Regression, memories, 1986: Anxiety

[MaxHeadroom]

Hi,

My emotions are heightened during anxiety, everything becomes charged with a hyper-acute feeling. Memories too. I do not have a traumatic past, as such. But I do have a past filled with broken and fragmented scenes. Loss. Absence. Melancholy. The usual stuff. When anxiety strikes, I feel the tremors of the past with a much stronger feeling - the smells, sights, and sounds are enhanced. And then I feel some kind of nostalgia, a kind of sickness thinking about all that residue - what happens to the past? The only way for me to break this mood is to throw myself into a regressive but uplifting state. Right now, I'm fixating on the year 1986 to anchor me in time. I am soothed by the image of a 1986 city street. My anxiety is eased.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but does anyone else have a peculiar relation to memory and anxiety?

Thanks.

[jj.tails]

Yes, memories are an issue for me too. Though not quite in the way you describe. I know that anxiety will push me back into recollections of humiliating or difficult events. Sometimes trivial events albeit they contain some level of insult or degredation. The more prolonged the anxiety, the more obsessive about an old event I become. To a certain extent it's a hapless attempt to repeat or rework an event for a more positive outcome. Which of course isn't possible. Maybe it's just purely self destructive, a degree of self assault. I don't know. But it is intrusive and it certainly doesn't ease the anxiety.

[Cathy V]

Its probably not the same thing, but a couple of years ago i went through a time that lasted only a few months, where i would get random memories, and the feeling that came with these memories was always a kind of a warm feeling...not buzzy or anything bad, just a nice feeling. I could never figure out why they came, i mean some of them i hadnt recalled since the time they happened....and they would make me smile at the memory.

Sometimes it was stuff from my own past and other times from recent past when my kids were small. I never had a bad feeling from them, it was the opposite and i would just let the moment and the feeling wash over me for a minute or so then it would be gone again. It was most strange the way they just pooped into my head, and my doc said it was hormones as there was no stress for me at this time at all, no anx...nothing really. Then they disappeared. I kind of miss that warm feeling inside though...xxx

[Tom_M]

I have terrible flashbacks. The only thing I can do is to block them and get busy doing something. I get them regularly, sometimes every day. It would be nice if I could neutralise them as they are so horrific.

Tom

[Ozpanic]

I get this alot with PTSD, and associations i hear you...hope you feel better soon :blush:

[ElizabethJane]

Hypnosis might help you. In hypnosis you are in complete control. You will be able to look at events in the past and in your unconscious mind and hopefully find resolution and move on. It will help you relax too. My therapist tells me to put the painful memories in a 'museum' in your mind where you can go and look at them if you need to. There are a lot of good techniques to help you through this. I have recently attended a school reunion so there were plenty of triggers for me into anxiety there. Best wishes.

[MaxHeadroom]

Thanks, everyone. I need to digest this. It is the fact that the past is inaccessible that burdens me. No stability in this world. Our own selves are locked in a past that no longer exists. We can anchor ourselves with memories, but that removes us from the present. In general, I'm pretty sure that happiness is an accident of sorts...:shades: