So I often get emails or comments on my videos, from viewers who are frustrated that they can't remember any of their childhood, or parts of their childhood. And not remembering is super frustrating. There's a deep sense of stuckness for them, that is like if you've ever had to sit down and write a story, but you don't have a frame of reference or a place to start, and it feels like you can't figure out where it's going to go, since you don't have a beginning. And I tell people that everybody is different. I have clients that range from remembering everything in their childhood, to missing huge timelines in their childhood, or missing some smaller gaps. But there's something I notice in my work with those who have some memory loss, that I'd really like to say to you guys up front. And that what I notice is that, survivors of trauma assume that uncovering, or finding a lost database of memories, is the only way to healing, and until they uncover those things, like they're up the creek. That is so not true! I tell clients that actually you don't need extensive memories to figure out, or work on childhood trauma. I also notice that clients with memory issues assume they don't have any real knowledge about working with memory problems for childhood trauma or awareness about how bad their childhood potentially was, when that's not really true either. You know more than you think, and you might be second guessing your awareness of your own family system. Having awareness of the family system you grew up in is different than unearthing childhood memories, but it's just as helpful, if not more helpful. And the memory issue is, not like seeing the forest through the trees. Survivors are often overly focused on the missing details of their childhood, and not taking like a step back, and looking at the whole system that they grew up in. And I'm going to come back to that later in the video.
So I've had clients who report they can't remember much, but they can identify present issues in the family, such as having a super difficult or abusive parent in the present, or having siblings who are not doing well emotionally or with intimacy in the present, or family is super emmeshed or estranged in the present, or their parents have, like a loveless or conflict oriented marriage, or worse, a conflict avoidant kind of marriage, and they have problems of repression in the present, or simply a parent who doesn't engage or refuses to be involved in the family in the present. So some clients can report all that going on in their family system, but they struggle with identifying tangible trauma from their childhood. And in my experience, if those issues, that I just mentioned are prevalent in a client's present, then they probably were there in childhood as well, unless the family members went through some heavy duty therapy, or the whole family went through some heavy duty therapy, and that is super rare, if they did. So, all of those present issues, are all a client really needs to know to conclude that they probably grew up in some form of childhood trauma. And I tell clients, like those present issues are good enough data to work backwards towards childhood, to figure out things, rather than recall childhood fully.
In addition to focusing on the present family system, when clients start working with me, I tell them that their childhood will become more real to them, which happens by: talking about the family system in therapy sessions, working backwards by starting with what they do know, like I just mentioned, working with their triggers and their body memories can help figure out that system even more so, working with our inner child who often has more access to childhood situations and emotions than our adult self does. And all of that doesn't mean achieving something like full total recall. But these help with not being so dissociated from our story, because we never bounced it off somebody or dived deeply into it. And regarding memory issues, clients can have an array of reactions, to the therapy that I do, such as some might become more aware of the abusive family, but they don't recall the huge missing chunks of their childhood, and that's actually okay. Some do have intense flashbacks or situations that are new knowledge to them, but that kind of tends to be rare, but it does happen in sessions. For some, the more they talk about and they process with me, the more content comes up as we go along because they're no longer dissociated from their own story. I've had clients in year three of working with me, talk about situations they've never brought up before, and it's not like a huge revelation to them—they often thought that they did bring it up with me, which makes me wonder or if it's a sign, that they were dissociated from their own story. And some shift out of a vague awareness that the family was really off, into having some real mastery over the mess that they grew up in, from working backwards with me, and starting from what they do know.
So in this video, the goal is to not implant memories or suggest things that actually didn't happen. None of that stuff. In therapy the goal isn't to get really these memories back, actually. The goal is more about educating ourselves on growing up in an unhealthy family system, as it relates to our present mental health problems and situations. If you're drawn to my videos on childhood trauma and the dysfunctional family system, you're probably not massively confused about some level of the dysfunction or the abusive system that you grew up in. But if you're just here because you clicked on the title, and you feel like you had a pretty good childhood, but can't figure out your mental health problems, this video might not be that helpful for you. As a side note, I find that unless the person grew up in say something like adoption or foster care or extreme abandonment, most clients are more aware of their family system, than they think they are. And even if someone did grow up in all that extreme attachment trauma, I don't think that they need to know the memories, in order to work on that trauma. We already know it was bad, just from the attachment viewpoint.
