I wonder if anyone has had this happen, I walked into a store that I’ve not gone to for years. I didn’t know why I didn’t go to this store; I just couldn’t really see myself going in. Well, today due to lack of milk and cereal I went in, and I was hit with a memory so vivid I thought I was hallucinating. It froze me in my tracks. I asked the kid sis, “Have we ever had any problems in this store?”
She very shyly told me, “well, there was just one little thing. But it was about six years ago.”
The one little thing was kind of big actually it nearly got me arrested. It did land me back in rehab. I told her what I needed, threw the money at her and ran to the car. As I sat there that memory just kept looping through my head and as it did that, more and more details have been filling in to the point were I’m sure I dreaming it. Vivid and embarrassing. I asked the kid, “Is this what really happened?”
She hated to do it, but she did say, “That sounds close to how I remember it.”
I’ve taken some vitamin D, had a hot bath, eaten some soup. I feel much better now, but WOW… I hope I don’t get hit with too many more of these.
Now I don’t know which is worse, false memories or memories too vivid.
I get those a lot but since i have false memories i cant be sure if its true or not and i don’t want to ask around if those memories are true or not so i try not to think about it, which is very difficult to get over with it
Thank you for that. I usually don’t ask, but this one was pretty big. I’m working on trying to sort out some of this memory and let it go. I want to let go of a lot of it. Some false memories I’ve got to try and get over. But there are some real ones that I’ve got to get over as well. The thing is, this incident was drug related more then SZ related.
I remembered that it was her at about 11 years old who was standing between me and the cops trying to pick up the pieces and talk me down and trying to explain things to the cops, and trying to get the store owner and the store security guy to just take a breath and calm down.
I remember that the store security guy actually had his gun drawn and the real cop was more nervous about that because my kid sis was not going to step aside. The real cop was pretty cool, it was the store security guy who really wanted to shoot somebody and my kid sis would NOT get out of the way. I remember volunteering for detox and rehab that time.
There was a poster here who once said that he felt that we suffer from PTSD. I sort of agreed. Now that some of this memory is for some reason coming back, I now completely understand.
False memories are a recurring thing with me. I had false memories that I was very sure of when I was unmedicated. I still think im remembering something and I realize that i cant recall the memory piece by piece so I realize its false. This is a strange symptom of schizophrenia that I’ve never seen in my books, just subjective reports from fellow schizophrenics and myself.
I do respect the people who work so hard and study and write and reach out, but there is a grain of salt to be taken with some of the books. It’s like a child psychologist who doesn’t spend anytime with kids. (I’ve meet some like that) If you want to learn about a kid, ask a kid. I always want to tell some of the “Experts” if you want to know what really happens with us, ask us.
I hope to dedicate my life to researching schizophrenia. I have an almost negligible but slight neurocognitive impairment, I am forgetful and tend to repeat myself or have to be asked to do things twice. I am on scholarship and making grades in school though, and my dream is to one day spend my time in a mental hospital talking to people like us and learning more about their view of the world. I think it’s a sort of blessing in disguise, I was hell-bent on becoming a military officer when before I was diagnosed. Instead of taking lives to save them, I hope that one day I will directly help people.
I was noncompliant for over a year with my doctors, i functioned highly in school and hygiene, i even exercised exessively while I was psychotic. I just remember the constant agony I was in and I want to be a part of the recovery of other people who were just like me. I myself am considered to be in remission, but the numbness and shades of gray that the medication cause are a new problem. I just remember how much I felt alive when i was psychotic but highly functioning, I was not bored, I was facing a great challenge. I actually miss it sometimes, life feels cold most of the time now.
I have this bad habit of forgetting the bad and embarrassing moments, it’s better this way sometimes, so they won’t hunt me in my life…I avoid asking what happened, I just forgive everyone and move on.
The false memories make me a little sad when they were good memories that I find out were false. The one that really sticks in my head was a great day I thought I had with my younger brother, only he was out of town that day. It was the best day that never happened. Very sad.
My false memories are similar to yours. When i am delusional i believe in my false memories but when i am not and i still have false memories, i just ask the person who are in my memories if those things happened or not. Than i try not to think about it and i move on. There is a syndrome called false memory syndrome, maybe we have that as well, but since not to many people have this syndrome, psychiatrists are not aware of it.
False memories hit me again, i couldn’t sleep, i even took ativan but didn’t helped me, today morning i clarify my memories with my relatives and none of those memories are true… This is a rare shameful schizo symptom…
I don’t know it false memory is that rare, it’s not shameful. We can’t really help what our minds want to knit together in an effort to piece together some logic.
I’m glad you asked your family about it. I used to have a hard time with any insight like this and I have a lot of memories of things that never happened. I sort of smile about it now but I have a tattoo that I was convinced I got when our family was in Spain… yeah… our family has never been to spain, and neither have I.
It just happens. There are a few that have hit my heart and I wake up once in a while feeling them all over again. Just keep your family close and good job questioning it. Some people are as far a long in recovery as we are and they act of this beliefs of these memories. It’s a hard to think to do, question the memory. It’s hard to believe that this illness even corrupted this last bit of sacred space… the memory. But if you have the courage to ask… like you did, you can start to fight off that damage.
