It's funny what you say Lisa as I can remember some of the bad things which happened to me (but I don't have PTSD of course) but I can barely remember any other normal or good things from around the times I experienced trauma.

I also have a memory of a situation where I was raped where I saw the room and the darkness but knew what happened.....I know this is labelled disassociation but the weird part was it was more like I had a sixth sense and knew what was going on while looking into darkness.

As I did try to deal with my traumas and got older, when other situations arose, I always felt somewhere between being there and watching...like being stuck as to whether acknowledge it or disassociate.

Fundamentally for me, in order to heal something you need to find what is broken first - whether that be a memory or acknowledging what you know to be true. As in there is a police report that you were raped and medical evidence to substantiate it but you can't remember it happening to you. I think you have to come to some acceptance of the reality before you can begin to heal. Perhaps when you do decide to accept something you know the memories may eventually come back....or they may never come back. Either way you have to decide to either accept something happened to you and try and heal it or you can decide to put it off waiting for a memory to appear. I think this is similar to what Lisa is saying she is doing.