You can heal from painful repressed childhood memories. It's not a short term fix but a long haul journey. My Christian friend received a healing from painful childhood experiences. I write this in case you may be searching for answers. It worked for him and it just may work for you, as well. A Christian should look at this problem as a trial and a challenge to be overcome- and it can be overcome but it is not easy. Are you up to it? You may find it necessary to reach out to a Christian trained professional and/or a good 12-step church or recovery group. Remember, this kind of healing is a journey and takes a lot of time and patience.

He was 46 years old driving an 18 wheeler semi-truck around some narrow canyon roads when he had a flashback of childhood sexual abuse. It shook him up and inadvertantly he nearly ran the truck off of the road because of it. Immediately he knew that because this was emotional trauma he needed to see a psychotherapist or to reach out to someone else for help.

My friend went to a nearby 12-step recovery group for ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics). He telephoned the facilitator of the group beforehand and told him about the sexual abuse that he remembered. The facilitator then told my friend about the sexual abuse that had happened to him as a child also. So my friend was told on the phone that it was ok to talk about sexual abuse at that ACA group, as not all of those groups do so but refer them to an SIA (Survivors of Incest Anonymous) group instead which specializes in childhood sexual trauma. This ACA group really helped my friend a lot.

He attended that ACA group one night a week for 3 years. It was a mixed group of men and women and was well attended with between 12-20 individuals. This group was also well facilitated and provided a safe place to share his "experiences" and receive emotional support.

There was no cross-talk allowed- in other words, when someone was sharing no one was allowed to butt in and talk or interrupt them. My friend had to learn how to be a good listener. He "worked the steps". He learned that he was not an isolated case- that, unfortunately, childhood abuse was rampant. He had to disregard his pride and be humble in order to talk aloud about what happened to him. The more he talked about his "issues" the better he felt. Some individuals in the group cried as they told their story. Some got angry. Some individuals in the group were still partially in denial. It wasn't hard for him to empathize with others who were there to help support him emotionally. He read a lot of the books that group recommended. He learned that toting these repressed memories around with him was called "emotional baggage".

The main goal of this group was to help each individual there believe that he or she was an innocent and significant person- that no way any of the childhood abuse was their fault. The one that was guilty was the perpetrator(s). Each person there was encouraged to do "inner child work" and shift the false blame from themselves back onto the perpetrator(s) who were the truly evil ones. This is called "championing your inner child." This sounds a lot easier than it is. It appears that the ones that did it became more emotionally healthy.

Most competent mental health professionals state that you have to only tell one person, in confidence, in order to share those kinds of memories to shift the blame from you back onto the perpetrator. Some individuals, therefore, only like to see a Christian psychotherapist or Christian counselor who is trained in the sexual abuse or the sexual trauma field, as not all of them are.

THE EMERGENCY STAGE

She was a beautiful adult Christian women just hitting menopause. She had a husband and grown children. She had flashbacks of childhood sexual abuse. She was in the emergency stage. She couldn't handle all of the pain and memories of betrayal. She took a gun and blew her brains out. Beware of the emergency stage- it's probably the toughest part to overcome.

Let me tell you about what happened to my friend when he hit his emergency stage. For him it lasted about 3 months. This is a period of time when the repressed memories first "pop loose" or "start to surface" from the subconscious mind into the conscious mind. Accompanying the surfacing or defrosting memory are all the repressed emotions of the incident(s) such as false guilt, anger, terror, pain, confusion, and more- intruding into one's conscious mind. What does one do with with all of this pain that they are re-feeling after all these years? What does one do with all of these thoughts of betrayal by a family member, trusted family friend, or other trusted individual? How does one handle all of the anger that he or she now has about this? Those are some tough choices one has to make.

During the emergency stage is when some folks commit suicide due to these overwhelming circumstances of the past. Suicide is not the right choice. This is the stage when an individual can be most emotionally fragile. For some, the constant pain and memories just keep on coming for week after week, month after month with no seeming relief in sight. One's mind is saturated with pain. Dormant emotions seem to come alive again in an intense way. Sadness and anger are two prominant ones. My friend knew he had been nearly emotionally destroyed as a child. He could barely stand this kind of internal stress as an adult and then he could understood how, as a child, his brain had to repress it so he could emotionally survive back then. My friend likened it to "emotionally going through a long black tunnel of pain and not finding the immediate exit". He didn't think that he would ever see the end of the tunnel when all of this would end, but he held on. He got support from His God, his 12-step group, and from his wife. He was emotionally burned out and emotionally devastated during this time and had to take time off of work for awhile in order to heal and properly deal with all of this. But his emergency stage did end- he did come to the end of that tunnel.

