Some memories, I've had all my life, yet told myself, "That's not true. I must've dreamed it. I've only been outside of Texas twice." That's what I always would tell myself when memories of military bases or of Mayan pyramids would pop into my mind like running movies or in recurring dreams. The front alter/s are programmed with denial and they're usually not aware of it. My habit of telling myself that "I must've dreamed it" or other similar statements was reinforcing my own denial and kept the amnesic barriers between myself and the deeper alters strong and intact. And this is quite common with survivors.
I always remembered certain odd things from age 2, like being out of body while bad things happened to my body ...on different occasions. But I would push those memories away, bury them ....away from the forefront of my mind. So then, it was easier to tell myself that I just didn't know how those things got in my head.
I always had memories of sexual abuse from at least age 2 ...by my father, a relative or two, an elderly old neighbor man, etc. For years, I had myself convinced that the abuse started when I was 2.or 3, until age 7, then started again at age 10 and ended at age 14 (a year after I was saved). The reason for the gap from ages 7 to 10 is because I had 3 years of missing time. One day I was 7, and the next thing I knew, I was older, in a new house and a new town.
In about 1997, in my mid 20's, I felt Good urging me to write my life down on paper. I fought against it for 6 years, because I just couldn't get my mind to go there. It was like trying to swim upstream in peanut butter. (Goofy analogy, I know.)
But after I moved away from the religious group (a cult-run church with a Christian front) in 2001, I began feeling drawn to write again and it took some time ...but by 2003, I had begun writing. At first, all I could remember or get my brain to grasp hold of, filled one side of a notebook paper, and half of the back. But I began to re-read and then bits would come back ...I'd rewrite, and rewrite ...till after several months, I eventually had maybe a dozen pages, front and back.
This began opening up more, and I met a child alter that year in 2003. Her name was Kelly. She was a 5 year old child part. At first, I told myself this was a little girl God wanted me to pray for because I could see she was terrified and "scared-silent." But God revealed to me she was (a part of) me when my mother sent me some childhood photos and I found a photo of Kelly.... myself at age 5.
Memories of SRA type abuse began coming in 2004. And by then, groups of alters we're coming forward one after the other.
I will come back in a bit to write more. But in short, I have had memories come in all sorts of forms .... flashbacks/flashes, impressions, body memories/abreactions, dreams, and alters sometimes have come forward reliving whole memories with words and visuals. At other times alters have revealed memories in what I call "movie-mode" where they walked me through and narrated so that I was not hit with a full-on flashbacks and PTSD.