MOTIVATED FORGETTING

Recently , I had gone through a few readings on Motivated Forgetting. There were multiples times where people had been asking about my back stories and I admit I might have mixed the information that probably confused them. Some even said "are you telling lies right now?" and that actually offends me because in all seriousness, I'm very true to myself and the people surrounding me. I did explained to them that I usually forgot some past occurrence because, they were painful and quite disturbing. So whenever I tried to do a story-telling of my life, some parts of of it were missing or , I just created a new memory based on the emotions that still lingers or based on the main core of the memory.Motivated Forgetting ; a theorized psychological behavior in which people may forget unwanted memories, consciously or unconsciously. Some of the theories are :

1. People forget memories because they don't want to remember them.

2. Painful or disturbing memories are made unconscious and very difficult to retrieve, but still remained in storage.

3. Decay theory - forgetting which refers to the loss of memory over time.

4. Interference theory - subsequent learning with and degrade a person's memories.

5. The Gestalt theory - memories are forgotten through distortion @ false memory syndrome.

As for me, I had probably underwent point 1,2 and 5.

REPRESSION

People subconsciously push unpleasant or intolerable thoughts and feelings into their unconscious, When situations or memories occur that we are unable to cope with, we push them away. Repressed memories can influence behaviors unconsciously , manifesting themselves in our discussion, dreams and emotional reactions. Example, a abused child has no recollection of the event for years but has trouble forming relationships.

SUPRESSION

It is the conscious and deliberate efforts to curtails one's thought and memories. It is a goal-directed ; includes conscious strategies to forget. Example, someone thinking of unpleasant thoughts , ideas or  inappropriate images at the moment. They may try to think of anything else but the unwanted thoughts; in order to push the thought out of consciousness. It also can be linked to Directed Forgetting @ intentional forgetting - imitated b a conscious goal to forget.

PSYCHOLOGICAL AMNESIA

The inability to remember past experience of personal information,  due to psychological factors rather than biological dysfunction/ brain damage. The memories still exist, buried deeply in the mind, but could resurfaced at any time on their own/from being exposed to a trigger in the person's surroundings.

Writer's note

Although forgetting is often negative, this emphasis neglects a fundamental feature of human existence; not all experiences are pleasant. To preserve our emotions state, to protect out sense of self, sometimes simply to concentrate on what needs to be done. Therefore, any scientific theory of forgetting must include an account of the considerable motivational forces that shapes retention.

I believe that all that had been mentions above are kinds of a defence mechanisms, where we just want to protect ourselves from feeling those unwanted emotions and flashbacks. So if people are accusing us of lying and being uncertain, just explain to them about these things, in hopes they get a bit more understanding and empathy of others. :)

in order for a man to move on, one must needs to forget

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♥ by, autumnzira ♥

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