bad memories

Post Reply New Topic

How do you shake off bad memories?? I feel like I'm drowning in them lately. Everything I do reminds me of how someone hurt me or how I humiliated myself. People just seem to ruin everything for me.

I've had this happen to me before plenty of times, it seems that once you start feeling bad for yourself your brain will summon every negative memory it can to "prove yourself right".

My way of coping is watching my favorite comedy shows, like "Whose Line Is It Anyways", "The Colbert Report" and "Futurama"

I also force myself to only think about the most recent thing that went wrong, and what I can learn from it. All those other memories are in fact irrelevant traps and have no use for me in the present. Dismiss them because they can no longer help you.

Hope that helps

I don't really dwell on bad memories. For that matter, I don't generally remember bad memories for long. Consequently, I don't really keep grudges against people with a couple of exceptions.

Its not like I'm dwelling on stuff. I try to go about my day, but I guess I'm really depressed. I can't take anymore failures. Relationships. Special interests. career. All are just bad right now. A song on the radio. Neighborhoods I drive thru or a restaurant that I drive by. Oh now I remember hanging out with someone and then I remember how they hurt me. Or something sparks a memory of some kind of failure or humiliation. Like what happened to my good memories? Just too many bad things happening to me I guess. At this point it feels like I fail at everything, and a huge part of that is my job which is utter torture. I'm trying to get a new job and move out of here, but its not working out so well.

I'm using them in a creative project. It's like I'm burning them on a funeral pyre.

Someone told me that if bad memories keep popping up when you are not really concentrating on anything, it may be PTSD. I was doing quite ok last summer when I was focused and working hard on something. Recent contact with my estranged mother then triggered a period that when I wasn't focused on a project, like when waiting for the bus, all these bad memories would take over my mind. That's when I was told it might be PTSD. Finding a counselor (good luck finding one without his or her own agenda) to just ramble too may help, or just ramble on here, it helps me somehow to just get it "out". I don't believe in a lot of psychological theories, but do kind of believe that the memories coming back can mean it's time to process, sort them out, reconcile some of the dynamics, then move on.
For me, it worked good because with all the bad memories of crazy ass abuse (triggered by her then current need to start up where she left off many many years ago when I cut off contact) helped me see how much better a person I am, not only better than what she believed but so much of a better person in so many regards than she ever hoped or tried to be. That helped me so much.

Good luck!

I'd had a repressed memory come up in the past few days, it's rather disturbing to remember something after 20+ years.

I was dx with PTSD, so maybe that's what's going on. I've tried meeting with counselors, but they are either too over worked to give me their full attention or they're rude to me. The rudeness makes me wonder what it is about me that makes them think it is okay to treat me like that? After just getting out of an abusive relationship my counselor tried to tell me the relationship wasn't that bad and nobody is happy in their relationship anyways so I should just let it go. She also said my abusive ex "seemed like a nice guy." I left there feeling like she slapped me in the face.

What must have been the most unpleasant thing that ever happened to me is something I can't even remember. I guess I repressed it. That's one way of dealing with unpleasant memories but you usually don't choose it.

That counselor is a silly superficial putz who wouldn't know mental health if it slapped her in the head.

Credentials do not preclude stupidity. If you see her again, tell her you have a friend who needs a counselor and ask who she recommends. Take notes.

Then find a new counselor who isn't on the list, or affiliated with anyone who is.

Find out all you can about her methodology, and then find a counselor who thinks that methodology is crap.