Over and over again, women
are puzzled by their own process of trying to recover from a pathological relationship.
What is puzzling is that despite the treatment she received from him, despite
the absolute mind-screwing he did to her emotions, not only is the attraction
still VERY INTENSE, but the POSITIVE memories still remain strong.
Women say the same thing—that
when it comes to remaining strong in not contacting him (what we call ‘Starving the Vampire’) they struggle to pull up (and maintain the
pulled up) negative memories of him and his behavior that could help them stay
strong and detached.
But why? Why are the positive
memories floating around in her head freely and strongly, and yet the bad
memories are stuffed in a ‘mind closet’ full of fuzzy cobwebs that prevent her
from actively reacting to those memories?
There are a couple of reasons
and we’ll discuss the first one today.
Let’s think of your mind like a computer. Memories are stored much like
they are stored on a computer. Pain and traumatic memories are stored
differently than positive memories. Pulling up the negative memories from your
hard drive is different than pulling up a positive memory that is like an icon on
your desktop.
Traumatic memories get
fragmented on their way to being stored on the hard drive. They get divided up
into more than one file. In one file are the emotional feelings, in another
file are the sights, in another file the sounds, and in another file the
physical sensations.
But a WHOLE and complete
memory is made up of ALL those files TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME such as what you
emotionally felt, saw, heard, and physically
experienced. Just one piece of it doesn’t make it a complete
memory such as just a positive memory.
A complete memory = good + bad
When things are traumatic or
stressful, the mind separates the whole experience into smaller bits and pieces
and then stores them separately in the mind because it’s less painful that way.
When women try to ‘remind
themselves’ why they shouldn’t be with him, they might get flashes of the bad
memory, but, strangely, the emotional feelings are NOT attached to it. They wonder
‘where did the feelings go?’ They can see the bad event but they don’t feel
much about what they remember.
If you are playing a movie
without the sound, how do you know what the actors are passionately feeling?
It’s the same thing with this traumatic recall of memories. You might see the
video but not hear the pain in the voices. The negative or traumatic memory is fragmented
into several files and you are only accessing one of the files—a place where
you have stored the positive aspects of the relationship.
To complicate things further,
positive memories are not stored like negative memories. They are not divided
up into other files. They don’t need to be—they aren’t traumatic.
So when you remember a time
when the relationship was good or cuddly, or the early parts of the
relationships which are notoriously ‘honeymoon-ish’, the whole memory comes up—the
emotional feelings, the visual, the auditory, the sensations. You have a WHOLE and
STRONG memory with that. Of course that is WAY MORE appealing to have—a memory
that is not only GOOD, but one in which you feel all the powerful aspects of it
as well.
Now, close your eyes and pull
up a negative memory. Can you feel the difference? You might see it but not
feel it. Or hear it and not see much of it. Or feel a physical sensation of it
but not the emotional piece that SHOULD go with the physical sensation. No
matter what your experience is of the negative emotion, it is probably
fragmented in some way.
Negative and traumatic
memories are often incomplete memories—they are memory fragments floating all
over your computer/mind. They are small files holding tiny bits of info that
have fragmented your sense of the whole complete memory. These distorted and
broken memory fragments are easily lost in your mind.
If you have grown up in an
abusive or alcoholic home, you were already subconsciously trained how to
separate memories like this. If your abuse was severe enough early on, your mind just automatically does this anyway—if
you get scared, or someone raises their voice, or you feel fear in anyway—your brain
starts breaking down the painful experience so it’s easier for you to cope
with.
Next time we will talk about
one other way your mind handles positive and negative memories, and why you are
flooded with positive recall and blocked from remembering and feeling those negative
things he’s done to you.
(**If we can support you in your recovery process, please let us
know. The Institute is the largest provider of recovery-based
services for survivors of pathological love relationships. Information
about pathological love relationships is in our award-winning book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, and is also
available in our retreats, 1:1s, or phone sessions. See the website for
more information).
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