Are My Memories True? [Me, Lynn]

Again, I'm reading another multiple's blog, called Living with Multiple Personalities. The writer is also a mental health counselor. And one of the questions another reader asked is how can one know that memories are true and accurate. Their answer:
That is a question survivors ask themselves and their counselors over and over again. Unfortunately, there isn't an easy answer. No one can be totally sure of the accuracy of all of their memories unless they have been followed by video cameras their entire lives! So save yourself the torture and accept that your memories, and the memories that your alters have, are true... but they may not be accurate.

I've often struggled with trying to 'prove' my memories accurate or not. One exercise that always frustrates me - think back to a memory of you and a parent when you were middle-school aged. Try to envision the small things - some clothing you wore, decorations on the wall. Then ask that parent (or use someone else you knew then) about that memory, without giving away those details, and see if you can get those details out of them. Then share your memories with them. You'll often find them saying "Oh, we didn't have that color on the walls then; it was three years later that I painted them that color" or otherwise remembering something specifically contradictory to what you are remembering.

And the details don't really matter, do they? Does it matter when the walls were painted blue? Or how old you were when you got that pair of shoes? The blue wall is obviously important to you, and the shoes. The timeline, not as much. The emotions and memories that you attach to the sensation of those details is important - and in that sense, true for you. However, they may not be accurate.

I remember finding a picture a few years ago of my mother. From the location, I can tell it was taken when I was between five and ten years old. She's on her knees in the back yard doing some gardening. And she is very heavy in the picture. She seesawed a lot on weight for most of my childhood, but I don't ever remember her looking that heavy. And neither does she - because when I showed her the picture, she said it wasn't her. Her mind so fights seeing her that heavy that she can't even see that it is her. The picture must be treated as more accurate than her memory or mine - it's a photo, after all. But is it important? I think not. For her, and for me, we both remember her as skinnier than the photo. And I think that is a more 'real' picture of her in my mind. Nevermind accuracy.