So as a reminder, as trauma survivors, we struggle with knowing what's healthy and what's not, and we often second guess our experiences and our intuition. Childhood trauma is really trauma to our perception. Like we don't trust what we already know about our families, because we don't have a frame of reference, and clients need a lot of help with that. It's almost like as survivors we start the healing journey, as if to say like: "it was my family, it was my experiences, my life, but what do I know about it?" This is helped by exploring what a healthy family system is like, and getting some psychoeducation and some validation about toxic family systems, which I try to do a lot in my videos. So clients also tend to think if they can't fully recall a chain of events, then they don't have a case for how bad it was, or what their parents were like, or worse, that they're not going to be believed. That kind of stuff breaks my heart. And as a side note, it's important to think, if you're a therapist watching this, to be at least aware that if clients don't remember their childhood, it doesn't mean that their childhood trauma is irrelevant. It's important to think where might they have picked up their survival strategies, like fawning, freezing, fighting, coping? Where did their problems of intimacy come from? And where did they learn to deal with their feelings the way that they do? It's important to not rule out trauma because they can't remember childhood fully, but they can list family having significant present issues, especially if the client feels questionable stuff coming up with the family.
So, let's explore this idea about what clients already know, by actually looking at a family system through something called the genogram. A genogram is a family tree of dysfunction. I have all my clients put one together with me, at the beginning of treatment, to get a sense about what their system was like, past and present. Here is a hypothetical genogram that I put together, and I thought about different clients I've had throughout the years that struggle with not remembering, but they are able to somewhat talk about the system in a good enough way, when we start working together. Family map—genogram. So here is a family map. Squares are males, circles, are females. If a family member identifies as LGBTQ+, we can use a triangle, or some kind of symbol that feels right to you. We're looking at three generations, from grandparents down to grandchildren. The family up on the top left in dark pink, had a girl and a boy, and the boy became the father of, say, the client in bold white, who, I have in quotes "tried to be a good kid". Let's call him Ben, and he struggles with not feeling like he belongs anywhere. The mother of that boy came from a nuclear family of five in light pink, and they had three girls, and the family was just a highly academic, motivated family. That's all Ben might know of his mother's side of the family. There are really no big bells and whistles in this family system, like the client in bold does not report any domestic violence, or chaos or poverty or extreme mental illness in the parents or the siblings. As a side note, clients who struggle with memory can come from either extremely blatantly, abusive family systems, or they can come from the quiet, tricky family systems. Ben's family is what I would call a tricky family so far. So in this hypothetical, Ben reports the mother suffered from an eating disorder, and she had the whole family put on diets or extreme monitoring of calories, through a family journal. And the mother was also very distrusting of her two children's behavior. In the present, Ben reports his mother calls him to say just to make sure that he's doing right by his employer just 'cuz'. It would feel to me that the mother doesn't see the client's goodness, and I would be taking that in as data. Ben's parents weren't close. The sister acted out, was always in trouble, specifically with the mom, and Ben reports that he was always trying to be a good kid, in context of that. Let's say Ben reports that he doesn't remember anything before the 7th grade, but he is able to report these general family dynamics. He says he's at a loss to figure it all out, but he is able to say it was rough seeing his sister and his mother have such nasty conflict in their adolescence. And while they were just trying to be good kids. I'm probably thinking about how Ben didn't have a relationship with his father, who never stood in as a parent, because he was an alcoholic. He was absent, but there, sort of... And this is how some clients often start, and it's good enough. And all they need to look at, was how they were parented. But my clients come in thinking they need to have a cache of solid memories, to figure this all out. The client and their sibling grew up in a tricky family, with parents who needed their own therapy. Ben might say in session that he's expecting me to say that he's not traumatized enough to see me, and that's an expression of shame, that's kind of tough to hear. As a childhood trauma therapist getting this info in the first session, I would be wondering the following: could the lack of a present protective father, and the mother's obsession with food have been overwhelming? Where the parents were almost just like playing house? Was the sibling's acting out was sort of a ringing of an alarm about the home life, that her acting out