Trigger Warning: Child Abuse Reference and this  is very triggering.

I have made a couple recent posts about drying out - getting sober and even my battle with phychosis and getting healthy - it’s still a struggle. But I’ve had a couple mind blowing realizations and I wonder if anyone else has been through this. 

I realized I was smoking weed to stop dreaming and to help me sleep - the psychosis Symptom tipped me off to my need to stop.

When I stopped smoking my alcohol intake increased to help me sleep and knock me out. Why? What was so bad about the dreams?

They aren’t dreams. They are nightmares - night terrors. I’ve been taking medications to help me sleep for such a long time it wasn’t until I stopped taking them (I used them in my attempt and can’t even have them in my apartment anymore. I refuse) that I realized my head cleared and I began to remember.

I have pictures my Grandmother sent me of my childhood. My twin sister and I are really young in a lot of them. I don’t remember being those ages because my childhood memories are basically screenshots. I remember when my partner told me about his childhood with such fondness, and I felt ashamed I couldn’t do the same. Because I literally couldn’t remember.

I’ve been sitting and staring at those pictures - and drinking the past couple weeks, because the memories have begun to slam into me again. Some of them are really goddamn forceful, and others are so quiet I have to sit and actually wonder if it actually is there. Like a puzzle piece falling into place if that makes any sense.

For example: I was with my partner and I was hung over - disassociating. I had just given him a blow job and I love giving them - it’s not a bad thing at all. I’ve come to love my sexuality, and being sexual with him. I say that because the next statement sounds like it triggered it. But it wasn’t the act, but the disassociation with it I think. I was laying there and it was like a memory flitted out of nowhere. I knew I had been there before - not with my partner, but 17 years ago (I’m 23) I was with a faceless man and was disassociating for the first time after being forced to give a blow job. I remember being told it would make someone happy someday and they were stroking my hair. 

The memory wasn’t strong but it just kind of floated into my consciousness. It wasn’t until I acknowledged it that it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I’ve had another one where I am literally walking downstairs at my dads house. I’ve always been able to walk every house I’ve lived in (and I’ve lived in a lot) in my mind for some reason. I can remember every book and cranny of them, every hiding place - I can picture toys and books, stuffed animals and even the shades of carpets and pictures on the wall. Everything.

In this one, after I navigate the darkness of the downstairs. I’m standing at a locked door. There were mattresses on the floor which is where my sister and I slept last at my dads place despite having two rooms. He was a hoarder - and navigating the mess in the dark was a skill in of itself. My sister wasn’t in her bed, and my dad had a water bed but he wasn’t there either. Usually he stayed up late on his computer but her not being in her bed meant bad things. The door I’m standing at is his office door. They both are in there and he’s abusing her. I know it all too well. I can hear them. The memory is just me walking in darkness - reaching the door and muffled crying. But it’s so vivid - and it slammed into me unlike the other one. 

I’m sharing these - and honestly feeling like I’m over sharing, but wondering if anyone has been through something similar? Has anyone else remembered large chunks of forgotten childhood? I know my sister did in Highschool. She began to remember and it led to her recovery - she went from having full on BPD symptoms to being classified as just C-PTSD and is doing even better. Is this part of the process or just a way to do it?