77. Angela Galbreath: Activated Memories Lead to Hidden Meanings in Behavior

Sexual Assault Survivor Stories Podcast - SASS

When long lost memories, suppressed for decades through fear and dissociative amnesia, start to surface in the cognitive mind, the results can lead to frustration and confusion over what the memories stem from. Emotional trauma survivors often spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the cause and meaning of these memories that are often accompanied by unexplained compulsive or habitual behaviors, somatic symptoms and illnesses, hyperawareness, intrusive thoughts that don’t make sense, nightmares, and startling emotional responses to bewildering activators, or triggers. All of this can lead to a compounding of emotional, physical, and relationship issues. All of this is not uncommon at all. And a big contributor to these types of psychophysiological trauma issues are rape and sexual assault.

In this episode I’m joined by a SASS listener who emailed me about the fact that her decades-old rape memories suddenly surfaced. Angela Galbreath wrote to tell me that the SASS podcast was “a lifeline” for her when these memories arose as a series of catalysts emerged: a calm, stable lifestyle, reading materials that came into her hands at work talking about violence prevention for women and girls, and a television series that had an episode that involved a rape situation with dynamics very similar to Angela’s real life rape and subsequent sexual assaults. This combination of stimuli coincided with Angela having just reached out to a therapist whom Angela felt comfortable enough with to tell her rape memories to, and thus started Angela’s impactful story of recovery and healing that is bound to impress and inspire all of my SASS listeners.

This week’s episode follows two weeks of some educational content that directly applies to Angela’s experience of the formation of trauma memory, amnesia, and implicit memory, as well as the process of deciding whether to tell anyone about her rape and multiple sexual assaults; it’s a real-life practical exercise into the neuroscience side of rape and sexual assault trauma. Please give a listen to this week’s episode, and then make sure you tell everyone you know about SASS so that the podcast continues to grow and reach thousands of listeners.

It would be great to hear your thoughts and input on this episode…and whether you found this episode informative and helpful. And, please rate this episode and leave a five-star rating! Your input is appreciated!

Also, please remember to do your part to help bring justice to victims and survivors of rape and sexual assault; the best way for you to do that is to Start By Believing; because, we all know someone whose life has been impacted by rape or sexual assault.

Finally, here are some links you might find informative, helpful, and resourceful. Please learn about these people and organizations and support them financially if at all possible. They are there for you!

https://safeinharmsway.org

https://evawi.org

https://startbybelieving.org

https://thejanbrobergfoundation.org

https://projectcallisto.org

https://projectbeloved.org

https://unspokenboundaries.com

https://createpeacefulsolutions.com

https://arcigrey.com

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