Elective Amnesia?

There is an issue in my life that is known by only one other person; that being my wife Karen DeEtte. For some time now I have been aware that I have lost 4 yrs of my memory, ages 15-19. I have snippets of things that happened, but to put them into some kind of chronology, I cannot. The strangest part of this story is that neither my brother (7 years younger) nor my sister (5 years older) have memory of me, during that time. We were together for the first time in 35 yrs two months ago and both asked me where I was, what was I doing, where did I sleep, how did I eat? How can this be? If it were just me I would think of Alzheimer's or age related issues, but for them to ask me as well, that is strange.


My wife said to me, "Honey, do you honestly not know?" I honestly do not know or remember, and I am blown away that they too have lost "my memory". Could it be that with the loss of my mother at 15 that I just tranced out in trauma? But, they would have to have done the same right? Did I erase the most difficult parts of survival? Again they would have to have done the same. Was the pain at such depth that I chose to not believe it's happenings? I know that I lived because I am here. I am trying very hard to understand this, to wrap my head around it!


I don't know how to think about this. Where to connect. I could say I was on "auto-pilot", but what about them? Was I somehow a ghost (I use this lightly)? Did I fade from this existence? Was the world totally gray to me and being gray, I faded into the periphery? Perhaps I did not think of anyone but my pain, so they never thought about me? If I am not thought about, am I there? These are real questions. I don't understand. I know that I was mortified about my existence, my poverty, my lack of hope and the prospect of destitution throughout my life; and a total lack of a single person that loved me, or that ever loved me enough to remember me. How is it possible that my whole family lost me as well?

Was I hypnotized so deeply, by trauma, that I became not only invisible to me, but to others as well? Did we all create 3 different worlds to survive physically and emotionally? Did we form 3 different realities? And how did we all loose me?

I have to guess that somehow I retreated. I stepped back from the day to day realities of living and kind of walked through the world on auto-pilot. To my knowledge I formed no relationships that had depth, although there are people that tell me things that I don't remember. Apparently I had a deep relationship with a girl my age whom I remember as a friend that I never even kissed yet she insists that I asked her to marry me. She talks of intimacy that I do not remember.

Could it be that Viet Nam at 19, and the trauma of that experience became paramount and over shadowed earlier (what could be considered) mundane experiences? I do know that I did not tell the truth about ViewNam for years. I felt like America had been inundated with the war and just didn't want to hear about it, and who could believe it? Hell, I didn't even believe it.

A year or so ago I contacted a friend I had not talked to since early high school. He wasn't home so I left a message with his wife that it was me who called and left a call back number. When he called back he asked me if it was really me. He was under the impression that I had died in Viet Nam 35 years ago. (Where did he hear that? Did he go to my service?)

I am quite confident that I am psychiatrically sound, (only the sane think they are crazy). Yet this remains a mystery in my life. I would gladly except feedback or anyone who has had a like experience.