Memory Loss Due To Trauma

Memory is all we are.

Moments and feelings, captured in amber, strung on filaments of reason.

Take a man’s memories and you take all of him.

Chip away a memory at a time and you destroy him as surely as if you hammered nail after nail through his skull.

                                                      ~Mark Lawrence

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Trauma by NF

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Trigger Warning

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Table Of Contents

How Trauma Affects The Brain/Symptoms Of Memory Loss

How To Recover

Personal Experience

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How Trauma Affects The Brain

Everyones experience with trauma is very different. I will be listing general reasons and symptoms for why trauma survivors experience something called “amnesia”

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am·ne·sia

/amˈnēZHə/

noun

a partial or total loss of memory.

"they were suffering from amnesia"

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Emotional/Psychological and physical trauma can both have great affects on short and long term memory.

This great deal of stress can have affects in the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex, which are all different areas of the brain responsible for memory.

Symptoms from PTSD (not just memory loss) can last a couple months to several years, and they can even develop some time after the trauma took place.

Memory loss as a result of emotional trauma is a natural survival skill. As a form of defense, the brain will forget details from the trauma to help the person cope.

This type of memory loss can cause the person to forget the event or can cause them to forget day to day thing and prevent them from having a normal life/being able to function properly.

It is very common for a trauma survivor to forget the event. A traumatic brain injury (TBI) can either be mild or severe, and damage the parts of the brain that handle learning and ing. It is more common for it to affect short term memory over long term memory. TBI can prevent people from ing to do things in the future (make doctors appointments).

”Loss of memory from the moment of TBI onward is called post-traumatic amnesia. It can last from a few minutes to several weeks or months, depending on the severity of brain injury.”

”If you can’t the events of your TBI, you likely never will. That’s because your brain did not store those memories.”

In summary, short/long term and prospective memory, along with memories surrounding the traumatic event can all be affected.

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How To Recover

If the trauma just took place in the past couple of months, it is possible that memory loss can come back, even suddenly in some cases.

Everyone heals at their own pace but if several months have ed, it may be time to seek professional help.

If the memory loss is due to trauma, it is best to get in with a trauma specialist who can help you heal. They will create an individualized plan and begin to assist you in processing your trauma-related feelings and memories.

Types Of Therapy/Treatment Include

•Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

•Somatic Experiencing

•Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

•Psychotherapy

•Medication

•Family Therapy

•Creative Therapy (Art/Music)

•Clinical Hypnosis

•Writing Lists/Notes

Treatment aims to allow the person to safely express and process painful memories, along with developing new coping and life skills. They can then restore function and improve relationships.

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Personal Experience

As I said before, everyone experiences trauma differently. This, is my experience.

I have suffered from PTSD for well over a decade now. My initial trauma took place over 13 years ago and I have experienced several traumatic events since then. Since I already have PTSD, it is very easy for me to get triggered to a horrific degree.

I started losing memory of my trauma due to therapy. I was constantly asked to state what happened and basically relive my trauma. This, was very unhealthy, and I forced myself to forget it, saying, “well, maybe it didn’t actually happen” until I had lost all memory.

One of my most impactful traumas took place less than a year ago and I have seen a significant increase in symptoms since.

I have severe memory loss and it only continues to get worse. I have no recollection of my initial trauma but I do get very triggering and upsetting flashbacks to my most recent one. These can cause me to spiral downwards for a few minutes to days until I forget why I was upset.

I have 2 calendars, notes on my phone, a notebook, and sticky notes. Every important thought I have come to my head has to be automatically written down or else I may forget. If it is causing me severe stress, I may not forget it for a few days.

I will almost automatically forget anything that is upsetting, fights with friends/family, upsetting conversations, etc.

I have relatively no memory of my past, as far as I am concerned, I appeared out it thin air a few months ago and I have no memory of my life before that. I had to hunt down my baby photos to I actually existed as a child.

I don’t anything from the previous school years, I can sometimes retain memory for a week which is long enough to complete the units test, if not, study guide are my haven.

I have no memory of myself. This one... is really hard to explain. I feel like a little person that got plopped into a brain and was given a body to control. But my brain had a lock on it, and I was given no key. My mental health is very poor but I don’t know why, therefore it is incredibly hard to help myself. I have no idea why I am the way I am, and it makes me feel like I’m trapped in a brain that isn’t even mine.

Life is the current moment and that is all it is for me (for the most part).

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Sources

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