Sally Edelstein Collage | CONSUMING IMAGES
DEFROSTING THE COLD WAR MEDIA MADE WOMEN FRACTURED AMERICAN DREAMS RE: VISIONS GENDER BODY PARTS CONSTANT CRAVINGS CONSUMER CULTURE
The Body Remembers- Traumatic Memory

My memory leads a double life of knowing and not knowing at the very same time. It is a constant, exhausting  battle. Mine is a story about memory gone awry; about traumatic memory and its effect on memory functions  and post traumatic stress disorder.

I was sexually abused as a child by a family member. Here’s why I didn’t remember.

Among friends, I am the go to person when it comes to history and trivia, priding myself on my steel trap of a memory. How then can someone “forget” an event as traumatic as childhood sexual abuse?

Simply put trauma affects a variety of memory functions. Childhood sexual abuse can create negative disturbances of memory such as dissociation and PTSD leading to problems in basic memory encoding, storage, and retrieval.

Being abused by a trusted family member is the perfect opportunity for the victim to create information blockage. Memory blocking is not to avoid suffering, but because knowing about abuse by a loved one is necessary for survival.

But the body remembers.

With PTSD, traumatic memories become dissociated, fragmented, free floating in time. They pounce into the present unbidden in the form of flashbacks, nightmares intrusive thoughts and images you cannot control.

I search my memory bank for a coherent, narrative filled with nuance and detail but that is not how traumatic memory is.

Those who expect a clear cut linear and logical account, seem to think of memory as akin to a Netflix stream; click on a title and sit back for  a documentary  a clear cut representation of what transpired as though a camera had been there filming the whole time. That sadly is far from the reality.

In dissociation elements of the experience are not integrated into a whole but stored in memory as isolated fragments, sensory perceptions, intrusive images, behavior and body sensations. With PTSD I am missing the explicit narrative of information necessary to make sense of the distressing body sensations and images .

I am a storyteller without a story with a beginning, middle, and end.

These pieces tells that story

 

Remembering What Was Forgotten-Traumatic Memory, PTSD and Sexual Abuse
Remembering What Was Forgotten- Traumatic Memory ( Detail)
Remembering What Was Forgotten- Traumatic Memory ( Detail)
Memory in the Absence of Memory, collage. This collage addresses the intrusive imagery and fragmentary nature of dissociation/PTSD.
Memory in the Absence of Memory, (Detail)
Memory in the Absence of Memory, (Detail)
Memory in the Absence of Memory, (Detail)
Memory in the Absence of Memory, (Detail)
Abortion Circa 1972 Collage appropriated images 18" x 24"
Abortion Circa 1972 Detail Collage appropriated images 18" x 24"
Still Life of a College Bulimic 1973 gouache on board
Containment Collage Appropriated Images
Beauty Expiration- Best Used By collage mixed media 10" x 12"
I Too Love My Doctor Collage Appropriated Vintage Images
Chaos Collage Appropriated Images
Pills They Go To Your Head Collage Appropriated Images
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