Do you ever wish you could just delete your memories?

[Sweetleaf]

I really wish I had a button that I could press, and just delete my traumatic memories. I feel like if offered, I'd hit that button even if it took all my autobiographical memory with it.

Often, basically multiple times a day, I will be thinking about really bad moments and stop myself, and either think or say something along the lines of wishing I could delete all that shit.

There are so many things I wish I could undo. So many things I want to forget.

It's not just traumatic memories either - though that makes up a whole lot of it.

I wish I could undo telling anyone about the trauma. I don't really know why I feel that way about having told a few people who were pretty close to me. I've distanced myself from them, I don't even want to talk to them anymore. I have become very withdrawn and I isolate myself a lot.

I really wish I could delete all memories associated with the psychosis I experienced at the end of my time being traumatized. It's hard to even bring up, because I feel like if I tell people, they will think I'm crazy or a schizo or something. The psychosis happened at the peak of some really bad years of trauma, when my mind couldn't handle all that shit anymore and broke from reality. I worry that people will just think I'm f*cked in the brain for even having had it happen, when it happened because I got dragged so low my mind couldn't take it anymore. Psychosis was part of what got me out of the situation, but holy shit, it's right up there in the "most terrifying things I have experienced" category. I want to forget the f*cked up delusional lines of thought, I want to forget the insane level of terror experienced in the acute stage, I want to forget all of the things I said and did.

I just want to forget so much. It's really hard to deal with. I sit there wishing it would all go away. Either I want to forget, or I want to disappear. I don't want to be me. I feel a lump in my throat just typing all this.

 

[KwanYingirl]

I understand what you mean. It is a heavy burden we carry. Nobody wants to remember, avoiding thoughts of our traumas is one of the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. When you’re feeling overwhelmed by it, try to comfort yourself or distract your mind from it. Processing what happened is part of healing. Name it, claim it, dump it.
I’m sorry you’re having a hard time. For us to be even on a support group shows the true strength we have underneath it all. Hang in there. I hope you have a trusted t to help you retrain your brain.

 

[Gs172003]

I don't remember most of mine but what I do I blame myself for. I want to erase years out of mine and my kids' lives.

 

[ladee]

I remember very little and none of the SA... I do remember the emotional abuse. And early on in healing, I almost sent myself over the edge arguing with myself that NOTHING happened, and I was just straight up insane... and having no one to hear me... validate anything... even have my own break with reality and should have been in the hospital and wasn't...

It has been so hard to stay on the path with few memories. Can't say i wish I had them tho... I went thru and still go thru hell sometimes without the pictures... and for all of you who do remember, I can't begin to imagine the double slam you all feel... but mine is a burden too... If I didn't have others that understand my feelings... even without the pictures.. I wouldn't be alive... I couldn't have continued to carry the insanity of it all...

And I'm so sorry you are at such a painful point.. to wipe out your memory of possibly a few good things along the way... I know it hurts. And it seems we will never get past it... but we do... thank you for sharing.... hope your load is lighter soon.

 

[Deleted member 34328]

Yes! If I could, I would. Without a doubt.

Missing memories or time lapses are really hard for me. I have had experiences (lately) where I dissociate in the middle and have no recollection of how things ended, who was there and how did I get home. That I find very difficult. I have no closure to several things because there is no end.

It's also true that if I wiped off several years, I'd also wipe out memories of my kids' milestones. Special times with a mentor who's walked with me.

There are things in these last few years that are good. Sometimes you just have to look hard to find them.

It sounds like you're experiencing a never ending nightmare and saying that morning does come, well... very unhelpful. Thank you for sharing. I don't think You're crazy at all.

 

[Sweetleaf]

I hope you have a trusted t to help you retrain your brain.

Yeah, I have a therapist. She's pretty good I think. We were doing EMDR, but stopped for the time being because the target memories (SA related) were too distressing for me. I have had some improvement, though. I don't think I'm as distressed by those memories as I was previously. She gave me some techniques to help me desensitize myself without making me feel too distressed, and I think it's working now, but it's slow progress.