My friend took his problems to His Wonderful Counselor, Jesus Christ, Who helped him get through this period of time in his life. He leaned on the Lord and the Lord did not let him down. At the meetings he referred to His Lord as his Higher Power. A physician or psychiatrist may prescribe some medication for you to help you during this difficult time. Unfortunately, some people may turn to illegal drugs but this is not the way to go. It's suspected that this kind of intense anger can be misdirected toward others to include road rage, school shootings, "family tragedies", etc. My friend beat his pillow on his bed with his belt as a harmless means of working through some of his anger. He didn't want to ever dump a lot of destructive anger on any of his innocent family members.

A lot of divorces can happen during this time. Don't dump any anger on your spouse because your spouse did not cause your childhood abuse. Divorces also happen because of the mistaken notion that your spouse is responsible for making you happy. That's not true in any shape or form. Do you know who is responsible for making you happy? That's right- you are. You are responsible for making yourself happy- happiness has to come from within yourself. Learn to have fun. Trust yourself to make you happy. You might want to work on a favorite hobby. Enjoy simple fun activities that help relieve stress. Maybe going to an amusement park, a zoo, or the beach would help. You need to be able to have fun again without your new emotional problems getting in the way. A good massage is relaxing. Walking and exercise help relieve stress. My friend learned how to do all of this and it was neat to see him spend money on himself in what I would refer to as "childish ways". He found it easier to relate to the younger children in his family because he took them to places where they could all play and have fun together.

My friend healed up nicely in time. He properly worked through all of "his issues". After all of this "emotional pus" was finally cleared out of his brain he quit having migraine headaches that he had suffered with for years. His back quit seizing up on him due to anxiety reactions from unresolved inner conflicts. His nervous stomach nearly returned to normal. Some physical ailments that he had (caused by repressed anger) disappeared.

(Please be advised that any medical statements regarding repressed memories and their cure mentioned here are the opinions of Kraig J. Rice)

How Does This Work?

In my opinion God created the human mind with a built-in "circuit breaker switch" so to speak to protect it from overload. In electricity a fuse will blow out or a circuit breaker switch will activate or kick out when there is a short circuit or power overload. This action protects the unit from getting destroyed and/or catching fire or both. The human brain does much the same thing. When a horrible event happens to a child they can't handle he or she may disassociate and repress that memory (along with the emotional feelings associated with that memory) as a means of survival. In other words it the brain's way of blowing a fuse or tripping a circuit breaker. It's the mind's way of protecting itself. If this has happened to you don't feel like an isolated case- it has happened to millions of others as well.

Whether it is a one time trauma incident or incidents over a period of time the brain may repress it all and block it out of the conscious mind. The brain exerts a tremendous amount of energy to keep these memories repressed year after year. Well, your brain gets tired of suppressing those memories (and when it is safe to do so) it lets those memories intrude into your conscious mind. Sometimes this happens when an individual is close to mid-life crisis. That's why it is called a crisis. Some say that most of these occurances happen around the time of mid-life crisis, thus indicating a general time frame for many individuals.

This intrusion can be quite unwelcome and unwanted. However, there is no set age for any individual when this might happen. When this happens to some individuals around male or female menopause it's the cause of some to re-live and re-feel childhood memories. That is why mid-life crisis is also called one's "second childhood." These events happen to Christians and non-Christians alike. This is what happened to my Christian friend at age 46 as he was driving his semi-truck on the narrow road that day.

My friend had a favorite scripture that he hung onto that helped him through those tough days regarding this kind of trial:

"Everyone who overcomes (is victorious) will eat from the tree of life in the paradise of God."
Revelation 2:7 (NLT)

The Lord Jesus Christ will walk with you holding your hand each step of the way if you let Him and don't hurt Him by blaming Him for what the devil did to you. God knows your circumstances. God is not offended by our anger or strong emotions during our healing process. He loves us and wants to help us.

At present there are many Christian professionals to help you in any way that you want. Some of the larger churches offer their own "12 step program". My friend visited one of these at the large (Assemblies of God) Capitol Christian Center in Sacramento, Calif. He was really impressed at how they could help folks there receive their healing.

There are several Christian books available to help you with your emotional healing. I recommend going to a Christian bookstore in your hometown and seeing what is available for you there. Joyce Meyer, the television pastor, has an emotional healing kit and video advertized on her web site. She healed from childhood emotional abuse so she knows what she is talking about. She also has a book available titled, Beauty For Ashes. Gary Chapman has written on this subject. Also Neil Anderson has written The Bondage Breaker as well as Victory Over the Darkness.

My friend went to another large church that was offering a course on emotional healing. This course was the Search For Significance offered by Rapha. This course promotes the idea of personal self-love, self-esteem and self-worth to counter-act the lies that Satan and his perpetrators made to any child while they were abusing him or her. If you don't live close to any large church that offers this course you can order the book(s) from them personally.

I really respect my friend and I am proud of him for keeping his faith in the midst of all of the doubt and pain, and for having the courage to face his pain and deal with it in a responsible way to obtain his healing.