How to stop memories?

What do you all do, when you're feeling down, and you start getting assaulted by all the happy times and memories you used to have with someone? How do you snap yourself out of it?

I know the obvious answer is to not dwell on them. I try not to, and not think about it in general. But at times one thought just hits me, and that can lead to hours of dwelling.

lostatsea said:

What do you all do, when you're feeling down, and you start getting assaulted by all the happy times and memories you used to have with someone?

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Create new ones. Better ones.

This same medication helps me with the invisible people , interactions , and the worst monster of them all , the dreams I have when I finally do get enough sleep to enter REM.

lostatsea said:

What do you all do, when you're feeling down, and you start getting assaulted by all the happy times and memories you used to have with someone? How do you snap yourself out of it?

I know the obvious answer is to not dwell on them. I try not to, and not think about it in general. But at times one thought just hits me, and that can lead to hours of dwelling.

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When you realise you are dwelling, stop. Get up, or sit down, and do something else that will occupy your mind. Like reading, watching a movie, watching a funny show - any thing. Did you even try this at all? I have been giving this suggestion to you in the past as well.

You keep presenting the problems (which I think have been pretty much the same from the beginning) but I'm not sure if you present the things you've done to deal with them and the outcomes? I haven't been following much to your posts.. so I don't know.

You're stuck, I get it. But are you even doing anything about it if you really want to get out of this situation so much?

lostatsea said:

What do you all do, when you're feeling down, and you start getting assaulted by all the happy times and memories you used to have with someone? How do you snap yourself out of it?

I know the obvious answer is to not dwell on them. I try not to, and not think about it in general. But at times one thought just hits me, and that can lead to hours of dwelling.

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This is natural, and it will go away with time, and yes, the recalling can be involuntary as you might see stuff that reminds you of those pleasant times, and the subconscious mind will trigger those memories.

I know it hurts, and I know how hurts. The dwelling will get less, but if you intensify it on your own because your heart will start fluttering again, you risk reenacting the intense pain you felt with the breakup, essentially reliving that moment like it just happened.

So, when thoughts of them come out of no where, think of something else, or go do something you KNOW requires a lot of thinking about that particular thing. Maybe even try and bring up childhood memories. There's no pills to take for this. You're your own cure, you just have to decide which method you want to use.

Hypnosis? I don't know if that works all that well but I've heard of people doing it to repress certain memories. I don't think that's a good idea because if something ever re-triggers those memories it could be really devastating.

I just don't talk about it, and don't let myself dwell on it. If I started thinking of "remember when" I stop myself right there because I don't need to end up beating myself up with "what if" and "how come" statements that stem from remembering certain things.

For the one who posted the humorous alcohol cartoon, yes it is true it can bring you temporary relief from emotional pain.. but before you take a swig of that Wild Turkey or Monkey Bay, you have to make sure you're not a creature of habit or an addictive personality, otherwise you might then have another problem to deal with. It's very easy to fall into alcohol addiction, there's really nothing more convenient, nothing that provides quicker gratification.

When memories swarm my head, I write then down. I don't know if it helps you, but it has worked for me so far, so just leaving my 2 cents.

Batman55 said:

For the one who posted the humorous alcohol cartoon, yes it is true it can bring you temporary relief from emotional pain.. but before you take a swig of that Wild Turkey or Monkey Bay, you have to make sure you're not a creature of habit or an addictive personality, otherwise you might then have another problem to deal with. It's very easy to fall into alcohol addiction, there's really nothing more convenient, nothing that provides quicker gratification.

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We are all human beings (be it sapien or in my case neanderthal) and as such we are all creatures of habit

StarvingZombie said:

We are all human beings (be it sapien or in my case neanderthal) and as such we are all creatures of habit

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Of course. So perhaps I misspoke then. To clarify: I meant if you're the kind of person who gets stuck in routines and prefers sameness too much for your own good, then in my opinion it is easy to acquire a routine of drinking alcohol every day/night/whatever, thus setting the stage for addiction. I believe this played a role in my own addiction, at least.

Batman55
I was just answering the OP as to what we all do on an individual basis. Does this trick work for everyone , heck no , does it always work , can backfire quite badly. It is one of the best solutions I have as I have a myriad of mental/physical issues that don't all play well with other medications.

Not dwell on them is far easier said than done, if you manage to accomplish this please tell me how. Sometimes I'm too haunted by memories (Good AND bad) from my past.

lately i found a really great trick to stop unwanted thoughts or worries, and I have MANY, perhaps you can find it useful: whenever I think for instance of someone that makes me suffer (I find that it works better if it is a person) I visualize immediately that person run over by a really fast train, or tons of bricks falling over him, or a huge cartoon-like bomb that blows his to pieces and all the bits flying away, or in front of a machine gun, or inside the Titanic going down really fast, you get the picture. After a lifetime of suffering for years for things that other people would overcome in a week, I find this trick really useful, and no, I wouldn't use a machine gun in real life.

I guess you can use a similar trick for happy memories, they are even worse, for them probably it's more useful to feel grateful, because some people never experienced them? If you feel grateful, you put them in the past where they belong, you might wish and feel pain because you want them back, but if you concentrate on the joy you DID experience and remember it fully, it should hurt less, just a guess.
Also knowing a reason (or making a reason) to explain why the happiness had to stop helps, maybe to concentrate on that is better at first than to concentrate on the past happiness.