was appropriate, given that home life. In family therapy, which is infuriating and an abusive aspect of toxic families such as this one, I would also be thinking was the lack of Ben's memories, from early to the 7th grade due to there being no real connectivity in the family, no mirroring, no sharing of experiences. I might ask what family events are like in the present, and this could be a 'Looks good on paper' kind of family or 'Ships in the night' kind of family from my seven types of toxic family systems. And if Ben were able to say that the holidays or the get togethers, are excruciatingly lifeless or painfully long, because the family does not know what to do with each other, and everyone is just kind of in a quiet desperation. What might that be like for a child? And again, this stuff is usually not new. If I ask what a holiday meal is like in the present, Ben might report that the father occasionally leaves the gathering to go drink in the basement, and the mother is predictably super preoccupied with discussing or controlling the food. I sometimes think a family like this for a child is like living in a vacuum, where you're in a system, but you're abandoned in that system, because the parents aren't emotionally home. That's what I would be thinking in an intake, and I would tell Ben that they have enough awareness and don't need the missing keys of memories to know what's up with this family system. Lastly, the trauma here in Ben's case, is about lack of connection, and potentially overwhelm as a child, due to the parent stuff to the point of being oppressive and lifeless. Was the mother like an energy vampire about food, and the father abandoning him in all that? Ben might describe the family system where I might think it's tricky, but as I would get to know him more, there is often a much bigger picture, of the parental sort of mental illness. Alcoholism and eating disorders with severe distrust can lead to some significant pathology, I mean in the parents. I've had clients be able to report what their family system is like, but they expressed doubt about how bad the family system was, due to the lack of memories, say before the 7th grade, like in Ben's case.
Let's do another one. Let's say this client's name is Anne, who is in her 30s, and she is in the bottom with the bandages and the circle there. Anne struggles with intimacy, depression and anxiety, and boundaries—like not putting up boundaries. Anne can report these details about her family in her intake. Like a lot of clients who come in, they know that the family is off, but they again might really second guess themselves, because they don't remember huge gaps of it. Let's say Anne doesn't remember anything from the divorce of her parents from the age of three, until about junior year in high school. She also has trouble remembering several moves, and what weekend visits with her father were like during the divorce. What she can recall in the present is, the lasting question of the father being bipolar, due to highly erratic mood swings that lasted days and even as long as a week. She vaguely remembers early violence between her mother and her father. She remembers two additional stepmothers, one being someone she really loved, but that person couldn't manage her father, and was out of her life in just about two years. Let's say Anne also talks about a brother who can't control his rage, whenever Anne and her husband have him over. She does recall that the brother getting very violent in her late high school years, and the brother needed to repeat the 8th grade twice due to aggressive behavior. In her present life, Anne tends to try to take care of the brother who gets himself into trouble, and she also takes care of her mother, who never remarried and is depressed, and Anne feels immense guilt when she doesn't call her mother weekly. But she absolutely dreads those calls. She feels immense guilt and anxiety about taking care of her brother, who she describes as a 'timebomb' when he visits. And Anne knows that something is up to come in for some trauma work, but she doesn't trust her memory, for most of her childhood. She does say in passing, that recently the mother told her that in the early stages of the divorce, she left her and her brother with her father for say, six months. That was when Anne was three. I would be thinking that the father's moods, or untreated mental health problems, are terrifying enough for children to dissociate, shut down, and not retain memories. Especially under the stress of being a toddler or a late stage toddler, and not seeing your mother for six months, and your main caretaker being someone who is untreated and potentially bipolar. Again, the client is able to describe the family and the general history in some way, but the client struggles with the missing memories, and feeling like having them, would put the whole thing into view, when we already have the whole thing into view in my mind. She may even apologize in that session for not knowing more. So in those two examples, which are really like clients that I've had throughout the years, and you might relate to, you can see that the focus on missing memories isn't really all that important. The two clients that we've discussed, they have enough to know that in their childhood they didn't see healthy intimacy. They weren't safe as children, just in different ways. They didn't form lasting memories, either