Anyone else is tortured by past memories? When things were right? And how could be life if it still was that way? I have this in mind everyday and makes me more depressed..
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Hiervsg
Member
- Jan 14, 2020
- 8
I spend most of the day thinking about the past and the things I messed up, and of course, it makes me more and more depressed. So you're not alone with that
WhyIsLife56
Antinatalism + Efilism ❤️
- Nov 4, 2019
- 1,075
Like C-PTSD?
My childhood haunts me everyday
I just wish I never existed
My childhood haunts me everyday
I just wish I never existed
Throwmyselfaway
Not gone yet but soon
- Jan 14, 2020
- 798
Everyday. Did I make the right choice? Did I do everything I could
enigmática saudade
Ô Mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps!
- Jun 27, 2019
- 28
I'm just living with regrets everyday. For so many years, I'm making my life worse and worse.
I had chances but I completed fucked them up.
I really wish I could go back to the past and fix my mistakes.
But it's impossible.
I had chances but I completed fucked them up.
I really wish I could go back to the past and fix my mistakes.
But it's impossible.
Yes, absolutely. I was just imagining taking very simple and plain wedding photos with my ex-partner, had we stayed together. How low-key we would be about it, but still just to have something for ourselves to memorialize an important date in our life together. Her parents eloped - not out of shame or secrecy or anything - and that is very much something that we might've done, too.
But i've come to see my life trajectory as one long tragic story. It has its twists and turns, but it is just one story among 7 billion other stories, today. And every story deserves its ending.
Then I feel empowered knowing that I can have authorship over the end of MY story - should i chose to - by CTB.
But i've come to see my life trajectory as one long tragic story. It has its twists and turns, but it is just one story among 7 billion other stories, today. And every story deserves its ending.
Then I feel empowered knowing that I can have authorship over the end of MY story - should i chose to - by CTB.
Defenestrator
Experienced
- Jan 17, 2020
- 257
Yeah, it's masochistic in a way.
I wish we could do like in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and wipe it all.
I wish we could do like in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and wipe it all.
Sunset Limited
I believe in Sunset Limited
- Jul 29, 2019
- 1,287
I think the same thing all the time. I wish I had caught the bus 23 years ago. It would be a better farewell. Now I'm dragging a lousy past behind me like a long, disgusting tail. I turned into someone I don't want to be, I don't feel anything anymore.
TrailerTrash
Just Passing Through
- Oct 10, 2019
- 240
EVERY DAY! I just can't get how badly I messed up life out of my mind. These are the first and last things I think of each day and have nightmares about being around people involved and being embarrassed and humiliated almost every night. I sleep very little ..... I hate it ....
Y-B
Member
- Jan 16, 2020
- 19
Of course, every single day. And I don't know how to stop it. No matter what I do, good memories from past keeps poping up, and that brings nostalgia which means another day in hell and another sleepless night.
Jean4
Remember. I am ALWAYS right.... until I’m not
- Apr 28, 2019
- 7,557
Yes. I think about things I had within my capacity that i could have done but didn't know to do before it was too late. They could have totally changed my life. I also made more of a mess of my life than was called for. Like way bigger mess. I can't understand how I can be such an impressively bad fuck up other than the fact i just fuck up more and more. Especially since the reality isn't that bad as I made it seem with bad optics. My life wouldn't have been that bad if I'd taken a little bit better care of myself but I made such a mess of it in ways I couldn't have even thought were possible.
TheDevilsAngel
LetMeFree
- Apr 22, 2019
- 768
Yes I am still traumatised by my childhood and past relationship... My childhood has framed me as the person I am... And I'm told its the main cause of most of my mental illness and how I process and see the world. Sending you lots of hugs and peace
TheEndof
It's getting dark and it's getting cold
- Dec 31, 2019
- 146
It's less so memories and more so the could have beens. I find myself thinking about what I could have made of myself, my relationships, my life. That depresses me more than anything at the moment.
notjustyetagain
- Oct 28, 2019
- 169
yes. ramblings ahead. [TL/DR; not all mistakes/traumas can be useful, learned from, valuable, etc.]
many people seem to value their bad memories, e.g. "but my mistakes and traumas make me who i am". agreed -- that's the problem. i still wouldn't "do" life without my flashbacks, but it'd be less shitty. as to regret, guilt, shame, etc.: i can see the value of learning, but my (few) traumas and (countless) mistakes have shaped me so much that applying learning is impossible. "knowing better", when one has been paralysed by one's mistakes and traumas, is only pointless salt on the wound. they compound and resonate with each other, shape one's possibilities, esp. early-childhood traumas. i've been stunted in this way -- still toxic, stupid, naive, selfish, myopic... no hope for becoming a better person. still make the same mistakes over and over, have i learned anything at all? with all the privileges and opportunities i've had, why can't i stop myself from fucking things up? i can only plead that fucking up comes extremely naturally to me.
i don't know when i lost the capacity to learn, or change in any meaningful and positive way, but i suspect it's very early in life. aside from shame, self-hatred, etc. another effect of remembering these "character-building" experiences is doubt in everything i think or do. rightly so: to this day, evidence points to my thoughts and actions having more negative than positive effects. i've been hurt and hurt others so often that doubt seems an inevitable consequence -- "the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour". i'm not sure whether suicide would be easier with or without memories of mistakes and traumas... but i'm almost certain i'd still be suicidal without memories of them, since i'd still be completely dysfunctional and able to recognise my toxicity. (being toxic, suicide seems the best i can do.)
