Meandering Michele’s Mind: Should We Erase Traumatic Memory?
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 • Uncategorized •
I keep reading about a drug (which shall remain nameless!) being tested for its ability to eradicate memory. So many of the articles are cheerleading this discovery. Whoo-hoo!, they proclaim, Now we might really heal PTSD!
But I wonder if completely eradicating our memory of events is the way to go. Our entire identities are built on the cumulative effect of experience. Who we are and who we become evolves from our interpretation of events and the assimilation of those perceptions. After trauma is that always a positive, healthy thing? No. Shouldn’t we be the ones to choose and make the necessary changes? Yes. Isn’t that part of healing? Absolutely.
I have a lot of questions about the idea of erasing memory. For example, What happens if we erase a memory? Does that mean we’ve become changed? I’m completely unable to understand how that’s possible. Changed in that I can’t remember the most enormous event in my life, sure. But erase the event so that I cannot recall it or its details and my personality – shaped by that event – still holds habits. I am still me, now I just can’t remember the reasons I am me.
Or, does the erasure of the defining traumatic moment usher in a whole new me? Is that possible? After trauma we change but it’s not all at once. PTSD warps us gradually over a period of time. Can removing memory in a sort of Abracadabra way turn us from a tiger into a dove without the gradual transformation most changes require?
Another thing that worries me is this: My subconscious, imprinted by trauma, still holds the effects of terror. Often we can’t remember details but we feel the experience. However, after Drug X, in addition to walking around feeling like there’s something wrong, I would have the added discomfort of not being able to remember what it is. This doesn’t sound healing; it sounds confusing. It sounds creepy, like I’m in the same body but I’ve had some sort of memory lobotomy.
What bothers me most of all is the idea of such a sudden change in identity. Trauma does that and its an aberration. Identity is meant to evolve slowly, by degrees of concepts and agreements with the self, knowledge of our likes, dislikes, desires and our understanding of our place in the world. If a defining memory disappears, how am I to know, understand or recognize myself without it if nothing else has been put in its place?
Before treatment I was X; then I’m Y but there’s no bridge between the two. There’s a big gap between the how and the why of who I am. What kind of foundation is that for me to move forward? How do I go into the future not remembering my past? Everyone else who knows me remembers but I don’t? How, exactly, does that work??
Finally, aren’t there things we learn from our traumas that are, in fact, helpful? Things that inform us about the world and ourselves and how to guide our way through it? What happens to those lessons if the memory evaporates? What happens to everything we’ve learned over the years since our trauma if suddenly the idea of the trauma no longer exists?
Are you with me on this or am I totally in left field?
Sure, we’d all exchange memory for trauma, but we can’t change history. Facts are facts. Events have occurred. We have been changed. But the changes came about organically, as a result of our thoughts and experiences. It seems to me undoing those effects should happen exactly the same way in order to keep the integrity of the process. We must remain aware as we heal. We must own our healing. If someone simply injects a drug aren’t we just the powerless victim all over again?
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Tags: heal, Identity, Meandering Michele's Mind, memory, posttraumatic stress, propanalol, ptsd, symptom, treat
In many ways it sounds like self-harm dressed as medicine. “I don’t like my memories so let’s cut them out”.
Are we recreating Victim-hood and giving up the right to create the future from the ashes of the past?
What about all the memories that will be wiped in collateral damage?
@Mike – Exactly! Geez, I hadn’t even thought of the collateral damage… Why don’t the scientists and clinicians ever think of this stuff. Why is it always up to the rats?
To me, it’s just one more example of medical science going in and ‘shooting at things with a machine gun’, hoping that one of the shots will hit the target. Trying to eradicate symptoms instead of heal them.
I believe the drug in question is propranalol, which I was actually prescribed for social anxiety. I took a very small dose, and not every day, and I have to admit it was my favorite drug ever. What it did for me was allow me to concentrate on work, which I have a tough time doing. This is not what it was prescribed for, but I used it this way. I now believe it suppressed some of the intrusive memories that bother me.
However it in no way helped me heal – it just let me get on with some business. I guess it would have to be used in massive doses to actually erase a memory. Please. One more assault on a traumatized system, IMO.
I read recently that in general, people suffering from trauma don’t do well with medications. That was certainly true for me with other medications I took. Really bad news.
Medical science – treat us as human beings with our own pasts and destinies, not as broken machines needing to be fixed.
Ellen
@Ellen – I couldn’t have said it better myself! All of it.
I think there’s really a big disconnect between coping and healing in the professional arena. Maybe it’s not their fault. Maybe they see their job as making us functional, which is true. But that has to be done in tandem with actually healing, which goes way beyond science and strategy and gets into the core of who we really are.
I have often wished I could erase all the memories of my trauma. When I’m in the abyss all I want is the pain to go away.
