Sharing – You Don’t Need to Remember Everything to Heal From Everything

This was my experience as well. When I started therapy, my therapist was clear about this, and we discussed what my priorities were. Regaining every memory in detail wasn’t high on my list, so we didn’t aim for that.

To those seeking memories, I gently remind them that the goal of therapy isn’t to uncover every detail of the past. Some memories may remain inaccessible, stored in parts of our brain and body that don’t translate into conscious recall. This isn’t a failure of therapy or a barrier to healing—it’s often our mind’s sophisticated way of protecting us.

https://mytherapist.substack.com/p/you-dont-need-to-remember-everything

My goal in therapy was to figure out how not to die and find some future for myself. That may seem a bit melodramatic, but consider the fact that I went into therapy as a last, desperate attempt to find any reason to bother trying to live. The details of my abuse didn’t matter at that point. So, instead of going through a catalog of memories trying to put them in some order, we rolled with the memories that came up as we mapped out a plan for my life going forward.

Thirty years later, I’ve done a lot of healing. I feel good about the life I’ve built and the people I’ve been building it with. I’ve found a way to want to continue living this life, and I’ve found ways to give back that fit into my life. What I don’t have is an exact timeline of childhood events that include all of the details of what happened to me.

It turns out I didn’t need that to get here. I have enough to know what happened. I have enough that I can share my “story” as I remember it.

That’s plenty.