The Flood: When Repressed Memories Came Rushing Back

When 'Fine' Isn't Enough: Breaking Free from Emotional Suppression

I spent most of my life avoiding my feelings, pushing them down, and burying them deep inside me.

When I was very young, I learned to disconnect from my feelings, and for most of my life, I prided myself on my ability to 'put feelings on pause' until later (short-term or for years).

I thought it was a skill that I could "save feelings for later" and act like everything was great (even when it wasn't) and that it was a good thing that I could easily disguise, disconnect from, or tone down my feelings and emotions on command. I thought "having an off switch" and a good "game face" made me strong. 

For most of my life, my ability to "not feel" and "deny myself" allowed me to conceal the discomfort I felt as a NeuroDivergent Person living in a world run by and for people with minds unlike mine. I learned to always answer that I was "fine" whenever people asked me (even if I wasn't) because people never react well when you tell them anything else.

As I grew older, I learned that simply "saying you are fine" is not enough if you don't also act like you're doing well, so I learned to fake joy and happiness in times of distress in the presence of others (or any time someone asked how I was doing or if I was "okay" or not).

Eventually, I got so good at hiding my pain, panic, or distress that I became able to smile, laugh, and converse through full-blown, adrenaline-pumping panic attacks.

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For most of my life, smiling through my discomfort was easier (for me) than admitting to others, "I'm not okay," or needing help.

I was ashamed of "not being okay" when everyone around me seemed fine.

For most of my life (before being diagnosed Autistic at the age of 29), I was ashamed of my feelings and embarrassed to ask for help, so I would shut off my feelings whenever they were "too much" or simply unpleasant.

Occasionally, I would pause feelings, and they would come back up later when I was alone (IF they came back up at all). However, I seem to be losing the ability to deny my feelings (or put them on pause) recently.

Additionally, many of the emotions and memories I'd "put away" years ago seem to suddenly be bubbling up like an overflowing toilet, leaving me stuck wading through the "shit" I thought I'd never have to unpack or process.

It's like my mind is a septic tank that's never been pumped or properly maintained and is now overflowing because there's no more room in it.

Or it's as if I've been playing "mind-Tetris" for so long that I've reached the top of the screen, and there's no more room to fill in any more blocks.

A person sits on a sofa and is playing a hand-held video game.

All the pain I used to be able to distance myself from now has nowhere to go.

There's no "storage" anymore, so when I feel things, they hit me (more intensely than ever), rushing over me immediately.

These days, I find myself raw, exposed, and unable to hide how I struggle when I'm overwhelmed by emotions or when I need help. This shift in my internal (and external) world has been both challenging and enlightening.

While I still believe camouflaging and hiding my NeuroDivergent traits has been bad for both my mental and physical health, it is scary to lose this ability (of masking).

Being unable to control and conceal my feelings is like losing control over myself.

After years of feeling (perhaps falsely) that I had enhanced control (compared to people around me), I now find I have very little (less than most people).

With my coping mechanism of avoiding pain and discomfort no longer functioning as it used to— this method of survival by denial has become unsustainable for me.

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My emotional pause button is broken.

The more I unravel, the more I realize that I have no choice but to learn ways to acknowledge and process my feelings in the present instead of repressing, pausing, and burring them until later (because my brain won't let me pause them anymore).

With my pause button no longer working, I have no choice but to learn to be truly present with my feelings (instead of viewing them like an outside observer as I did in years past)

A wooden drawing figure is holding a black keyboard key that says “pause” and “break” on it.

HOW did my pause button break?

It all started back in March when my grandfather passed away in hospital, triggering a storm of repressed childhood memories that I had long struggled to keep at bay.

While my grandfather's passing triggered this most recent flood of memories (which hasn't stopped since March of this year), this wasn't my first experience with recovering repressed memories.

The softening of my heart and disassembling of my inner walls had started years earlier (when I started practicing yoga, mindfulness, meditation, and other somatic practices). However, I didn't know I was beginning a critical journey at the time.

I've realized that this journey (of learning to feel again) is not for the faint of heart.

I'm only now getting to a place where I'm strong enough to feel everything I'm suddenly feeling with such intensity.

Feeling your feelings entirely, especially the hard ones (and crying), isn't a sign of weakness—it's a sign of strength.

Feeling your feelings is brave, especially if some of the events in your past were traumatic (because facing the past and its traumas requires immense courage).

My first resurfaced memory was years ago, in my mid-20s.

This first "memory event" happened in singularity (hardly the flood I've been experiencing recently). It was one memory - a feeling of deep loneliness and hurt (that knocked me onto the floor, crying in my bedroom alone on my yoga mat, hitting me like a ton of bricks as I pressed into a deep hip stretch).

The event was one breakthrough, as for the first time in my life, I could "name" the painful emotion I had felt as a young person.

After this event, "things were quiet" for a while.

It happened again when I was diagnosed Autistic at the age of 29.

A few years later, I experienced my first rapid acceleration (where I was flooded with childhood memories, mostly of school) when I was diagnosed Autistic at the age of 29 (and began to look at myself and everyone around me differently as a result of this awakening).

This first surge of memories was all related to my undiagnosed NeuroDivergence and all the misunderstandings in my life that had occurred due to nobody knowing the truth about my mind (not even me).

A tree surrounded by water in a flood.

Out of nowhere, I found myself engulfed in a deluge of memories, both pleasant and unpleasant, that I had long kept buried. The suddenness and intensity of this flood was overwhelming.

Eventually, once all of my "autism memories" were processed and re-cataloged, things got easier for me, and I found ease once again. Unfortunately, this relief would be short-lived.

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I hope this helps,
- Lyric