What Does A Resolved Memory Feel Like?

[ladee]

From now on @BlueOrange, you will be getting rough hugs from me...:blackeye:.... until you tell me otherwise... hey, that's what we are here for, to help each other. And unless they read this exchange between us, they will think I am being mean.:wideeyed: But you know I mean it in a loving way !!! I appreciate you have a sense of humor !!!

 

[katz]

Once you've resolved a memory, how does it feel different?

Does it not intrude into your thoughts...

It seems to me that you have mourned them. I had a time when I was able to "cry out" most of the feelings of a particle time. I find that now the memories don't bother me as much. I remember it, but I don't burst into tears anymore. I always tell myself that I have "felt the feelings and reacted to what happened".

I have quite a few more to go thru, but it is very reassuring to myself to know that I can handle it. It really lowered my fears about remembering anything from the past.

 

[oasis2003]

Sometimes I feel guilty because I get jealous of people who are further ahead in the recovery pro...

long way to go me too

 

[Deleted member 34424]

You know when things are resolved when you shrug at it, laugh at it, have no negative reactions to it. It can happen but it CAN happen.

 

[joeylittle]

You know when things are resolved when you shrug at it, laugh at it, have no negative reactions to it.

Disagree; I think this is an oversimplification. I have resolved a handful of moments from my main trauma - and a handful more from other traumatic events - some of these things are always going to be tinged with sadness for me, some with longing, others with just the straight up memory of what it was to have felt that way...and yet, I'd still call these things resolved.

Everything depends on the individual, of course. But my personal definition is more like:

• Do I really understand that it's something that happened in the past, and is not happening in my present?
• Can I trust myself to unpack the memory and not be overwhelmed, or too shaken - can I take it out and look at it with some distance and appropriate detachment?
• Can I experience appropriate feelings about it now, in the present, that are ultimately appropriate, and contribute to my overall growth as a human? Or - can I accept it as a part of my past, which is carried within my present self.

In more practical terms: if I shed a few tears, they aren't painful. The details aren't crystal-clear as they once were. There's a separation between me and the memory. It's in the past.

 

[Deleted member 34424]

What I said was simplified for a reason: it is the shortened version of what 10 different people in the field of psychology and science has said to me personally, and I'm not even counting the many times I've heard it in books and interviews.

 

[illusionist]

When you can glance back, instead of staring. It takes time.

 

[Tinyflame]

For myself, a resolved memory has a different perspective than it once did, perhaps a more inclusive context, & contains less self-blame or self-hatred.

It also becomes a 'memory', not a re-living (of which the re-living did not contain new or different perspective either).