Ever wake up from a dream and all you can recall is a quick "feeling" and then it's gone, along with the memory of your dream?  You know the feeling is from your dream, you just can't recall what the dream was about or where the feeling came from.  And then later in the day, something happens to trigger your memory and now you can recall most of it, along with the feeling you had earlier.  

Forgotten memories act the same.  We can recall feelings, usually negative, but don't know where that feeling came from or why.  And if we were sexually abused (or other types of abuse) and can't remember, we can also have panic attacks or all around constant nervousness, insomnia, PTSD symptoms, irritability and anger, ADHD symptoms, disassociation, depression, avoiding certain places or other sense phenomena (touch, smell, etc.),  low self-esteem, feelings of doom, body pain, and stomach issues (and more).  This means something is going on that has triggered our memory of the bad thing(s) that happened, but rather than remember the event with our minds, our body acts out that same feeling instead.  It's trying to remind us "Hey!  You've forgotten this!  But I don't know how to make you remember!"

For example, I was scrolling through Netflix one day and came across "Alcatraz".  I saw the movie cover and started freaking out.  I couldn't breathe right, I had a horrible stomachache and felt this feeling doom come over me.  I was like "What the hell was that?"  I didn't think this was normal so I went back to the movie cover and tried to remember what was it about that movie that bothered me so much.  I saw it back when I was like 8 or 9 because for some reason my mother thought it necessary to show me inappropriate movies when I was young (like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", which was terrifying.  But she loved Alfred Hitchcock and wanted to watch it, but she knew I was an extremely sensitive child who had panic attacks and after watching that movie, I refused to leave the house for weeks because it was fall or winter and there were massive amounts of crows outside during that time of year, way to go ma!).  After thinking and thinking and thinking, I finally remembered what scared me about that movie was that the fact a dude got his hand cut off and it traumatized me for years after seeing it.  But I had totally forgotten that happened, but my body sure didn't.  

There is some controversy about "repressed memories", so I use the word "forgotten" because some things we just forget due to the fact that maybe we were really young, or possibly a thousand other reasons.  It doesn't really matter what you call it, what matters is that if you're showing signs of trigger-related PTSD issues, it may do you wonders to explore these flashes of feelings. 

My first "feeling flash" was when I was 20 or 21.  I was watching "Melrose Place" and Billy and Allison were getting married and Allison was walking down the aisle with her father, and had a flashback of her father molesting her.  I started hyperventilating and crying uncontrollably for absolutely no reason, but I could feel it in my bones that something wasn't right inside of me.  I felt as though something gross was inside of me and I couldn't get it out.  I tried to tell people about this and they just laughed and said "Wow, you're just so sensitive to empathize with a character on TV like that!"   Nobody took me seriously, so I didn't take me seriously and just didn't think about it.

When I was 28, I saw my first therapist, and he heard me talk about all my crap from my past and said "Are you sure you weren't molested?  You have so many of the signs."  It was the first time anyone had ever validated my experiences in my life.  All the abuse I had suffered, all the bullshit and crap, and not one person ever said when I was a kid "You shouldn't be living here.  This isn't safe for you."  

When I was older, in my 30's, I realized I had been raped when I was fourteen by an adult.  I mean, I hadn't forgotten about it, I was just naïve to think "Oh, well, I guess that's how I lost my virginity".  I knew it wasn't right and I had always thought "If I had fought him, I would have been raped".  Turns out I was raped anyways.  No one ever said before that "You know, you do realized you were raped" when hearing the story of how I lost my virginity.  But then again, we were all ignorant back then.  We were coming out of the era of "Revenge of the Nerds" when a man could dress up in a Darth Vader costume and pretend to be someone else while "having sex" with a girl in a bouncy house.  Or when Jake Ryan said in "16 Candles" that he has Carolyn (his girlfriend) "passed out cold and could violate her ten different ways if I wanted to" and Ted asks "What are you waiting for?".  Then he tells Ted to take her home and Ted says "I'm only a Freshman" and Jake replies "So?  She's so lit she won't know the difference."  Sure, it was the nineties by the time things happened to me, but we hadn't made too many strides forward yet in women's rights when it came to rape.  "Did you say no?  No?  Then you weren't raped."  Which was the sentiment of the times.  I mean, hell, in the era of #metoo, the world still could not get on board with women admitting how much actual sexual assault, rape, and molestation goes on the world.  "It's a bad time for boys" the idiots would say.  No, assholes, it's a bad time for girls, IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN!  AND it always has been a bad time for boys, too!  Guys get raped!  Guys get molested!  But the world is dead set in shaming both men and women for being sexually assaulted, and protecting the deviant abusers out there.  I don't fucking get it!  Sigh. 

