Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Choosing To Forget- Or Not

Recently I heard a radio ad for a documentary about a surgical technique that might someday be able to remove memories that are causing ptsd (post-traumatic stress disorder.) I wondered if my negative reaction to the idea was simply because, with two parents with Alzheimer's, I am all too aware of the painful process of involuntarily losing memories. When someone recently left a Facebook comment that, "In the end all we have are our memories," all I could think was- if we're lucky.

Putting aside the brain's complex structure which may make this procedure impossible, I started thinking about some of the things that have happened in my life that have been particularly difficult, wondering if I would want my memory of them purged.

When I was a young woman I was raped, and it took considerable amounts of healing work to alleviate the suffering that my memory of this incident created. But, if I think about removing my memory of the rape, my immediate gut response is a resounding, No. I am no longer traumatized by the memory and being able to recall what happened- how I felt, what helped (and what did not)- has been useful in my work with women who have been raped. I know something of the territory they are traversing and so hopefully, am more helpful than I might be if that memory was wiped clean.

Oh, I am not making virtue out of necessity. I would not wish rape on anyone, and I do not think that the learning I gleaned from being raped is the "reason" (cause of) why it happened. This would be to claim something I cannot know. I feel no ill will toward the man who raped me at this point and sincerely hope he has healed from whatever darkness led to him make the choice to rape. But I do not think he chose to rape to "teach" me what I needed to learned (as a New Age teacher once suggested to me,) or even that a higher power orchestrated the rape for these lessons. I do not experience any such harshness in the Presence within and around me

But, what if someone is unable or unwilling to do the healing work needed to remove the trauma held in their body/heart/mind?  My father, having lost awareness of much of his past and present (where he is, who he is, who others are etc.) due to dementia has, at times, found himself adrift in memories of childhood abuse, striking out at those around him in fear. Robbed of the ability to contain or work with the memories that shaped some of his values and choices in life, perhaps he would now be better off without them.

Of course, I wonder if erasing a memory- even if this was possible and desirable- would necessarily erase the wounding held in psyche and body. Some seek and find healing for wounds created by events they can't and may never fully recall because the trauma happened at a very early age or has been repressed deep into the unconscious. 

For myself, I suppose the bottom line is that each time I think about the benefits that might be accrued by erasing a memory of a traumatic event, the cost feels too high. I am unwilling to give up the learning, insight, and strength gained from moving beyond survival to using the challenges that have shaped me to offer what I can to the world and deepen my appreciation of the life I have.

We are shaped and informed by the things that happen in our lives and, perhaps more importantly, by what we do with what happens- how we live with it or bury it, how we let it open or close us to aspects of self and the world. Would that be equally so if we could not remember- however incompletely or inaccurately- what had happened?

Since I am writing about choice these days, I would love to hear from you here. What do you think? If you really could choose to erase the memory of a particular event, would you? What do you imagine you might gain or lose? How does contemplating the possibility effect how you see your life? 

Oriah (c) 2013




22 comments:

  1. No way. I would never want to erase memory. I feel the memories I possess have led to important life lessons that I may need to re-learn in a similar painful way. Erase the memory: erase the learning. Hell no. Just one woman's opinion. =)

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    1. Thanks Patricia- love your passion :-)

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    2. Hi Oriah,

      I found this piece through my friend, Sherrilene Collymore.

      Thank you for being open about being raped as a young woman. It is obvious you do not identify with being a victim and that you've done a lot of other healing since. Sadly, that healing has needed to include ironically healing from "New Age"-ism too. (I am a recovering New Ager!)

      While I respect Louise Hays, her works--and others like her--have contributed largely to a modern, new age form of blaming the victim that so many perpetuate in very unhelpful and even psychologically damaging ways. Not a far cry from, "What did she do to deserve it?" asked of rape "victims".

      I too was raped as a young woman, many times, by different men. I too have done my healing work around this (which continues). I realize how paramount it is to be gentle with myself, not blaming, not stuck in victimhood. I was unable to use the memories for my healing until I was truly ready, willing and able to.

      Our memories live in the tissues of our cells, in our unconscious minds, and it is not for the faint of heart to make them conscious, to shine light on our dark places, to become present from dissociative places that once helped us survive living nightmares.

      I respect another's choice to do their healing differently from me, to erase the memories rather than face the terror. I choose the latter and often do so with gratitude. The shit of my past has made for some nice compost that is now a beautiful, fertile garden! :-) forgiveness helps along the way...I revived by blog this week with a post on forgiveness:

      http://www.thriveandshine.com/on-love-and-forgiveness/

      Thanks for your courageous post, Oriah. Nice way to meet ya!