Although I wish that, I would never take a drug to erase my past. We learn from our trauma and it makes us stronger over time, at least in my case. The open wounds eventually turn to scars and scars are tougher than skin.
Thanks for the post
@Acorn — Really wise words, and how I feel, too. If we erase our memories that’s saying we’re not strong enough to face them — and we’re survivors, after all, we’re definitely strong enough!
Although I hate to contradict the majority opinion, I do have to say that I would give anything for the memories of my trauma to be erased. I tend to have big gaps in my memory anyway so the collateral damage might not seem so bad for me. But I would jump at a chance to have the vivid details that surface in my dreams and at the most inopportune times made to not exist any more. Perhaps with the ever-present memories not constantly battering me… maybe then I could walk across the bridge to healing on my own.
@Jenn — There’s always room for contradiction!
I think the majority of us feel that healing means finding a way to integrate the memories rather than eradicate them. Most of the PTSD therapy processes focus on leading us to a place where the memories are a part of our past but a part of us nonetheless, where the images retreat from the forefront and no longer surface in destructive ways.
For sure, vivid images are not anything any of us want.
Something to consider: maybe the memories will stop battering you if/when you walk across the bridge to healing. There was an interesting ‘Survivors Speak’ guest post on this blog a while ago about which comes, first: forgiveness or healing. The author wrote about how she needed to heal before she could forgive; the opposite of what she was told.
We all have ways we expect things to go. When we don’t make the progress we desire sometimes we have to attempt things in the opposite order we expect.
As long as it would not erase my ability to paint, and my relationship with my son. But my PTSD came from the birth of my son…so how will that work…will I not remember him as well?
Its all a bit ‘Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’, isn’t it? That movie was an interesting play on that whole concept of erasing memories. Who knows if that’s how it would all really play out though?
But it did raise an interesting question. Can memories really be erased, even if you no longer recall a certain event? Or will aspects of that memory somehow rise up anyway? Will it backfire somehow? I think its likely.
Then, is this really just like creating chemically repressed memories? Do you have to take the drug on an ongoing basis or is it a one-shot deal?
BlissChick recently did a post on pain, and what it can teach us. While I wouldn’t wish PTSD or any kind of trauma on anyone, there are things we can learn from our memories of those events. They can teach us, and help us to become stronger.
Certainly, I like where I’m at much more with the help of EMDR and other therapies. Of course, I still remember what happened to me, but it no longer disturbs me multiple times a day the way it used to.
Drugs never seem to solve problems entirely. Seems to me its just another way to keep the public medicated instead of liberated?
Svasti:
I did read a technical article on it a while back.
When we recall memories we are also rewriting and changing them. ISTR that Trauma memories have strong activation of the Hippocampus and this makes them strong and fresh and what the drug does is drop the activation levels of the Hippocampus so that the strong emotion doesn’t occur and so the memories don’t get written back – effectively they are ‘erased’.
The drug ISTR was mixed with therapy where a person was asked to recall the events whilst on the drug so that the memories would be sorted out like above.
The problem is that we are not Sky+ boxes. No memory is separate from any other memory. A particular smell might be linked to hundreds of memories. Recalling one memory can cause a cascade recall of other memories.
I think it’s a bit of a chemical lobotomy frankly.
Although there was a time when I wanted the intrusive memories and everything else to go away I now find that my non-intrusive memories of the trauma can be a source of inspiration and strength. I’d lose that.
Drugs are cheaper and faster than therapy – that’s the bottom line.
@Mike & Svasti —
“… just another way to keep the public medicated instead of liberate.”
“Drugs are cheaper and faster than therapy…”
To both of those ideas I’d add they’re the clinicians and scientists easy ways out. Instead of all of us engaging in the REALLY TOUGH, AWFUL PROCESS of healing, drugs as a Get Out Of Jail Free card where the healing path is straighter, less intense and more dependable than the actual work of integrating traumatic memories in an organic way so that we OWN the changes and become EMPOWERED by the process.
So much of healing includes the slow rebuilding of the integrity and strength of the self; this comes from doing the work, not being allowed to remove ourselves from the pain via medicated paths.
The only place I see for meds in PTSD is to control/alleviate symptoms so that we are well enough to do the necessary healing work, not so the drugs can do the work for us — and then we all walk around feeling semi-secure in who we are because when we needed to rise up and do something strong, brave and courageous we copped out.
(BTW, Mike – thanks for the summary of the process!)
Mike – thanks for the summary. Sounds awful to me and I think ‘chemical lobotomy’ sounds pretty spot on.
Michele – I agree. You know, with drugs it seems there’s always a side-effect. I grew up in a household where headache tablet strength pain killers were popped like lollies. It wasn’t uncommon for multiple packs to be bought every couple of weeks. I’m now considered the odd one out in my family for not taking an aspirin etc for the smallest pain.
