tipofyourstar replied to your post:so one of the not-often-talked-about ptsd symptoms...
I’m having problems remembering, and this is pretty roughly, around 70% of my time in school, pre-k to 12, including the teachers I had and the people I went to school with. I was bullied pretty badly on a daily basis since pre-k. It’s only started in the last few years, and I have been out of school since 2011. Some of it I’m glad I’m forgetting, but I’m also forgetting things that happened outside of school which I’m not happy about. Thanks for this, I will try it!
So in the interests of full disclosure and you understand what you’re doing:
* Under current theories, long term memories are stored in the cortex. BUT both short and long term memories are accessed in the hippocampus.
* All memories exist in the hippocampus for a very brief time (about 16-20 seconds) before either disappearing or being stored in the cortex.
* Unless you have a memory loss disorder, you can assume most memories that made it into the cortex are still there.
* The problem is getting to them.
* Memories are usually accessed through other memories. Over time, you turn your cortex (metaphorically) into a network of connections, where a memory is a dot and other memories you thought of after that one are connected by lines. The lines get thicker the more you use them.
* Right now, a lot of your k-12 memories and my college memories are isolated dots. They’re still in there, but they’re hard to access.
* Some memories have very thin links to others.
* All of this gets better by rehearsing the memories: making your past into a story for yourself or others, explaining this to someone
* Unfortunately for you, there’s not going to be an easy way to distinguish between memories you want and memories you don’t want. Example: When I go looking for memories, what I’m looking for are when various symptoms of things other than PTSD showed up, and when and how I began cutting people off. What I get, most often, is memories of classes. But by working out from those memories of classes, I can reach the other, emotional memories.
* Personally? A huge chunk of my PTSD recovery involved accepting that my trauma had beneficial effects, and accepting that I was never going to be my pre-trauma self--and I didn’t want to be either. Yeah, the headstate I was in freshman year was super bad and scary. But understanding that now gives me the tools to deal with any relapse later.