I almost sent myself over the edge arguing with myself that NOTHING happened, and I was just straight up insane...

I went through similar things to that, but there is far too much actual evidence of it all for me to play the "let's pretend none of that was bad/none of that happened" game with myself.
I have a lot of memories related to it all. Many of them blend together because a lot of the things that were done to me were repeated a lot. They blend together until something makes me think of a specific event, and after that it's hard to not think about it.

Missing memories or time lapses are really hard for me. I have had experiences (lately) where I dissociate in the middle and have no recollection of how things ended, who was there and how did I get home. That I find very difficult.

I have some missing memories from the time I was being traumatized. For example, I don't remember the incident where my knee was injured pretty badly. I've had the same dissociation problems, not remembering how I got home, or to some destination, or driving past destinations and realizing it after I've gone some distance.

You're right that it wouldn't be good to want to throw out all the good memories with the bad, but at the same time it seems almost impossible to find any good memories from the past 4 years or so. I'm two months free of the really abusive situation I was in, and even these two months don't really have high points. I have a hard time finding good things previous to the last 4 years (almost all of it is abuse), even though I know they have to be there. It was really hard to come up with strong positive memories for use as "happy place" memories in EMDR. All I could think of was me playing an organ.

It seems hard to have new experiences that are good, when I'm constantly trying to stay calm and distracted from my own thoughts/memories, and when I'm so easily startled, overloaded, overwhelmed, etc. I isolate myself a lot, it's hard to take public interaction or even interaction with familiar people. It's hard to not give in to my desire to flee from public areas and crowded places. It's hard to view people's interactions with me objectively, instead of searching for ways they might be trying to mess with me.

Just now, at physical therapy, I heard laughter from the people behind me. My mind really wanted to think that they were laughing at me - that they made a joke at my expense or something. I frequently have to convince myself that such thoughts are just paranoia talking and not objective fact. Shit like this is part of why I have such a hard time in public. My brain is constantly looking for threats or people with malicious intentions.

Thank you for saying I'm not crazy. Also thanks to everyone for the replies.

 

[ladee]

I have continually disassociated all my life... up until about 5 months ago.. I do know not what happened or how... but have had some very stressful situations and have not 'gone away'.. I kinda miss it honestly... but it's been good for the most part...

What you are experiencing may be with you for awhile.. I think we all still get on overload with too many people around, and I have been on this journey a long time... so be kind to yourself... take your time... and thank you for sharing... hope we can all work together for a better life.. we are here for you... gentle hugs if you accept..

 

[Ronin]

I want to forget the f*cked up delusional lines of thought

You see, I don't with mine.

It's good yardsticks to measure against. Good reminders of what kinds of crazy I find outright nuts, not up my alley, not my courses of action & not on my conscience, in the middle of others' nuts. Darned valuable lessons. Far from happy memories, but still memories that are useful to keep.

 

[flowerapple]

There is a Black Mirror episode about deleting your autobiographical memories.

I would love to delete my memories and the lines of thought that have come along with it. I mean I think anyone would whether or not they had traumatic memories or just an embarrassing memory, but I would definitely love to get rid of them.

But how I understand it is that the reason we have these memories constantly popping up in our minds is because they are incomplete memories in that they are fragmented. So our brains are trying to solve the puzzle, because the missing memory is there and so it is trying to find it to fix the puzzle. That is why we focus on it like that. It is like with repressed memories where you can't remember the events but you are focused on it and you know something is missing and/or wrong. So the way I see it though it would look pleasant to forget, your brain would constantly be focusing on that gap in your mind. This is how I understand it at least.

Sorry to be the bummer.

 

[Sweetleaf]

Sorry to be the bummer.

Well it's not really a bummer at all considering erasing your memories is impossible, lol. There can be stuff you don't remember but there isn't exactly an "on/off" switch for that.

I think I might have seen that episode. Is it the one with the "grain" things?

 

[flowerapple]

It's the one with the chip that they implant behind the ear. Season 1, episode 3.

 

[Freida]

Every damn day.