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    4. Mary- welcome! So glad you have been willing and able to do the healing work from the trauma of the past- and yes, it is my experience that memories are not simply in the brain but live throughout our bodies which would make removing them (even if we wanted to) very tricky. (P.S.- Your comment came up twice so I deleted one copy since they appeared identical :-) )

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  2. I second what Patricia said. No way! Furthermore who knows IF they really can remove the specific traumatic thing that they want to remove? What if they get the "wrong" thing (not the traumatic stuff) and remove therefore the "good" (joyous event) thing? What if they go so far and remove everything good and put in some of their stuff, what they want us to think? Of course that's reaching and sounds very much Twilight Zone goes Matrix, but what if?
    Absolutely NO, thank you very much! I am what and who I am because of the choices I made and things that did happen, the good and the bad, they are intricately entwined/interwoven. But here goes another choice, we don't have to have that "operation" done on us. We don't have to do anything we don't want to do. Thank God for free will :-) xox Sabine

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    1. Sabine, I don't know that anyone is suggesting this be done to people against their will- although of course there have been many procedures that have been - like lobotomies- in the name of "for their own good" so there is plenty of reason to be cautious. For most of us, yes- I think working with our difficult memories is indeed preferable.

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  3. Oh my goodness, what an interesting article Oriah. Really makes you wonder. I thought perhaps a good idea at first to render someone with an intentional case of memory loss but how bizarre. The longer i thought about it the weirder it became and i agree with Patricia. Keep the lot, while you can have them, learn from them, teach with them, recall them in whatever way you can, don't screw with the mind like that and create a world of robots. I may think about this topic differently in future given i haven't experienced anything truly traumatic but let God/Universe play God/Universe.....not us. Thankyou for your thought provoking and constantly inspiring words Oriah. Bless.
    Mari

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    1. Mari- well, as you can tell from the piece I lean to the no side- but I wonder when it comes to people who are truly rendered unable to live a anything resembling a normal life because of crippling ptsd that focuses on one traumatic event. And. . as I said, I am not sure my father's memory of his early abuse are doing anything but torturing him now. The whole thing makes me nervous re: what really does alleviate suffering. As to playing God- well, some could say that antibiotics or transplants do that- although we also know there are sometimes unforeseen consequences of both of those- and yet they save lives too. Not easy this being human - we sometimes seem to have a skill without the necessary attendant wisdom to use it.

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  4. Oriah, growing up being abused awfully by my parents has been a hard time and still influences my life decades later. If the memory of my first twenty years would be deleted, I still would be in quite a similar place as I am now, and wouldn't even know why. I would have a lot of "white spots" in my memory, always wondering what happened there. I'm the kind of woman who wants to know and to make the best of it.
    My sister instead has these "white spots" over long years of her childhood and youth - and doesn't want to know what happened. She says she better off this way.
    I think every soul knows if it can deal with the memories or not and if necessary can protect itself by oblivion against issues it couldn't handle. No artificial intervention necessary.
    It has been my path to remember a lot of painful details and to learn to live with them and heal them (lots of successful therapy), and it is my sister's path to build a life out of the grown up present. Both ways are valuable.

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    1. Nora- I used to think that people like your sister were just in "denial"- but as I get older I begin to see exactly what you point to here- each must decide for themselves and may have wisdom about their own path that I cannot see or imagine. :-)

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  5. Your blog supports my belief, also, that personally and as a Consulting Hypnotist, I don't believe in "the taking away" of a person's memories. Working with a client (or myself for that matter), helping them to gain the learning available and removing the memory's emotional charge - all good. I agree with Oriah that we need our memories.

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    1. Dawn, thank you. I do want to be clear that I do not have a singular "position" on this. For myself, I would not want to have any of my memories surgically removed- but I can imagine a situation where particular incidents have created such severe ptsd that the person able to function at all (thinking here of soldiers who have been in combat) where this might be considered if all other attempts have failed. Also with my father- the memories that torture him cannot be dealt with because of the Alzheimer's (which impairs his ability to engage in healing that would involve cognition and making new memories)- I wonder if this might allow him to live at peace in his final years. Not sure I could say yes even to that- but there are situations where it could be considered. :-)

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  6. This wonderfully provocative post brings up a whole host of thoughts!

    One is: Doesn't it seem as if, when the mind won't repress a difficult memory, the psyche is both calling attention to it (this needs to be dealt with)and feels as though it can be handled?

    With PTSD, perhaps that trauma does need to be faced in some way before a person can move forward?

    Just a speculation -- because it seems to me that the mind possesses layers and layers of wisdom, wisdom unavailable to the conscious mind, and so that there must be a reason when it doesn't choose to repress a memory.

