Sigh....I have a scene from a movie I watched in my late teens, early 20s stuck in my head. The memory recently resurfaced for some reason. Anyone know how to purge memory banks - except for using illegal drugs? I'm sooooooo sensitive to movies and so is my DS.
Hi Dazy, I didn't want to ignore this because it happens to me all the time. Torture will cause me huge problems for years, even a hint of torture and it's in the brain totally stuck. There are a couple things that help. Mostly, I just don't got to movies anymore.
But I also realized that I would become frightened of getting images stuck and that this fear only made the helplessness worse. I told DS once that a stuck image is sort of like when you have food caught in your teeth. You have to work it with your tongue and it bugs you, but it can't actually hurt you. It is just annoying. Somehow seeing it that way has taken a lot of the power out of the experience for both of us. Part of the problem is the fear of it getting stuck; get rid of the fear and you are half way to sanity.
Eye movement desensitization reprogramming therapy may be helpful as well. It is used successfully for treatment of PTSD, a much much more serious situation in which memories get stuck unprocessed. Real EMDR is genuine therapy and should be done by someone who knows what they are doing. An EMDR therapist, though, told me I could do a version of it at home that might be helpful. She says to take a moment when the thought is at its peak an then move my eyes back and forth using the corners of my glasses as guides. This is more of distraction than true EMDR, but it may have the effect of un-sticking the memory a bit since eye movement is linked with memory processing in the brain (as in REM sleep).
Maybe this will help. If not take comfort in knowing you are not alone. Somehow I feel a little better knowing that someone else on this board knows what I go through!