because they didn't have healthy adults to share those moments with, or the stress of that childhood caused them to dissociate from the present, and think of getting through childhood, as opposed to taking it in. When working with their inner child, I'd have them do left hand and right hand dialoguing, in a session, to get a deeper sense of what it was like for them to be a kid in that house. With Ben, I'd have him ask his inner child, how did you feel about dad? What was it like with mom and food? What kind of kid did you feel like you were? Notice how the questions are open ended questions. Often the inner child will respond with memories or situations that the adult has been removed from for the years, and that is a very powerful experience. Some clients get it back, by simply talking about it over time about what they know. I had a client in their 50s who started working with me, and they weren't really able to tell me much about their childhood, but they were able to kind of tell me like in one of those genograms. And over the three years that I was working with them, more and more memories and more details and situations came up for them, as we went along. And there is a process in the work that I do, where I tell clients that childhood will become more and more real to them, as we continue the work. By the third year, they would come up with situations and scenarios about their abuse, that I had never heard from them before. And also when we talk about the family systems, and compare what their family system was like, compared to healthy family systems, that also helps us process and get a greater view of the forest for the trees. In addition, your triggers will help you know what your story is as well. Let's say Ben comes into a later session, having really been angry and triggered, because their partner accuses of something that he didn't do. Let's say Ann comes in and tells me every time her partner goes on like a camping weekend with the guys, she gets massively depressed and shuts down. Let's say Ben comes in and notices that when he cooks a meal for his partner, he never gauges the portions right. And there's generally never enough for seconds. And making meals is really stressful for him. Let's say Anne comes in and talks about a toxic male co worker, but I catch that when she discusses it, she kind of talks about it in an emotionally unaffected way where other clients might have made a beeline for their HR Department. I'm not judging. I'm just kind of noticing the way that their affect or their triggers are related to their present, or in other words, being shut down. So in those four hypotheticals, can you relate to them? But can you also correlate what you know of the person's family story, to the trigger that they mentioned? Can you bridge those two things, or where they might come from? Leave a comment if you think that you can. So I think the best resource is to find a therapist or healing arts person who gets it, and can help you process your family system. That's the first place, but I know that finding someone like that is super hard, much less affording them. So when I start with clients, I have them do a genogram with me. I have an e-course that walks you through how to put a genogram together. In addition, there are three other e-courses on my website, that are helpful in processing childhood or the family system, including a talk I did on shame, that includes a worksheet on how to do the inner child dialoging. You could also do some journal writing about what your family system is like in the present, to begin with, and think working backwards, about the system on the whole. Here are some questions to reflect on all based on the present. And again, families without significant therapy work, don't really tend to change over the years. So here are the journaling prompts—How does my family respond when I question abuse or problems? How did my parents do with their partnerships and intimacy in life? Does my parent or parents really see me for who I am? How and why to that? Do they show up for me in ways that I need? Who shows up for who more? The how and why to that, like write about it. Does it feel like I'm an alien in my own family system? How and why? How does my family system manage present conflict? Is it mature? Is it healthy? How does my family talk about my childhood? Are they defensive, or do they not remember themselves, or do they assume normalcy, because basic needs were met, like the food, education, shelter stuff? Does your family say stuff like "you were fine!", or "you were always the problem"? Or "I wish I'd never met your mother", or "what do you want? I had to work!" "What do you want? I needed Grandma's help!" That's the kind of stuff you might be looking for in this journaling writing, about that last question. The memory issue is a big issue. But when clients get to me, I know we'll be able to process in a good enough way to get a good enough picture of what it was like for them. And I think you too, can process and get a good enough picture as well.
We just kind of have to let go of the... we're kind of attached to this idea that we need these memories, which again, isn't true. We're not totally stuck if we can't remember the situation or the details. Check out the description to this video for more additional notes that were kind of too much to include, on the issues of memory. It'll be the description of this video.
