From: uribe@jarthur.claremont.edu (Lydia Uribe)
Subject: Re: Memories Invalidated??? Re: Child
Organization: Claremont Shelter for Maladjusted Singers
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:04:06 GMT

I'll reinforce the ****** SPOILER ****** warning here -- includes short
reference to explicit sexual abuse....

In article <BvzxF6.n2L@twwells.com> anon-1280@twwells.com (Ode) writes:

>******** SPOILER ******

>Then, I started thinking about how he was getting me ready for
>intercourse and I laughed and thought to myself "Ha! you didn't
>get to finish the job!" and then, the most horrible thing happened.

>I had a "scenario" pass through my brain. In the space of a few
>seconds I had this vision of him driving by one of the routes
>I walked to school and motioning me to the car. I was overjoyed to
>see him, just ecstatic! He drove me to a country road and parked
>and then raped me and left me there.

>IT DIDN'T HAPPEN! I'm SURE of it! 

>I was in a panic, still am! My God, does this mean that all my
>other "memories" are invalidated?

No, it does not.  I have a similar situation -- I am not sure if what I
remember is a dream or a true memory -- in which I was raped by my father at
the age of 15 (to the best of my recollection, he never had intercourse with
me and stopped when I was about 12).  I keep wavering back and forth about
whether or not this really happened, but it doesn't change the fact that I
*know* that my other memories are valid.

>I thought long and hard. I'm still certain that the "Virginian"
>memory and the one with my mom are real, because they've stayed
>with me for all these years, even though years might go by where
>then. I'm secure there, which is good, or else I'd really be
>going crazy now!!! I am certain that I *was* sexually molested!

>But the other ones, the ones that have only come in the last few
>weeks, I mistrust now. Though none of them came as a result of
>a "scenario" prompt like the one above, I just can't take them
>at face value anymore.

Sounds to me like you have more than enough to work on/with for your
healing.  Even if you had *no* memories but only thought you *might* have
been abused, you'd be justified in trying to heal from it.  I would suggest
that you follow your instincts in evaluating your memories -- I'm learning
that (at least for me) the little voice inside me telling me things (I'm
speaking figuratively here) is reliable.  And if you find that some of your
memories are wrong, no big deal!  We all make mistakes, and they're not the
end of the world.

>:-( help! I'm so confused :-(

Yeah, ain't it a bitch how much of the time we seem to spend that way.... ;-(

>God, has everything I've written become null and void? :-(
>If so, I *never* meant to mislead anyone. Everything I wrote
>was true to me at the time I wrote it.

I know that, and I suspect that the rest of us here do also.  Confusion and
uncertainty and trying to sort through things that no one should ever have
had to deal with is something that we're all far too familiar with.  Your
uncertainty does not in any way make me think any less of you!

>To make it all worse, I talked to a (different) friend last
>night and told her the entire story, including the "scenario"
>crisis. She was convinced that nothing happened to me and that
>I should quit living in the past and blaming my present problems
>on it. Now, at first I was inclined to disregard what she said,
>because she's never had any kind of major trauma in her life
>and my whole experience was totally alien to her. But today
>I've been thinking about what she said and found myself
>agreeing with her! I had decided to unsubscribe from asar,
>destroy all my files and forget everything.

>Still, my life-long depressions aren't a figment of my imagination,
>something's going on and I have to find out what. That's why I 
>decided to write here again. 

I'm so glad that you did!  I'm sorry that you got that reaction from your
second friend, but there are some people out there that just don't have a
clue as to what we are dealing with, and she sounds like one of them.
Perhaps they are fortunate....  

You could "unsubscribe from asar, destroy all my files and forget
everything", and you probably *could* forget for a while.  But (and I speak
from sad experience here), it doesn't stay buried, and each time it
reappears, it's worse.  Painful as it is, I've learned that it's better that
I turn and face it and try to deal with it, because it's not gonna go
away....

>What should I do?

Only you can decide that, based on what you feel is right for you.  As I
mentioned above, your gut instincts are a reliable guide.  Feel free to
email me if you want to.

Good luck, and e-hugs if you want/need them!

				Lydia
				anon-1024@twwells.com
				anonymus+1347@godiva.nectar.cs.cmu.edu

"You're more than beginning -- you're learning to fly;
 You feel like you're falling, but it passes in time...."
			"From Me to You", Janis Ian
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| Soprano (Lydia M. Uribe)                      uribe@jarthur.claremont.edu |
| Claremont, CA                                  uribe@hmcvax.claremont.edu |
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