Working with "old emotions"

[Agua del Cielo]

yes, thats usually the case with trauma.
Usually you forget completely about it, sometimes you remember a tiny part of it.

Many times the memory gets fragmentized.
One could say, in the attempt to survice, the self (not the "real self" , ratherthe personality shell as Q'uo calls it) divides the "incident" in many fragments, in the hope at least some of the "personality fragments" will survive.
So, when memory starts to come back, it is in tiny pieces.
A body sensation here, a part of an image there, a smell, and so on.
Each is charged with a portion of the pain. It usually takes years or even decades to "collect" all pieces, if it's Heavy Trauma.
The mechanisms involved are very fascinating!

It goes so far as projecting parts of the personality to other peoples system an attaching others.
Also, sometimes portions of the self are being projected to other realities to have them safe, simply incredible!

I found, that quite often you use being sick to integrate dissociated parts (that were "lost" during traumatic situations) into the Self,just als you described!
Thank you for sharing