompanying emotions might be difficult, but it’s a necessary step towards getting your memories back.

Recover repressed memories with the help of a professional

4. Getting the help of an online therapist

Online therapy has flourished over the past few years; it has become a credible and reliable source for mental health information and therapy.

What I like most about these online communities is that you can ask for help wherever and whenever, unlike conventional therapy, which involves a strict schedule, and for you to physically be there.

However, this doesn’t mean that conventional therapy is not worth it anymore. On the contrary, conventional therapy is still the number one method to get help with any mental issue. It just means that online therapy has become a viable option to consider.

There are many websites out there that offer counseling services with different approaches and therapy plans. Due to all the diversity and the complicated terminology, it has become a challenge to choose the right plan for you.

The good news is that many of these websites will help you deal with whatever you’re suffering from.

One of these websites that I personally trust is online-therapy.com. Their therapists use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as their basic psychotherapeutic approach for treating mental health problems.

The different thing about this website is that not only does it provide you with a therapist, but it also offers other productive activities such as Live chat, Yoga, Worksheets, etc. It’s all part of their complete online therapy toolbox.

The better news is that if you use the link below, you’ll get a 20% discount on your first monthly subscription.

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Regardless of the therapy you choose, your therapist will use the techniques cited below to recover your repressed memories.

5. Guided imagery and visualization

The therapist will try to take you on an imaginary trip, help you tell a story in order to regain access to your lost material.

An example case is of a woman who suspected sexual abuse but had no memories of the event. She became extremely anxious at a social gathering in the presence of a three-year-old girl. She had no idea why she was upset except that she had this persistent idea that the little girl must keep her dress down.

When encouraged in therapy to tell a story about what was going to happen to the little girl, the woman ultimately burst into tears, recalling one of the first memories of her own abuse.

6. Hypnosis

Hypnosis can be a useful clinical tool to uncover hidden memories locked away within the recesses of the brain.

See, hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness in which memories can sometimes be more easily accessed. However, it is also a state in which the mind is open to fantasy and imagination.

In other words, it is virtually impossible to tell whether your recall of the incident is a memory of a real event or a fantasy.

7. Participation in a mutual support group

Your therapist will encourage you to get involved in self-help groups, which can help tremendously. These groups often include individuals who recovered their memories or others who suspect that they have been abused during their childhood, but aren’t able to retrieve any memories of the so-called events.

Experts believe that peer pressure could be of help; what they share might trigger something in you and give you a “flashback”.

It is necessary to develop trust with the group, so you can open up, cry, and get angry.

Takeaway message

In the end, you should take into consideration that some of these methods are risky and might not originate the repressed memory, but rather facilitate the birth of delusions.

The mental health professional who’s helping you must be qualified and trained for this work. If not, they may accidentally put memories in your head because of leading questions or hints.

These memories are called “False Memories“, and they could confuse the difference between real and fantasized abuse. In rare cases, false memories can precipitate bigger issues, such as drug abuse, aggressivity, and divorce.

If you have any questions, concerns, or simply want to tell your story about repressed memories, please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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