Why You Only Remember The Good Stuff of a Bad Relationship

By Sandra L. Brown

Over and over again women are puzzled by their own process in trying to recover from a pathological relationship. What is puzzling is that despite the treatment they received by him, despite the absolute mind-screwing he did to her emotions, not only is the attraction still VERY INTENSE but also the POSITIVE memories still remain strong.

Women say the same thing--that when it comes to remaining strong in not contacting him (what we call 'Starving the Vampire') she struggles to pull up (and maintain the pulled up) negative memories of him and his behavior that could help her keep strong and detached.

But why? Why are the positive memories floating around in her head freely and strongly and yet the bad memories are stuffed in a 'mind closet' full of fuzzy cobwebs that prevent her from actively reacting to those memories?

There are a couple of reasons and we'll discuss today the first one. Let's think of your mind like a computer. Memories are 'stored' much like they are stored on a computer. Pain and traumautic memories are stored differently than positive memories.

Pulling up the negative memories from your hard drive is different than pulling up a memory that is on your desk top as an icon emblem. Traumatic memories get fragmented on their way to being stored on the hard drive. They get divided up into more than one file. In one file is the emotional feelings, another file is the sights, another file the sounds, another file the physical sensations.

But a WHOLE and complete memory is made up of ALL those files TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME such as what you emotionally felt, saw, heard, and physically experienced. Just one piece of it doesn't make it a complete memory such as just the positive memory.

A memory is good + bad =complete.

But when things are traumatic, (or stressful) the mind seperates the whole experience into smaller bits and pieces and then stores them seperately in the mind because it's less painful that way.

When women try to 'remind themselves' why they shouldn't be with him, they might get flashes of the bad memory but strangely, the emotional feelings are NOT attached to it. They wonder 'where did the feelings go?' They can see the bad event but they don't feel much about what they remember.

If you are playing a movie without the sound, how do you know what the actors are passionately feeling? It's the same thing with this traumatic recall of memories. You might see the video but not hear the pain in the voices. The negative or traumatic memory is divided up into several files and you are only accessing one of the files---a place where you have stored the positive aspects of the relationship.

To complicate things further, positive memories are not stored like negative memories. They are not divided up into other files. They don't need to be---they aren't traumatic.

So when you remember a time when the relationship was good or cuddly or the early parts of the relationships which are notoriously honeymoon-ish, the whole memory comes up--the emotional feelings, the
visual, the auditory, the sensations. You have a WHOLE and STRONG memory with that. Of course that is WAY MORE appealing to have--a memory that is not only GOOD but one in which you feel all the powerful
aspects of it as well.

Now, close your eyes and pull up a negative memory...can you feel the difference? You might see it but not feel it. Or hear it and not see much of it. Or feel a physical sensation of it but not the emotional piece that SHOULD go with the physical sensation. No matter what your experience is of the negative emotion, it is probably fragmented in some way.

Negative and traumatic memories are often incomplete memories--they are memory fragments floating all over your computer/mind. They are small files holding tiny bits of info that have fragmented your sense of the whole complete memory. These distorted and broken memory fragments are easily lost in your mind. 

If you have grown up in an abusive or alcoholic home, you were already subconsciously trained how to seperate out memories like this. If your abuse was severe enough early on, your mind just automatically does this anyway--if you get scared, or someone raises their voice, or you feel fear in anyway---your brain starts breaking down the painful experience so it's easier for you to cope with.

Next time we will talk about one other way your mind handles positive and negative memories and why you are flooded with positive recall and blocked from remembering and feeling those negative things he's done to you.

Adult Survivors of Childhood Trauma: What's Next?

 By Lisa Michels, Guest Writer

When trauma happens in childhood, be it molestation, witnessing a crime, or a severe injury, children appear to "bounce back."  However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Do you remember some of the kids you went to school with, such as the ones who your parents didn't want you to hang around with, the bad element?  At the time did you ever wonder why those particular kids seemed to act out in ways that weren't acceptable?  It probably never occurred to us that there could be something underlying that caused that particular behavior. Maybe we were even one of them. You know the ones that were termed "crazy" or maybe they were into alcohol, drugs or smoking marijuana or cigarettes behind buildings. 

There are red flags, or danger signs that children seem to exhibit when something in their lives is just not right.  Psychologists, scientists, and scholars have studied and reported on many of these signs of trouble for a number of years.  We've seen them written about in all the parenting magazines and books.  They are pretty easy to recognize and manifest themselves in a way that gives parents pause.

On the other hand, there are those who seem to internalize, get quiet, maybe even study too much and pour all of their energies into being a "geek or nerd."  They were shy, reserved and had trouble socializing and communicating with the "in" crowd.  They seemed to be sensitive, isolated, yet somehow you thought, if provoked, that one may snap.

We all look back and have memories of good and bad times in our growing up, but some of those memories are locked up, they can't be brought back easily.  It's the memory that shapes our being, the who that we are.  Traumatic experiences can affect us in several ways, some we may recall and even elaborate about, such as broken limbs or traffic accidents.  We tend to heal and then our stories about them grow with telling.

But some memories of trauma are so excruciating that it's too painful to recall them at will.  They are pushed far into the depths of our being and we grow up without them.  They stay put away, yet affect us in different ways, ways that we can't figure out.

There may come a day when something triggers that memory, whether it be a smell, an action, or even a phrase that we can't explain.  It may come back not as a full memory, but a feeling that something just isn't right, or an unexplainable fear or anxiety.  Our mind and body may react to this trigger in a way that we just can't figure out, we don't know why we feel this way, or when this all started, but it continues to affect our lives.  It may cause feelings of inadequacy, loss of power over our thoughts, lead us to drinking or drugs, but it's somehow taken over our life.

How do we recover that memory, the one that was locked away, the one that was so awful that to recall it would be deadly?  There aren't many 12 step programs that allow this long and painful process heal the wounds that cut so deep into our psyche.  Studies and controversial therapies say that repressed memories aren't really repressed, and that most children have the ability to recall the trauma, yet don't understand the implications of it.

There are no easy explanations, nor are there any easy ways to heal from a childhood trauma.

There are millions of adults paying therapists thousands of dollars to find out why they react to situations the way they do.  We have a need to know why and feel unsettled until the mystery is unraveled and dealt with in a positive way.  We feel the need to heal, yet in some cases, we don't know what it is from which we need healing. 

Recovering the repressed memory is a process that you would think brings resolution.  Finally, we understand the unknown.  Our fears and anxiety are given a name. Yet this is the beginning of feeling the knife piercing the skin. We go from burying the pain so deep that we block all ability to feel, whether it be good or bad, to allowing ourselves to finally feel the reality of the pain that has pierced our bodies so long ago. Can we finally make peace within ourselves? The answer is yes, over time and through intense work.