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How do I get over stuff???

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Yusuke22

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I’m not good at remembering most things, but when someone hurts me, it sticks. It’s practically impossible for me to get over things. Stuff my partner did that hurt me last year feels like it happened yesterday. Even small stuff. My therapist says this is normal, that it’s part of hypervigilance, that my brain is wired to remember this stuff. I get that, but understanding it isn’t helping. I can tell myself that I’m over it a million times, that I love my partner and that he loves me, I can beg my brain to forget it, but it’s still there. It makes it so I can’t feel secure with him, even though he’s trying so hard and never did anything that was all that terrible. The persistence of the memories makes it difficult to remember that I do love him. He’s been better to me than anyone else I’ve ever been with. I want to spend my life with him. But I can’t do that with this stuff stuck in my head. I’m sure this isn’t rare and am hoping someone who has successfully managed to navigate something like this before can give me some pointers. My therapist says I’m just supposed to be honest with my partner when these memories invade my head, and that I’m supposed to remind myself that I made the decision to get over them. It just doesn’t work for me, though, and I can’t go through life expecting my partner to be perfect and never do anything that hurts me.
 
Do you have a trauma therapist? Although I still have a long way to go, EMDR has been the most helpful treatment for me to lay old things from the past to rest. For me, the “decision to get over things” is not sufficient. I can logically know I’m trying to get over things, but the physiological responses persist - and they are loud, painful, and yucky emotions and physical sensations. For me, EMDR has been the best thing to bridge the gap between the logical and the emotional/physiological.

Something else to remember and tell yourself when you become overwhelmed by these things is your brain is trying to protect you. Your brain is signaling you so you can take measures to avoid pain. Your brain won’t “just forget it.” I’ve learned it’s best to thank your brain for trying to look out for you even if the alarm bells are no longer necessary. And then revert to some coping skills.

I hope you find some relief!!
 
Do you have a trauma therapist? Although I still have a long way to go, EMDR has been the most helpful treatment for me to lay old things from the past to rest. For me, the “decision to get over things” is not sufficient. I can logically know I’m trying to get over things, but the physiological responses persist - and they are loud, painful, and yucky emotions and physical sensations. For me, EMDR has been the best thing to bridge the gap between the logical and the emotional/physiological.

Something else to remember and tell yourself when you become overwhelmed by these things is your brain is trying to protect you. Your brain is signaling you so you can take measures to avoid pain. Your brain won’t “just forget it.” I’ve learned it’s best to thank your brain for trying to look out for you even if the alarm bells are no longer necessary. And then revert to some coping skills.

I hope you find some relief!!
Thanks for the advice! I think I have a trauma therapist. His profile said it was one of the areas he specializes in, anyway. We haven’t done any emdr, just mostly talk therapy and some mindfulness exercises. He doesn’t think I’m ready yet to really get into processing my trauma, that I’m not in a safe enough space yet, so we’ve just been dealing with issues as they come up.
 
I can beg my brain to forget it, but it’s still there.

in my own case, this unrealistic expectation created havoc in my memory functions across the board. i was working so hard to forget the hard lessons that i was losing the good memories in the collateral damage. after learning how to forgive rather than working unrealistically hard to forget, my memory functions improved across the board. i am the only senior citizen i know whose memory is improving with age. my love life, also. being able to forgive the love of my life for being human has opened ALLOT of doors between us.

but that is me and every case is unique. . .

steadying support while you sort your own case.
 
We haven’t done any emdr, just mostly talk therapy and some mindfulness exercises. He doesn’t think I’m ready yet to really get into processing my trauma, that I’m not in a safe enough space yet, so we’ve just been dealing with issues as they come up.
This is smart!! Rushing into EMDR is never a good idea.
 
i can understand that, and from the point of hypervigilance. Perhaps ask yourself what you believe is the threat, what does it therefore mean? That is, what stories are you telling yourself? Are they related very much to past experiences? And to down-regulate, recognize fear.

This isn't exactly applicable here, but does include it: like @arfie said so much is lost in the collateral damage that good memories or good reasons to question one's thoughts can get disappear atm off the radar. I like @arfie 's perspective.

Best wishes to you and welcome.
 
Don't know if this makes sense, but fighting feelings and thoughts tends (for me anyway) to make them linger and get bigger. I'm told that accepting them is a way to help them dissolve. I then sort of trick myself into 'accepting' them when I say that to myself, but I'm 'accepting' from a place of just wanting to make them go away rather than accepting. Which doesn't wor, and the a noting cycle just gets bigger and I end up more frustrated.

So maybe 'deciding to get over it', means accepting that you hold on to these thoughts, and that they are there with you, but that you don't need to act on them in a hypervigilence type of way but live along side them, until you're in a place to work on the underlying reasons for that hypervigilence?
 
I think I'll kind of change, or add to, my response: are you being reminded of more of the same, or is your gut telling you otherwise? Because they always say trust our intuition - hard to do with ptsd. But, our explanations may be wrong, but our gut is spot on often. After all, we had to be able to assess who and what was around us, and human behaviour, not a choice but a necessity. And we usually blame ourselves, or take on a large proportion of the responsibility. Logically, if something is triggering, it's familiar. Maybe it's not the past you aren't able to let go of, but the present you're aware of? (Just a thought, disregard if it doesn't apply.)
 
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