Some of the hardest stories to tell are the ones we don’t even remember.
It happened at my grandma and grandpa’s apartment. Years later, my aunt and uncle told me the story. I just stood there, stunned. How could something like that happen and leave no trace in my memory?
When the Mind Protects Us by Forgetting
What I’ve learned since is this: sometimes our minds protect us in quiet, invisible ways. The clinical term is dissociation. When something is too overwhelming, too unsafe, too much for a child to process, the brain can block it out.
It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It means surviving it took priority over remembering it.
That moment, being pushed against a wall, might have been erased not because it didn’t matter, but because it mattered too much.
What’s strange is that I grieve something I can’t even picture. I don’t see the wall, I don’t feel the impact, I don’t hear my dad’s voice in that moment, yet I carry the weight of it anyway. It’s like my body remembers what my mind refuses to. And that’s the part no one talks about, the way trauma lingers even when the details are gone. You are left living with the echo of something invisible, and somehow that hurts just as much.
The Things I Wasn’t Supposed to Remember
After we left that day, my aunt and uncle said my grandpa was furious. He started talking about ways he could help get me out of that situation.
But nothing ever came of it.
I was just a kid. Stuck in something I didn’t even fully understand. And now, decades later, I’m left with the echoes: feelings of fear, confusion, anxiety, but not the image. Not the scene.
And that can make healing even harder.
The Memory I Do Have
It’s strange though, because there is one time I do remember. I was 5 years old when my dad spanked me. Ten times. Hard enough that even now, decades later, I can still feel the sting of it when I think back.
That memory stayed. The push against the wall didn’t.
And that’s the thing about trauma. Our minds decide what to hold onto and what to bury. There’s no logic to it, no fairness. Just survival.
You’re Not Crazy. You’re Not Broken.
If you’ve lived through something painful that you can’t fully remember, you’re not alone. You’re not weak. You’re not making it up.
Your brain might have been doing its best to help you survive.
But now, as adults, we get to do the hard work of healing. Even from the things we don’t remember clearly. Even from the things we only feel in our bones.
Why I’m Telling This Story
Because someone out there is carrying pain they can’t explain. Feelings they don’t have words for. Gaps in their memory that make them question themselves.
This post is for you.
Next time on Tattooed Truths:
I’ll tell the story of my first trip to Florida, the memory that wasn’t supposed to happen that way. A family vacation where the magic of Disney collided with the chaos of my home life, and how even in that pain, a stranger’s kindness left its mark.
#TattooedTruths #RepressedMemory #ChildhoodTrauma #HealingJourney #EmotionalAbuse