    Apart from that, this post reminded me of a surprising memory from my childhood that was stored, apparently, in a body muscle. During body work, once, when a therapist pressed hard on my upper arm, I had a very vivid sensory memory of a toy I once had as a child -- it was just "there" for a few seconds and then faded. (When I was seven, I was fascinated with American Indians and had asked for a bow and arrow set; I was a tomboy, for sure.) So I was totally surprised and thrilled that a memory of one of those arrows was somehow integrated into my cellular memory in this way.

    All by way of saying, again, that we are all so very much more complex, in terms of defending against trauma, and in terms of storing the many memories of our lives, than we are usually aware of, or can really, in the end know.

    And finally, the New Age answer to trauma: isn't it more helpful to think that we all get to experience everything humans can experience, over the course of many lifetimes, both pleasant and unpleasant? And also that extreme behavior in one direction gets "balanced" in the other direction over the course of a series of lifetimes -- which may, in fact, be the source of the New Age-ism that mistakenly says we cause everything that happens to us ourselves? Just a thought.. Of course, who can really know the truth while still in a body?

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    1. Laurel, generally I think you're right- if left to its own devices psyche will protect us from memories we cannot deal with. However, there are exceptions- some folks suffer a trauma so great it shatters the psyche and they can become catatonic or unable to assemble a reality (psychotic)- although even then there are sometimes healing methods that work. A situation like my father's does make me wonder though- since he cannot "work on" memories of abuse as they pop up and clearly is tortured by them (experiences them as if in the present.) Even for someone in his situation I would be very cautious about a technique like this being helpful (if it were possible) but it does make the brain (and heart) work just pondering it :-)

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  7. This is a good topic, & thank you for inviting responses, Oriah.

    Even if specific memories of trauma could be removed, the ripple effect of after-emotions & learning would remain. And as already stated, we wouldn't know why we felt a certain way about an emotional trigger if the source were removed. I see that as being potentially much more problematic.

    I used to fervently wish that certain memories of various traumas & abuse I've survived could be "lobotomized" right out of my head... but with time & a *lot* of effort, I've realized that I wouldn't be who I am now without them. The insights gained have come from some very painful soul work (which will never be finished), but doing that work with some success is a source of strength & confidence for me. I believe I'm a better person for all of it. Should other events happen in the future, I hope I've learned to better temper my reactions - or even to help others with similar experiences.

    May all who are struggling with emotional/spiritual/physical pain find some relief.

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    1. Thank you Trinity- I add my prayer to yours, tha all may be at peace.

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  8. Dear Oriah, I wonder whether in erasing a memory we would erase all the thread that bind that memory to the emotions within us and to what we've learned, what we've let go of, what the sequence of events in our life became because of the original event. It seems to me that our lives are a tapestry and that to remove threads is to remove the whole scene that is presented within and upon the tapestry. Somehow, it is to remove the meaning that connects the far and the wee within us. Peace.

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    1. Dee, beautifully put and I tend to agree. Of course, watching my father in advanced Alzheimer's which has removed many his memories and most of the connecting links, it raises the question of who are if and when our memories do go? A sad question to have to ponder- but he is still here although his memories are not.

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  9. What really does alleviate suffering and who we are are precisely the key questions. Years ago I was at an event where the teachers zen teacher was present. I later found out she's lost a lot of her memories, but her gaze had a clear presence about her. In fact, during the talk she seemed to sense a heart opening I was having, and turned around to gaze at me. Clearly she knows who she is.

    I don't believe we are our memories, I think they may play very important key roles in the context of our lives, but when I read The Invitation or say The Journey by Mary Oliver it's obvious to me there is more to us.

    Some may find this hard to believe, but I tend to think about the potential to download such experiences to myself so as to truly understand the suffering others have gone through. I am sure many would say if you knew the experience you wouldn't, and it would be folly to do so if you could, but to experience it is the only way to truly know it. Suzuki Roshi was once asked "Does a zen master suffer in a different way than his students?" His reply was: "In the same way, otherwise I don't think he's good enough."

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  10. I would not want my memories erased even though many are of traumatic events. My willingness to hold these events in a healing space has enriched my life and has given me a deep feeling of compassion for others. Good topic, Oriah.

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  11. Hi Oriah, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I don't think erasing memories is a good idea. Suffering is part of what it is to be human (and I'm not saying that as a reason to condone wrong doing). I think it does challenge us to seek healing, and to be compassionate. Take away part of a memory from somebody else, and what is left? Systems theory tells us that if you remove one part of a system, there are many consequences, especially if it's a complex system like a human being. And there is no way of knowing how and what will be affected by it within the system, so no way of knowing what the consequences are.

    And I wanted to share a brilliant animation by a Parisien art student, about the way we make our memories in life. With your parents struggle with dementia, I thought you might appreciate it even more.

    http://brekend.nl/2013/09/09/briljante-animatie-over-de-herinneringen-die-we-maken/

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