NationStates Jolt Archive

A little while ago, I was lying in bed, trying to sleep (I only got 4 hours of sleep last night, and I was expecting less tonight). For some reason, I started thinking about places, events, people that I hadn't thought about in ages (back when I had friends). It was as though I was being shot by an automatic weapon that fired lost memories. I got to thinking about some of the best moments of my life and some of the worst.

Then, I noticed something. For all of the good memories, I can bring up those feelings and actually feel that way again, to a lesser degree, of course. For the bad memories, though, I can only recall what happened, what I thought about, what I did. I can't actually feel the pain or the anguish.

So, is this normal? Is it part of being human, or does it reflect on the way I react to things? Do any of you have this separation or maybe even the opposite? I'm curious, and I'm obviously not going to sleep anytime soon.

I guess that answers that question, in a not answering the question sort of way.

I don't know what's normal or not, but in terms of memory I think that one of the most common triggers is inactivity. Myself, when I try to think about things they often elude me, but I have a pretty good general memory. I don't tend to "reexperience" events/memories except through a profound feeling of deja-vu.

It does make perfect sense, however, that good times would be easier to recall. It's more desirable. Or maybe it's just some unique quirk in your brain chemistry that alows you to imprint favorable experiences at will(or subconsciously).

This is just a long way of saying that I can't sleep either, but I dunno. [/ramble]

O.K. I got some sleep. I'm still curious, though. Now that there should be more people online, especially more people in touch with their feelings 8) , what do you guys think?

Thank you, deltaepsilon, for your response. I think you understood me, but let me clarify something. I remember the good and bad events in the same detail. The difference is my ability to... auto-empathize?... with the bad ones. Honestly, it might be a difficulty with my ability to empathize with anyone.

Sometimes I do as such.

I could expand on that thought but I need to get in contact with this Swede in Burundi that has been trying to contact me over Skype for over three months for some reason.

It might be your inability to empathise. How easy is it for you understand how others feel? (Un)fortunately I have great empathy but reflecting back on bad past experiences doesn't bring up any real bad feelings. Perhaps because it does dull with time. I think it's because you have a chance to reflect on it and rationalise what happened, and you can see from a distance that it wasn't as bad as you thought it was at the time. Breaking up with a g/f 5 years ago isn't so bad if you're in a better, healthier relationship now, so why should you still feel so bad about it now?

Perhaps you unconsciously suppress those bad feelings because you just don't want to feel them again. It's a type of self-defense mechanism. You remember good times, and your body reacts appropriately, to encourage you to do them again. You just keep vague recollections of bad times to remind yourself not to go through it again.

Sort of like smelling rotten milk. Once you've done it once, you can't remember exactly what it smells like, but it's enough to remind yourself not to bother smelling it again when you find a bottle with a month-old expiry date hidden in the back of the fridge.

Bad memories are like that.

It might be your inability to empathise. How easy is it for you understand how others feel? (Un)fortunately I have great empathy but reflecting back on bad past experiences doesn't bring up any real bad feelings. Perhaps because it does dull with time. I think it's because you have a chance to reflect on it and rationalise what happened, and you can see from a distance that it wasn't as bad as you thought it was at the time. Breaking up with a g/f 5 years ago isn't so bad if you're in a better, healthier relationship now, so why should you still feel so bad about it now?

Perhaps you unconsciously suppress those bad feelings because you just don't want to feel them again. It's a type of self-defense mechanism. You remember good times, and your body reacts appropriately, to encourage you to do them again. You just keep vague recollections of bad times to remind yourself not to go through it again.

Sort of like smelling rotten milk. Once you've done it once, you can't remember exactly what it smells like, but it's enough to remind yourself not to bother smelling it again when you find a bottle with a month-old expiry date hidden in the back of the fridge.

Bad memories are like that.
Good observations. Thank you.

I'm perfectly good at sympathizing, and I understand why they feel that way, but empathy doesn't seem to happen. I don't think I ever feel bad, physically, unless it's because of something immediate and personal.

I can't even remember what I did yesterday.

The more I think about the bad memories (gf -- how'd you guess? 8), the more it feels like my body just won't let me feel the negative emotions again. Interesting....

The more I think about the bad memories (gf -- how'd you guess? 8), the more it feels like my body just won't let me feel the negative emotions again. Interesting....
I'm not that good at mind-reading. More - what really bad experiences does a person go through? Loss of a loved one, breaking up with a g/f or b/f. That's pretty much it. So I'd have a 50-50 chance of getting it right. ;)
Also I think breaking up is harder to deal with, as you always can reflect back as to what went wrong. With a death you don't really have this option.
I went through a particularly messy break-up 7 years ago now. Wow! I just realised it is just over 7 years ago! I was visiting my parents over Xmas and on New Years eve 1997 when my g/f of 5 years rang me up and said it was all over. I've never forgiven her for that - made my New Year's eve totally miserable. I thought at the time that she could have done a decent thing and waited until the next day so I would have gone out with friends and enjoyed myself. Petty I thought. Very selfish and petty.
But I digress.
She moved out in mid-feb 1998, so that makes it pretty much exactly 7 years. Wow.
Amazing. I hadn't even thought about it for ages, except for the occasional "I wonder how she's getting on now". Like you said, I think back to the horrid times, the arguments, the wailing and gnashing of teeth etc etc and can only view it very dispassionately. Sort of like watching a movie rather than participating in it.
Most definitely it's because your brain doesn't want to relieve these times. What's the point? Relieving those feelings would certainly have a negative effect on your physical well-being - unlike relieving good times which would have a beneficial effect on your body (all those lovely endorphins flowing round the bod). So your brain does what's best for your health. And stops your mind from bringing up bad shit too vividly but does for good shit.