Colorful and hopefully optimistic but maybe hateful occasionally

[littleoc]

I'm just trying to say that I really appreciate your presence here and I'm sorry I didn't make that obvious earlier. Y'all are great

 

[_mary_]

Unfortunately I have an oddly powerful memory. My first memory was when I was 9 months old. My memory has been pretty good since then. I like to think that if I could forget the traumas, and only remember the good memories, then I would be as normal as I always wanted to be. Turns out that's the opposite of true. We are shaped so much by our experiences that we just can't exist outside of them -- even if we do lose our memories. That's even down to the time period we are in now, because none of us around today know what it's like to be a pre-historic man, exactly, nor a baby dolphin crafting his name.

But dumping memories seems like a good alternative to losing the memories. I enjoy telling people some bits, while others I can't deal with in normal day-to-day life. They need to go somewhere that doesn't belong to me.

Do you think that drugs capable of damping the intensity of traumatic memories, can be usuful to treat PTSD ?

 

[littleoc]

@_mary_ No, I don’t think so.

First, it would be nearly impossible with today’s technology to isolate those memories. So, the drug would probably nonspecifically target either all memories, or it would target one part of the brain. Both could easily do much more harm than good, not to mention the possible long-term effects.

Second, if we could target that specific part of the brain, which we’d really be targeting multiple parts — getting rid of a memory wouldn’t be enough. The brain’s structure may have already changed, and usually this requires years of therapy to deal with. I’m not sure that a drug by itself could fix that, except maybe an antidepressant or mood stabilizer that would aid with therapy.

There is evidence that babies who experience trauma may not remember it, but they still suffer from the effects. It’s a bit unclear if adults would suffer the same way. There’s not a lot of research in this area. There would need to be before messing with someone’s memory, or else it may well cause more harm than good.

In research I’ve looked at, losing the ability to fear is much more effective. There’s a famous case of a person called S.M., who due to a rare condition in childhood, lost her ability to feel fear (her amygdala was turned to stone, basically). Her experiences in life may help treat people with PTSD or other similar diseases, but not by turning the amygdala into stone, obviously. During S.M.’s life, she has been in several traumatic events, but didn’t realize it or understand it. She failed to report to police, and only mentioned it to a doctor once asked — apparently nonchalantly. So that’s obviously not wanted either.

More about S.M. if you’re curious. (Wikipedia article.)
S.M. (patient) - Wikipedia

There are scientists who discovered how to selectively remove memories in a snail. They were able to remove the connection between a non-associated memory (seeing a mailbox) and an associated memory (getting mugged by a mailbox). This wouldn’t be like deleting an entire memory. It would be like removing the connection between random, mal-adaptive triggers/behaviors and the actual trauma, which might allow the brain to heal and move on faster. They’re still working on it, as there are too many ethical questions for human use at the moment. And scientists don’t know if it would be helpful in the long run, or hurtful.

Here’s one article discussing that, but there are millions:
Scientists Have Managed To Erase Memories In A Snail's Brain

All mollusks have very different brains from ours.

All in all, the answer is no. And most people don’t remember too much of their childhoods. People with excessive memory disorders report being stuck in the past often, but it’s not something that’s treatable with drugs at the moment. That would probably require DNA and epigeneic analysis. It would take forever.

Hope that helps!

 

[littleoc]

I guess that's more to say "Maybe it will be possible one day but it might not be."

Good question, by the way, I liked it

 

[littleoc]

The nightmares about my dad trying to shoot my mom are back. Sigh.

Weird thing is, instead of kid me hiding under my bed on the wall where my bed was in childhood. Now it’s adult me under my bed where it is now. No clutter in the dreams though. Makes it painful to wake up.

Also, the guy trying to shoot my mom isn’t my dad. It’s a man who looks like a nice man I know. This guy in University from Nigeria, one of the sweetest, most sociable people I’ve ever met. Quirky, small, and completely harmless. And his skin is so dark it’s almost blue! He’s really proud of that. Miss that dude, maybe I’ll see him on Monday. Last time I saw him was a month ago but we were both wearing Spider-Man shirts and it was exciting

 

[littleoc]

The point of the dream is the helplessness. It’s hard to make sense of being that helpless while your dad tries to murder your mom, and you can hear your mom screaming for us to stay hidden WHILE she’s also screaming for help.

My mom fought back but my dad pushed her down the stairs in front of my sister. He pushed my mom down onto my twin brother the night my twin officially became deaf. My mom screamed louder when she thought her body had crushed my brother than when she was pushed down the stairs. She was covered in so many bruises that the police told her she didn’t look Caucasian.

She didn’t call the police until my dad was asleep. Too afraid.

My dad was slapped on the wrist and received no punishments. Nobody cared. My mom silenced all our attempts to get outside help after that. Too dangerous.

 

[littleoc]

I was two or three.

 

[littleoc]

The judge literally told my dad “people get mad sometimes” and let him go. Didn’t give a shit at all.

 

[littleoc]

Maybe my mom was forced in court to lie. My sister was. My pedophile almost killed my sister. She was found in the ditch by his house. Blood alcohol level above fatal. Body temperature of 80 F. Blood pressure so low it wasn’t really detectable. Barely breathing.

When she woke up, my dad was in the hospital room and told her not to say anything or else our mom would suffer.

She told the judge she stole alcohol from the pedophile. Despite all the evidence not supporting that, the judge had her license taken away. Pedophile got away with it.

 

[littleoc]

People in school wouldn’t stop asking about it. They thought it was cool. I just acted like it was. My sister felt very betrayed.

She has avoided that type of alcohol since.

 

[littleoc]

The point of the dream is the helplessness. It’s hard to make sense of being that helpless while your dad tries to murder your mom, and you can hear your mom screaming for us to stay hidden WHILE she’s also screaming for help.

What I mean to say is that you know you have to help, but you can’t. If you do, either you get shot, stabbed, thrown down stairs, or else he gets even crazier and just kills your mom right in front of you while your eyes are open.

Just standing there staring at your mom getting choked is even worse than hiding while listening to her scream. When you’re hiding, at least you’re still doing something useful.

 

[littleoc]

I’m not sure what’s worse. Mom staring at you wild eyed while being choked, and you not being able to figure out if she wants you to go hide or get help — or her not looking at you at all and just trying to survive the moment and have you pretend it’s not happening. How’s anyone expected to recover from that?