How imporatant a role should "The Past" play in our lives?

by formerout 5 Replies latest jw friends

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  formerout

  There are always opinions on whether/how much we should dwell on the past. In my experience with my family, both before and after my exit from JWism, they have continuously told me that I should not dwell on the past.

  I admit that I have always had what would seem to be "Total Recall". I have one or two VERY traumatic incidents from my past that I have never been able to bring back to memory despite my family reminding me of them, but all other events are at my brain's beck and call.

  From my study of psycholgy, I think this falls into the "dirty thirties" theory, namely that I don't remember these things yet because my psyche is not yet able to deal with the trauma that would be inevitable if I were to bring them back to memory.

  Therefore, I have always tried to tell my family (and others) that if you remember something, regardless of whether it is in the past and cannot be erased, you should deal with it. If our brain is capable, for example, of temporarily suspending memory for 25 years, only to bring it back, ("dirty thirties") and all the professionals in the field recognize this and encourage it to be dealt with, should we not also deal with all the other things that never leave our memory?

  What does everybody else think? Am I missing anything? I'm sure I am, but I mean is there evidence completely contrary to the thoughts that I have come up with, that I should adjust my thinking? Your thoughts are appreciated.

  Brad
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  Happy Guy :)

  I have one or two VERY traumatic incidents from my past that I have never been able to bring back to memory despite my family reminding me of them

  I would be curious as to how old you were when these events happened. I do subsubscribe to the theory that when events occur which are beyond the capability of understanding, the human mind can store these memories in a way which can be difficult to recollect later in life.

  You may feel it necessary to recall events in order to do some self healing but there are limitations to this. Some events that occur in the pre-cognitive years may be unrecoverable. Want as you may to remember, it may be impossible.
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  gypsywildone

  Personally, I believe in "acknowledge, & move on". The moving on is key.

  A person can mess up their whole life hanging on to pain & being unhappy. If you can't change it & it is dragging you backwards, & down, what is the point?

  JWs always tell you that, because if you dwell in then past, you might remember all the predictions that never came true, etc. It's new light & onward! :)

  But they do have a point. I have met people that seem to wear their pain as some kind of a badge, or soemthing, & are still hung up on stuff that happened over 30 years ago. What's the benefit of that? There must be some payoff they are getting out of it, but it just doesn't seem productive or happy to me. Not to mention their families, who have to put up with it.

  My philosophy.
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  Will Power

  welcome former

  Are you looking for a way to deal with these 2 very traumatic events in your life? Nothing can come until you find a place you feel truly safe.

  If that is what's troubling you, I hope you have someone to trust.

  will
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  formerout

  Happy Guy,

  I was formerly on here as outbutnotdown. And no, I am not pulling a Prince thing, just lost my password and couldn't get back on til now due to problems that Simon was having.

  As far as my age goes, the one incident was when I was 17 and according to my sister, my mentally unstable father, who we had committed for a psychological evaluation, verbally lambasted me right in the psych hospital for being a part of the "turning him in". My sister said it was bad enough that she called guards and went into the room with them to rescue me from him. I have no recollection of it at all, even though I remember as clear as day when we went to the Justice of the Peace to sign the papers to have him committed.

  I'm not too concerned about the fact that I don't remember it.... or if I ever will. If it comes back, it's because I am ready to accept the learning experience of it from what I have learned about the human psyche. It just seems to reinforce the fact that gypsygonewild said that we should "acknowledge and move on". I try to not "dwell" on the past myself, however I believe that if something is bothering us from our past, there's a reason for it and it shouldn't be that we pretend to forget it. Witnesses in general and especially my family, (all still devout JW's) tend to be guilty of "running away" from problems/challenges rather than dealing with them and THEN putting them aside.

  Brad
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  Happy Guy :)

  I understand. There is dwelling and then there is obsessing. Dwelling for the purpose of reflection and self improvement can be a worthwhile excercise. Spending to much time dwelling to the point of fixation can be a very disfunctional excercise so I am with you on that.

  Normally, I would think an event which occured at 17 years of age could be easily recalled but let's look at the circumstances:

  You were participating in committing your Dad to an institution. This was probably a very stressful event for you. If this caused you to be sleep deprived (over the decision and process) then this would be a factor in memory. Add to this the fact that stress can cause the release of chemicals on your brain which also could hamper memory imprinting (while the event was occuring). These are significant factors that could have come into play during that time in your life. Sometimes these memories are recalled only after years and sometimes they are never recalled.

  Either way, it seems logical that your father may have said any number of remarks like this in his condition. If he was ill then you did the right thing. It was stressful and you probably wouldn't want to repeat it but it also doesn't seem like a point worthy of over examination. If it continues to trouble you then perhaps some therapy would be in order?