memory

[WinterHold]

The worst two edged weapon in your body is your own memory, if you think about it it's actually forcing you to re-live what isn't there, as obvious as this sounds it's just sad to consume hours thinking about the same thing over and over and over, just like a repeating loop that is never meant to stop.

You can't rationalize this: when your own body begins to eat you from the inside, you're sick; wounded, pills and anti-depressants or a joint can ease the symptoms, but how does one fight their own body and actually win??


What's your trusted way to get over memories?
Until now, all I learned is that you should ignore your body or do something else to forget the memory.

But what to do if the memory is crippling you?

[I_am_not_mafia]

I'm in a similar position to you. As you know, I have MS as well. I've also got a lot of complex trauma coming to the surface again. I've managed to tackle the MS well enough that I have had no new lesions in a year. I had a brain scan last April and the April before that and the scans were unchanged. I did this using the Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis diet. The first year wasn't so successful because I had stress from a house move and made a few mistakes with diet (e.g. finding that vegetable soup had coconut mllk in it). But since then I've been a lot stricter. I try to cut out all saturated fats as much as possible. I avoid cooked oils, meat and especially for me dairy because I have found that I now have an intolerance to milk (it made my nose run all the time). I also vape cannabis Friday and Saturday night, or sometimes instead if I feel particularly stressed or if my symptoms start to get worse. Symptoms are now generally getting better and disappearing, except for the lack of sensitivity in my fingers but I think that's because some nerves have actually died and can't be replaced.

One side effect of the cannabis though is that it's made it more difficult for me to suppress my emotions and this has allowed my complex trauma to become a problem again. It's like all the problems I had were just put on hold for 20 years. But sorting it out will make it easier for me to deal with stress better and will therefore help me control the MS. It's not that I forgot what happened to me, I just forgot how it felt at the time and those memories have started to resurface again. I had a debilitating flashback just last Friday in fact. It was a toilet break during a film and I came out the toilet and just sat on the ground. I just sat there crying and couldn't move for half an hour until I managed to force myself downstairs to where my husband was waiting.

I've started counselling though and what I found was that it's very important to find a counsellor that you can work with. The first one was completely wrong for me and just made everything worse, whereas the new one is really helping.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The worst two edged weapon in your body is your own memory, if you think about it it's actually forcing you to re-live what isn't there, as obvious as this sounds it's just sad to consume hours thinking about the same thing over and over and over, just like a repeating loop that is never meant to stop.

You can't rationalize this: when your own body begins to eat you from the inside, you're sick; wounded, pills and anti-depressants or a joint can ease the symptoms, but how does one fight their own body and actually win??


What's your trusted way to get over memories?
Until now, all I learned is that you should ignore your body or do something else to forget the memory.

But what to do if the memory is crippling you?

Luckily, most of my memories are happy ones.  I try not to dwell on the unhappy ones, but I wouldn't give them up for love or money - our pain is what makes us who we are.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The worst two edged weapon in your body is your own memory, if you think about it it's actually forcing you to re-live what isn't there, as obvious as this sounds it's just sad to consume hours thinking about the same thing over and over and over, just like a repeating loop that is never meant to stop.

If you do this you need to sit down with someone.

[tackattack]

Actually I feel the tongue is the worst two edged weapon in our bodies. Memories can be pretty bad too for some. Counseling would be a good way to help you identify those negative feedback loops and come up with ways to retrain them. A lot of the cognitive tools focus on , being in the moment, experiencing the emotions of the memory, then analyzing the behavior. That when coupled with self-identification of which behaviors you reward, strong goal setting and a micro-step improvement plan focused on short tem and self usually has improving results.

[LastPoet]

The worst two edged weapon in your body is your own memory, if you think about it it's actually forcing you to re-live what isn't there, as obvious as this sounds it's just sad to consume hours thinking about the same thing over and over and over, just like a repeating loop that is never meant to stop.

You can't rationalize this: when your own body begins to eat you from the inside, you're sick; wounded, pills and anti-depressants or a joint can ease the symptoms, but how does one fight their own body and actually win??


What's your trusted way to get over memories?
Until now, all I learned is that you should ignore your body or do something else to forget the memory.

But what to do if the memory is crippling you?

IMHO you could try cognitive-behavioral therapy with a good psychologist (not a fucking imam, Atlas). It is one of the best therapies out there that usually don't need drugs to help. You can do a search about that. Do notice that the therapist must be a complete stranger, to avoid biases.

Those are my 2 cents.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If you get to feeling bogged down by some old guilt trip just say "Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda, but it don't matter at all now." Yank your own leash.

[Alan V]

I sometimes speculate that back in the 1960s my father, as a World War II veteran, suffered from undiagnosed PTSD. That would explain many of his behaviors which I found baffling when I was growing up: his surprising temper, his control issues, and his conflict avoidance.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I sometimes speculate that back in the 1960s my father, as a World War II veteran, suffered from undiagnosed PTSD.  That would explain many of his behaviors which I found baffling when I was growing up: his surprising temper, his control issues, and his conflict avoidance.

Sounds likely. WWII vets were supposed to man-up and get over it. This meant that by and large they didn't get much help.

[EgoDeath]

Years of therapy will teach you that the only real way to deal with past trauma is to not focus on it. However it's one things to '"know" this logically and another thing entirely to "feel" it as a truth in your life. There may be some people who have "revelations" and in a single moment "get over" all of their past trauma, but I think that's pretty rare. Most bad shit that has happened to people IS truly bad shit. It's terrible to be abused/molested/neglected when you're young and there's often no real way to spin it any other way; it just sucks.

So yea, I think for most of us, simply learning to not focus on all the negative life has to offer is the only real solution. I think some people have probably driven themselves crazy thinking about how pointless life truly is, or how much evil their is in the world, etc. If you choose to focus on those negative things, that's where you'll live; in constant negativity.

I think it's easy to focus on the past or get wrapped up in the future and what it might bring... it's much more, or can be much more difficult to learn how to live in the moment and focus on what's actually in front of you. Learning to enjoy the things in life that bring you joy can be difficult if you have a lot of trauma in your past.

I don't have the answer, other than saying I think we just can't focus on all of the negative in our lives. As others have suggested, it might be a good idea for you to sit down with a professional and get some perspective on these things that are "playing over and over on a loop" in your mind.