So I had started seeing a sexual assault therapist in my 30's (she was kind of bad, but not horrible) but rather than talk about my rape, we concentrated on the fact I knew that deep down I had been molested (because my rape didn't really bother me as much as every other sexual assault I've had happen to me, and it's be a LOT).  Those "feeling flashes" were still happening in the ten or so years in between Allison's trauma memory resurfacing on "Melrose Place" and me seeing my therapist.  I still have issues when thinking of my uncle's beard on my cheek (he used to rub it on people's faces for fun, I think....I don't actually remember, but I do have a pic of him doing that when I was a teen) or when I remember him coming into my bedroom late at night when his wife and my mother would argue about my grandma (their mother).  I also have issues thinking about my father and how he had porn books where the adults molested their children (and other things).  I also have issues thinking about my grandfather, who exposed himself to a little girl we babysat for and another girl we babysat for he latched onto her like a kid with a puppy (and of course my mother explained both of these things away as his "dementia").  And when I started exploring these ideas with my therapist, I started keeping a journal.  Then I began to have dreams about all three of them molesting me (not at once, at different times and different ages).  Not that I think those dreams were indicative of actual memories, because I was an adult when they all happened in each one, I do think some of the dreams may have been trying to unlock something I've forgotten (like the specific dream I had where I couldn't remember the face of the man trying to hurt me).  All my life I'd have reoccurring dreams of a man chasing me and trying to hurt me.  They were random men, but always men.  

Although in my dreams, it sometimes it wasn't even a actual man, but a the feeling of a man who wanted to hurt me.  "Someone is coming.  Climb into these intricate web of hidden staircases and hide."  Sometimes the hidden staircases would go up.  Sometimes they went down.  When they went down, they were in scary places that frightened me and were filled with monsters and creepy locations (like dirty warehouses).  But when they went up, they were in safe spaces, places I could hide from whatever or whoever was coming.  And thy always led to rooms upon rooms.  My dreams make me think of that Lemony Snicket A Series of Unfortunate Events book called "The Ersatz Elevator".  I read it to my kids when they were little and I was flabbergasted to see my dreams laid out on paper like that.  The main characters stayed with a couple that lived in a penthouse with no elevator.  To get there, they had to climb 66 flights of stairs, and when they got to the top, they were met with an apartment that had rooms upon rooms upon rooms, just like in my dreams (makes me wonder if David Handler had the same dreams as me).  I still have the staircases dreams at least weekly (I'm 43 have been having them since childhood) but I am no longer being chased.  Now the dreams are just places I visit because I want to.  And they are always going up.  And they are always going to somewhere really cool (usually).

I still have "feeling flashes".  I still unlock forgotten memories (like the time I was standing in my shower and remembered what my mother had said to me after my father had punched me in the face--it was quite terrible).  I still have feelings of ickiness when dealing with certain things.  I still can't place where many of these things come from.  I know that not every single one is a memory of sexual abuse.  But I do know they are forgotten memories.  I know they are trying to reach the surface, even if they are benign (and sometimes they are).  But not the ones that make me feel gross.  I know those are the bad ones.  And those are the ones I try to uncover the most, because those are the ones that matter and bring me the most pain in my daily life.  I have so many symptoms of forgotten trauma.  I just want to be rid of those "flashes" and the nightmares (which I still have several times a week--not the staircase dreams, just random nightmares).  

