What is it Like After You’ve “Processed” a Memory

[joeylittle]

it was my understanding that PTSD can not be cured, just managed.

@Friday addressed this, I'll just add - there's a pretty simple science reason for the "can't be cured" statement. You can't know that you've cured a condition, unless you can fully and objectively identify it in its 'uncured' state. We don't know everything about PTSD, yet. So we can't know whether or not it's been completely eradicated.

It's a semantic argument, but I know you like semantics :)

PTSD is very treatable, in most cases. It is manageable, in most cases. It can recur, but there's enough we do know about how to treat it that a complete reversal of an (effective) treatment is unlikely. It's statistically more likely to experience a recurrence of some symptoms. Which ones will differ from person to person. There's no ironclad way of knowing whether those symptoms are still connected to vestiges of the PTSD 'injury', or whether they are independent of it.

But figuring out the 'root' of the recurrence is often irrelevant, since the treatment approaches are often the same - and occam's razor, if PTSD is the primary mental health diagnosis you've had, it's probably some vestigial PTSD thing.

Hence, even if you "processed" a memory/trauma (or learnt mechanisms to navigate around it)? It could bubble up at any time under the "wrong" circumstances and revert to its previous traumatic memory state, right?

Right now, science thinks "no". Once memory is reconsolidated, it cannot revert to it's pre-consolidated (traumatic memory) state. BUT: (big but) - this is a hypothesis. There's a long road ahead for research to travel down. Lots of stuff is still just (working) theory.

"Fear extinction" is a useful search term, when looking for the latest on the what/how of traumatic memory.

From a less semantic perspective - I no longer fit the diagnostic criteria for PTSD in the same way I used to, most of the time. But, under the right conditions, I can get pretty symptomatic. My management skills are much stronger than they used to be, and it's been awhile since I've needed any help from my therapist to manage a flare-up. I don't know how it (PTSD) would be for me if I wasn't still actively engaged in therapy, or if my depression wasn't medicated.

 

[Deanna]

I don't know how it (PTSD) would be for me if I wasn't still actively engaged in therapy, or if my depression wasn't medicated.

Perfect. I couldn't have said it any better.

 

[grit]

I would not say I am cured but I would say that I do not have many of the symptoms listed in the DSM. However, for almost a year and half in therapy, I experienced all the PTSD symptoms in a wild ride of dissociation, depression, and extreme anxiety not to mention heavy body - that I could not lift my muscles like I have become a stone! It felt like when I started to talk about my childhood trauma, I could not close the door to all the affects, both body and mind that came.

I love what @The Albatross said about the gap of trauma memory, emotion/feeling and thought extending so you do not fall into the abyss of dissociation or other dangerous coping mechanism like extreme denial, or self harm or avoidance or drinking etc (for anyone...I do not mean YOU, like you. I remember the minute I opened my right brain to express what happened to me my left brain stopped working and I was floating unknown reality and completely lost my bearing and my identity. I was literally back as a child fighting for my life in adult body. That was the pain.

Now I feel I am no longer afraid to talk about my childhood trauma. I am actually curious about what happened to me. I welcome to see it in so many different ways and this does not mean, I have no feelings, I cry. I feel anger. I am often sad and hurt but it is like I am sorry I went through and died a little. I am strong today and hope I can contain my hurt as a child. But also luckily, I see all the other manifestation I developed in order to keep the trauma away. The childhood trauma is not actually my immediate problems but what are the other behaviour, thoughts, personality traits that I put in place in order to keep the train going. some of this is like being gossipy, being judgmental, being foolish and impulsive and being hostile when crossed (does not matter if I do this externally or internally) they are things that are directly linked to my trauma because it was easier I bad mouth others when I was in pain. I shop if I feel sad. I avoid my husband if I feel abandoned. I would not have come conscious of these more dangerous things if I did not first empty some memory areas - the brain is not infinite.

The processed memory really does make us stronger and does heal the symptoms of PTSD. I think as long as you are in safe space today, and have supportive group of people (or even one person) other than the therapist, you will notice the difference in your sleep, eating habits and you may even lose weight (if you carried some of your trauma in weight...I had and not everybody else does it too).

It may not be clear right away but you will feel you remember the event, you may get teary eyes and may feel deep compassion and gratitude you survived and you lived to tell and you may experience even more empathy and compassion toward others because you created a space in limited brain power area. I know all these may sound juju...but honestly, that is trauma, it just robs us of energy and space in the brain.

I admire you are exploring and dissecting and getting a lot of traction already (whether you know it or not) in your body as you write and read and think and feel during this posting.

 

[Starfire]

I think of it as watching a very scary movie. First time I'm in it and frightened sometimes to death. Don't know what's going to happen. By the time I watch the same movie for the 10th time, reactions are minimal. Still see the story. Maybe a piece that elicits a mild reaction. In my experience the story never goes completely away.

 

[user27357]

for me talking about a traumatic experience in detail is like reopening an old word file in windows.

When you look for the file on a computer, you see when it was last saved before you open it. You get the option to open read-only or to edit and when you close it you can save changes or not. Traumatic memory files work in very similar ways in my brain.

An example based on a pleasant memory, my first date with my wife. I don't think about it all that much, typical guy. File last saved a year ago on our anniversary. Read-only, no edits. My wife's memory of the same evening may have been opened last week when she saw a young couple on their first date. Edited. last saved last Saturday night.

Our files are definitely going to different, Hers has lots of details she remembered later and added, comparisons to other peoples stories, the way I reacted to her last retelling of the story, lots of extra stuff. And it has the extra value-added credential of having been opened and saved just last week when she was a sane, capable adult thinking sane, capable adult things. Mine has fewer edits, doesn't include lots of unremembered stuff that is lost (deleted?), and hasn't been edited or opened in any way except read-only for years. maybe since initial save. I see it as being opened last year on our anniversary. I was a sane capable adult then, it must be a good file, right?

What I don't see is the history of being saved initially over 40 years ago, by an 18-year-old who was definitely not a sane capable adult. Our first date was a required preliminary for the things 18-year-old guys think about 143 times a day. We had Italian food, I am pretty sure.

My point is this;

My trauma memories were saved at a time when I was in or shortly after a traumatic experience. I think about them daily, and edit and resave them every time. When I think about them, I give the memory the credential of having been recently saved by me, the sane capable guy I am. I open and resave them, keeping that file last saved on date fresh and current.

A therapist helps me remember that as we save them, we do it together with their experienced and therapeutic input and maybe the READ ME note attached that says something along the lines of "these memories were created while in an ambulance with medics cutting off your clothes with scissors, please be aware that some details may be totally irrelevant to normal life but may be useful if you ever experience the same thing again because keeping them filed away may be a good way to help yourself remember that you survived."

I hope this makes sense.

To answer your question, retelling the story over and over to yourself alone is just inviting embellishment and adds value to the memory every time you open it and close it. It is a huge, important memory and your mind gravitates towards opening it, maybe in hopes of figuring out why it happened, maybe in hopes of somehow solving the mystery of why you react to it the way you do, or maybe just because it is in the way and you want it gone. Alone with our thoughts, we save away some pretty horrific things, at least I do. After therapy and enough retelling and resaving with a therapist in their with you, maybe you can get a read me file inserted in there that reminds you that you are safe now, these memories were formed at a much more dangerous time in your life, every time you open that file. For me, that's the difference.

 

[piratelady]

@enough I really like that analogy, it makes a lot of sense.