When I was pledging a sorority, all new pledges had to create a list of questions to ask each of the sisters in order to get to know them better – you know, so we could all become lifelong friends like we were paying pledging to do. One of the questions I asked was “What part of your past would you erase from your memory?”
Naturally I received several trite “I wouldn’t erase anything because it’s all made me who I am” responses (yes, but to paraphrase Bill Cosby, what if you’re an asshole?). But I also heard a few traumatic stories that I’m sure caused the victims much emotional pain over the years.
We all have those moments – or months, as in the case of a bad relationship – that we’d prefer to forget ever happened. Generally speaking, they don’t haunt us incessantly and hamper our ability to lead a normal life.
But long-term memories of accidents, abuse, crimes, fires, military combat, and other emotionally-charged events and circumstances can have a lasting negative impact on our lives. Usually they’re addressed by medication and/or “cognitive behavioral therapy, which encourages [victims] to confront their experiences in a safe way…The treatment doesn’t get rid of the old memory; instead, patients form a new, competing memory of the event…that isn’t nearly as toxic.”
A recent Newsweek article, “The Science of Forgetting” explores the idea of eradicating the emotional components of traumatic memories via reconsolidation, the still-hotly debated idea that “memories can be modified by new information, either intentionally or naturally after they’re recalled.”
The creation of memories was likened to the function of a computer; our short-term memories are analogous to information residing in our computer’s RAM, and our long-term memories are what we’ve saved to the hard drive – we can recall them just as we can open a saved file. According to the article: “For a memory to be consolidated from short term to long term…it must undergo a chemical process called protein synthesis.” Protein synthesis in the amygdala – the part of the brain where emotions are housed – is what incorporates emotions into a factual recollection of events. The study described in the article involved injection of a drug to stop protein synthesis in the amygdala, resulting in the absence of a previous emotional reaction to a stimulus.
While it certainly sounds like it would be nice to simply take a shot to the amygdala after a nasty break-up, scientists are more focused on applying this research to conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction than on how it might ease the debilitating side effects of affairs of the heart.
Still, I wonder how reconsolidation might help trauma victims, particularly children. While I can understand the benefit of muting the strong negative emotions associated with an event – which naturally happens over time with most events; recalling my first break-up now isn’t nearly as gut-wrenching as when it was only a week behind me – the concept of divorcing emotions entirely from events seems illogical (and possibly ultimately detrimental) to me. For example, fear is a healthy reaction to potentially dangerous situations, and emotional pain is a normal consequence of tragedy. Might sterilizing someone’s memory actually serve to further endanger them, especially a child?
On the other hand, speaking as a parent, if it was my child who had sustained emotional trauma, wouldn’t I want to spare her the pain of those memories? In fact, I expect that in addition to my concern for her well-being, my guilt – how could I have possibly let that happen to her? – would also be a prime motivating factor. If such measures were readily available, how far would we as parents go to protect our children from pain and what possible consequences would we be willing to accept on their behalf?
One of my earliest memories is a traumatic one. I was playing in my room and fell and hit my head on the corner of my toy piano, right near my hairline. I remember lying down on the bathroom counter with my head in the sink as my mother ran cold water over the wound. My recollection is primarily factual; it doesn’t elicit fear of pianos or bathroom sinks or my mother. But how much of that memory is true to what was written to my internal hard drive thirty-five years ago, and how much has been rewritten through recollection and retelling (and possibly reconsolidation)?
Likewise, if all it took to erase the memory was a shot to the amygdala – like a routine tetanus booster after stepping on a rusty nail – would my mother have taken me to the doctor? And, trite though it may sound, how would it have changed who I am today?
Would you erase the emotional components of a traumatic event in your own life? What about your children’s lives?
My earliest memories are definitely of pain. I had to have stitches as a toddler and remember a HUGE needle coming at my bleeding chin… I cracked my head open jumping on the bed (just like the old nursery rhyme) and had to have it butterflied shut… I remember meeting my baby sister (I was 2 1/2) and looking across her bassinet to my parents in the kitchen (Obviously, SHE was a traumatic event!)
Resilience is an incredibly valuable psychological skill and the only way kids gain it is through overcoming challenges. When you sustained that injury, you (subconsciously) learned that your body could heal, and that your mother would be there to comfort you and care for you when you needed her.
So I wouldn’t spare my kids (or myself) from everyday aches and pains, even emotional ones. But a PTSD-inducing, horrific event (like sexual abuse)? I’d gladly zap right out of my child’s brain (and my own too because it would affect me almost as much as them).
Oh, seriously, I might have to sleep on this one. I don’t know!!
Steph
As much as I would like to protect my child from every harm in the world, the idea of this shot sends shivers down my spine. I believe in the benefits of modern medicine, including altering brain chemical levels to help treat depression/anxiety/etc. But this just sounds like it’s overstepping some boundry.
Is this another example of overprotective parenting that will continue that narcissistic trend we discussed the other day and the next generations inability to deal with real life? Another example of the over-medicating that is rampant in our society so we don’t have to deal with issues and conditions that are very difficult? I just don’t know about this.
I have surprisingly few memories of being a child, although I seem to relive recent embarrassing moments over and over. I am fortunate not to have any traumatic memories, and those of when I got hurt I don’t remember even the pain part at all. I would think if it was extremely traumatic, like rape, or watching a dad seriously hurt your mom, I.d say yes. Bad but maybe not emotionally scarring, probably not. Not having ever gone through this hard to say.
We do manage to forget serious injuries, my husband has no memory of a bike crash, my BIL lost an entire summer after a head injury. So the body does a pretty good job on itself. They also say resilience is one of the key characteristics of “survivors” of bad childhoods, so if they could make a drug for that… My husband’s sister did some awful things to her kids…one committed suicide, one became a teen mom, and one is doing amazingly well.