given the choice to remove any memories you wanted to get rid of, would you opt for it? is there some value in partially understanding why i'm such a fuck-up?
many people seem to value their bad memories, e.g. "but my mistakes and traumas make me who i am". agreed -- that's the problem. i still wouldn't "do" life without my flashbacks, but it'd be less shitty. as to regret, guilt, shame, etc.: i can see the value of learning, but my (few) traumas and (countless) mistakes have shaped me so much that applying learning is impossible. "knowing better", when one has been paralysed by one's mistakes and traumas, is only pointless salt on the wound. they compound and resonate with each other, shape one's possibilities, esp. early-childhood traumas. i've been stunted in this way -- still toxic, stupid, naive, selfish, myopic... no hope for becoming a better person. still make the same mistakes over and over, have i learned anything at all? with all the privileges and opportunities i've had, why can't i stop myself from fucking things up? i can only plead that fucking up comes extremely naturally to me.
i don't know when i lost the capacity to learn, or change in any meaningful and positive way, but i suspect it's very early in life. aside from shame, self-hatred, etc. another effect of remembering these "character-building" experiences is doubt in everything i think or do. rightly so: to this day, evidence points to my thoughts and actions having more negative than positive effects. i've been hurt and hurt others so often that doubt seems an inevitable consequence -- "the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour". i'm not sure whether suicide would be easier with or without memories of mistakes and traumas... but i'm almost certain i'd still be suicidal without memories of them, since i'd still be completely dysfunctional and able to recognise my toxicity. (being toxic, suicide seems the best i can do.)
given the choice to remove any memories you wanted to get rid of, would you opt for it? is there some value in partially understanding why i'm such a fuck-up?
Time
Looking to leave.
- Nov 10, 2019
- 264
Aba
Absolutely. The thoughts/memories of what could have been, opportunities missed, harm I've caused & endured. They haven't been nearly as bad since I've basically hidden myself away from the world but they're still there, eating away at me, everyday. And the few times I do go out, I'm almost always reminded of why I don't belong in this world.
Annnnnd, this. Couldn't have said it better myself.
k75
L'appel du Vide
- Jun 27, 2019
- 2,546
I definitely am, but not like you. They aren't the happy things. I have PTSD, and I'm constantly kind of reliving certain events from the past and questioning what I did. I beat myself up over things I did wrong, and I dwell on the life-changing things that I wish I could go back and fix. It's relentless. Most of my dreams are based around this
too.
I haven't found a way to make it stop or really deal with it. People tell me to use distractions, meditate, watch tv, play video games. It doesn't help. Usually I manage to ruminate no matter what I'm doing. I do the other things when I can muster the energy, and it kind of helps with my depression sometimes, but not the thoughts.
My therapist is really big into CBT, and she told me of this technique that she thinks would work on it. You basically print out a little stop sign and every time you find yourself thinking the thoughts you look at that stop sign and think "stop." And the more you do it the more your mind will just automatically stop the thoughts. I've never stuck with it long enough to see if it actually works, but you might try that. She swears it's an effective technique that will work if you do it.
too.
I haven't found a way to make it stop or really deal with it. People tell me to use distractions, meditate, watch tv, play video games. It doesn't help. Usually I manage to ruminate no matter what I'm doing. I do the other things when I can muster the energy, and it kind of helps with my depression sometimes, but not the thoughts.
My therapist is really big into CBT, and she told me of this technique that she thinks would work on it. You basically print out a little stop sign and every time you find yourself thinking the thoughts you look at that stop sign and think "stop." And the more you do it the more your mind will just automatically stop the thoughts. I've never stuck with it long enough to see if it actually works, but you might try that. She swears it's an effective technique that will work if you do it.
k75
L'appel du Vide
- Jun 27, 2019
- 2,546
NaNo210
Member
- Jan 9, 2020
- 21
Yes, I have some better memories when I was in a safer place, they weren't exactly happy but I do ask what would things be like if I was still there. Then there are the awful ones from childhood, the ones that make me feel like I was doomed either way, overshadow the better time's as false hope. I can ruminate for hours and hours over the bad ones, at one point I was convinced I'm stuck in a time-loop where things are repeating themselves over and over again in different ways.
Flippy
Felis Sapien
- Jan 5, 2020
- 931
This is how I feel too. It's like I can't experience a positive mood without flashbacks to years of traumatic experiences. I think I may have some form of what they call "superior autobiographical memory". I think my brain has been so hyper-vigilant it can't forget pretty much anything.
yetme
Arcanist
- Oct 20, 2019
- 486
yeah every single day I think about what an idiot I was to not appriciate what I had and to f-up so bad.
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LMLN
Paragon
- Aug 10, 2019
- 929
Yes. Every minute of every waking hour. The wonderful life I had with my husband. The life I'll never get back. The last moments and words with him. It torments me.
WhiteEyes
always late
- Jan 20, 2020
- 67
Yeah I replay everything over and over again. How I could have fixed things. I even go back to when I was a kid and remember the holidays I had and then it makes me feel worse.
Even if I could go back it would probably all go to hell. This life is evil.
Even if I could go back it would probably all go to hell. This life is evil.
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