Intrusive thoughts
are associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as other emotional
trauma disorders. Many survivors say that the most painful memories are not the
intrusive thoughts of all the bad stuff, or even the violence—what is most
painful is the intrusive thoughts of good memories.
Intrusive thoughts
are not just bad thoughts or flashbacks. They can be intrusive from positive
memories as well. Positive memories are embedded with deep emotional and
psychological meaning. The meaning of the relationship, various happy moments,
the deep feelings of attachment, fantastic sex—can all be power-packed into
positive memories. Positive memories are also embedded with all the sights,
sounds, smells, sensations, feelings, and the associated meanings of the events
and remembrances of a happier time. The positive memories can also be tied up
with a ribbon of fantasy and romanticized feelings. That’s a lot of power packed
into a few positive memories, and has the “TNT emotional factor” that overrides
your “stay-away-from-him” resolve.
All memories are not
stored the same way. I’ve talked about this before in our books. Positive
memory is stored differently in the brain, and is more easily accessible than
some of the bad memories. Many traumatic memories are stored in another part of
the brain that makes them harder to access. Sometimes the more traumatic they
are, the harder it is to remember.
Unfortunately, what
you might want to remember most is
the bad part of the relationship, so it motivates you to stay away from getting
back into it. But instead, you are murky, and are not always fresh in your mind
about why you should be avoiding the
pathological relationship. What IS easy to remember is all the positive
memories. In fact, what has become intrusive is positive memory seepage. This
is when all the good times and the associated senses (sight, touch, smell,
etc.) are flooding your mind. You easily remember the good times and easily
forget the bad times—all based on how and where these types of memories are
stored in the brain. You may NEED the bad memories for emotional reinforcement;
however, all you REMEMBER are the good ones.
That which is held
internally is amplified. It’s almost like putting them under a magnifying
glass—the feelings, memories, senses—are all BIGGER and STRONGER when the
memories simply roll around in your head. It’s a lot like a pinball
machine—memories pinging and ponging off the internal elements. The more they
ping and pong, the stronger the memories move around the mind.
Memories kept in the
mind also take on surreal qualities. Certain parts are like a movie—fantasy-based
and romanticized. The positive memories are dipped in crystallized sugar and
become tantalizing treats instead of toxic treats! While engaged in this positive
memory seepage, it doesn’t feel like you are indulging yourself in toxic
memories. It feels like you are trying to process
the relationship—“Why did we do this?” “Did he say that?” “Why was it like that
then, but it’s like this now?” It
feels like what you are trying to do is to sort out the relationship. But all
the sorting of this dirty laundry still leaves the same amount of soiled clothing
piled in your head. You are just moving the same shirt from pile to pile. It’s still
the same dirty laundry but nothing is getting cleaned up.
Positive memory
seepage, as intrusive thoughts, is a big contributor to the cognitive
dissonance women feel in the aftermath of these relationships. Cognitive
Dissonance (or C.D., as we refer to it) is the difficulty of trying to hold two
opposing thoughts or beliefs at the same time—it’s usually something like,
“He’s good” AND “He’s bad”—“How can he be good AND bad?” Just trying to resolve
that particular thought can leave a woman’s mind tangled up for years. C.D. can
single-handedly take women down—it can cause them to be unable to concentrate,
work, sleep, eat, or function overall. It’s like the image of the devil sitting
on one shoulder and the angel sitting on the other, and they are both
whispering in your ear. That’s exactly what C.D. is like—trying to decide which
thing you are going to believe—that he’s bad for you, or that he’s good for
you.
Positive memory
seepage produces intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts, especially about
positive memories, produce cognitive dissonance. These emotional processes feed
each other like a blood-induced shark fest. It’s one of the single reasons
women don’t disengage from the relationship, heal, or return to a higher level
of functioning.
Now that we’ve
identified what is really at the
heart of the aftermath of symptoms, we know that treating C.D. is really the
most important recovery factor in pathological love relationships. It’s why we have
developed various tools to manage it—Maintaining Mindfulness in the Midst of
Obsession
e-book and two CDs, as well as our retreats, 1:1s, etc.
The quickest way to
recover is by learning to manage the intrusive thoughts and cognitive
dissonance. A managed mind makes life feel much more manageable too!
(**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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