Yeah, the real work, the non-shortcut work is hard and takes time but the result is 100 times more powerful and effective than anything that’s just going to deaden my memories, and as a result, part of who I am.
My summary was in fact very poor.
If you google for “Propranolol PTSD Memory” then you’ll get to some good articles on it. Propranolol is a Beta-blocker.
@Mike – You underrate yourself. For the comments section the summary was just the bare bones and gave enough of the idea for anyone to get the drift.
I said Hippocampus when it was in fact the Amygdala. In science terms that’s a big mistake. Apart from that the rest of the science was fine and close enough for a Pop-Sci blog posting – it conveyed the key points.
OH MY, you’ve touched a sensitive point here with me. I have suffered with PTSD for so long now and been in weekly counseling for many, many years (I have other problems too, obviously… lol) but when I asked my counselor if he would agree to let me go through hypnosis to block out or remove those painful memories, he pointed out to me that there is no guarantee what memories would be deleted… “what if you don’t remember who you are? or who your family is?” Then he hit me with the BIG one – “what if you don’t remember giving birth to your two sons, or who they are, or who your twin granddaughters are?” Needless to say, I dropped that topic real fast. No one takes my sons’s or the rest of my family away from me.
Many years ago I had one of my numerous spells of complete amnesia. I had been sick, running a fever and the next thing I knew it was 15 days later, my older sister said I had been calling her at work from my cell phone and she could tell that something was wrong. My voice was different, the way I talked was different and she could tell I was off in left field somewhere. But each time she suggested that I stay put for her to come and get me, I would say that I would be fine and I would hang up. (Let me clear one thing up, I have never ever even seen illegal drugs, never took any and don’t drink because of my many medications I have to take.)
Eventually, she suggested that I take a small amount of Nyquil and go to bed for awhile. I don’t know how long I slept but when I woke up, I called her and was shocked to know I had lost 15 days of my life. My poor sister just sobbed and said that I had no idea the hell I had put her through.
I spent the next several weeks walking the floor crying and praying that where ever I had been, what ever I had done, I didn’t hurt anyone and I didn’t endanger myself. Those thoughts still haunt me. I wanted to have hypnosis to find out where I was during that time, who I was with, what I did… again, my counselor suggested that if my mind blocked it out the first time, it wasn’t going to deal with it the second time around. I have learned to live with that period of time just put in a box on the back shelf of my mind and count my blessings that it all turned out good.
Amnesia is pure hell and I would never advocate anyone doing it on purpose. Take care.
@ Carolyn — With all due respect to you and your counselor what he told you is absolutely wrong. Sounds to me like he either 1) doesn’t know anything about hypnosis, or 2) is deliberately keeping you from healing so that he doesn’t lose a client. I can’t believe anyone would say something so ludicrous and ridiculous as the idea that you might get rid of the wrong memories. I’m almost speechless with anger and frustration that anyone would deter you from trying a new path to healing, and do it by instilling MORE FEAR. And by telling you something that is just flat out incorrect.
I am a licensed NLP practitioner; I use hypnosis all the time to help people heal. I’ve undergone hypnosis in my own PTSD healing (worked like a charm!) and I’m healing others with it. There is no way to LOSE a memory unless you yourself CHOOSE to and no hypnotherapist would suggest you do so. The point of NLP and hypno is to help us choose how to perceive our memories, not get rid of them entirely.
Oftentimes therapists push people away from hypnotherapy because hypno actually HEALS people and then who will the therapist treat??
The gist of this post was not about fear of losing our memories but about the importance of them and choosing to keep them. Hypnosis could help you recover what you can’t remember and put that anxiety to rest. And it can help change your emotional reaction to the memories you have. The point of hypno is to help us reframe events and our reactions to them. The point of hypno (with an ethical practitioner) is NEVER to delete things.
You’ve been in therapy for years and years, and it sounds like this counselor is happy to keep you there. If I were you I’d research the best hypnotherapist in your area (one who incorporates techniques of NLP and Time Line Therapy) and get in for the first appointment available!
Geez, Carolyn, I have so much to say about this. Feel free to email me to continue to explore this idea.
i ahve read out this drug too and have similar feelings as yourself about it. i don’t see how erasing an event can truely heal anyone. surely we will still have bneen changed by the event. i think the only way to heal is to face the issue & find a way to live with it. i suspect erasing it would just cause further problems as you may not know why you feel certain things or react in specific ways. i don;’t think there are any short cuts in the healing process.
@Ly — I so agree with you: no short cuts in the healing process, no matter how much we wish there were! We’re survivors, which means we have courage to do what needs to be done, even though sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.