Recently, I had a nightmare so bad, that I woke up with this horrible feeling on my exposed arm (I was laying on my side, my back to the open space next to my bed).  Like someone grabbing it and hurting me.  When I awoke, I tried to relax, to get the feeling to go away, and it just wouldn't.  It got worse and worse until I woke my husband up and cried "There's something wrong, I don't know what's wrong!"  I was almost in tears.  Since we moved in, we've been sleeping in the complete dark.  I've never been able to sleep in the dark before, so I thought "Wow, I can actually do this!"  But slowly, the feelings started creeping back and culminated in that dream (I don't remember the dream, just the feeling of it, and it was terrifying).  And every single night since, I found myself being terrified of the open space next to my bed in the dark, and I couldn't sleep at all.  So my husband and I went to look for Christmas lights to hang and light at night, because I'd been going days without much sleep.  We found some at a resale shop and I've been sleeping great ever since.  When I think about that feeling on my arm and how it lasted for hours and hours after I woke up, the feeling will start coming back on the same arm.  I don't think I've ever had that kind of issue in my entire life (if I get a physical sensation from a dream, it goes away when I fully wake).  I have no idea what the dream was about, but I do know it was close to the feeling I assume what it would feel like if a dementor tried to kiss you LOL  (If you're not Harry Potter literate, I can't help you here).  I've had a few dreams like that, with that kind of feeling.  But never one that lasted with a physical sensation. 

One the symptoms in the "Secret Survivors" book (I listed it below) is being scared of the dark.  But I honestly do not remember ever in my life not being scared of the dark when I sleep. 

Recently my mother's friend told me "Your mom said that you were accusing your uncle of sexually abusing you, but she said you were full of shit and that never happened."  I was floored, because I never told my mother about that.  I never once said "Hey, I think Uncle So and So touched me as a kid."  I have no idea how she found that out, but I can assume that maybe I told her as a child when he was doing it and she just ignored me, just like when I said I had been raped (though I also think it could be that maybe my shitty cousin could have found it somewhere I had written about it online and told her, because that's what shitty cousins do--but I don't know, it's just a guess).  So, while I am still not 100% sure it was him, that's one more notch towards the direction of him (though the two other suspects also have a lot of notches, too).  

I mostly journal this stuff.  I work out as much as I can in there.  I will eventually talk to my new therapist about it all, but right now we're dealing with my family's new living situation first.  But journaling gives me a space to work things out as I write, which I like.  So if you're going through this or suspect this happened to you, I urge you to try journaling.  There are lots of great books out there that can help you, too, which I've listed below.  And I also suggest you seek a counselor.  And if they won't listen to you, keep looking until you find one that does.  Today, because of the pandemic, MANY therapists are doing phone sessions, so now you can seek one anywhere in the country, not just your town, which is one great thing to come out of all of this. 

And remember, every time you have one of these "feeling flashes", something that just "flashes" through your mind, write it down in your journal.  Keep track of it all, even if it feels like nothing at the time.  You never know what it will trigger later or add up to.

Many of us who have narcissist parents were sexually abused as children and I think that's because our parents neglected so much that it made us prime targets for abusers.  They have easy access, we were taught since childhood to not trust our own feelings (because our narc parents always told us we were wrong), and we were already conditioned to accept abuse from adults.   And now, we are the adults, and we may be learning that our own abuse extended far beyond what we can remember at times.  If this his happening to you, then check out these resources (not affiliate links):

Secret Survivors by E. Sue Blume (this is a great resource if you can't remember)

Uncover Repressed Memories (website)

The Body Keeps Score by Bessel van der Kolk MD

Writing Ourselves Whole by Jennifer Cross

The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass and Lauren Davis (my sexual assault counselor gave me this)

It Wasn't Your Fault by Beverly Engel, LMFT

 The Sexual Trauma Workbook For Teen Girls