If you lost your memory...

[miss_moose]

Just a question inspired by me watching Emmerdale. One of the characters had a head injury and has amnesia, cant remember anything.

It got me thinking, if someone with panic attacks, agoraphobia etc (like mysef and alot of us on here), if they suddenly lost their memory would they still have panic attacks, because of course they wouldnt remember that hospitals/outside/people etc make them panic, or would they still have panic attacks but not understand or remember why?

Hope that all makes sense

[Mazzmate]

Well Miss Moose, that is a very good question....unfortunately I have no idea what the answer is though. Interesting though, and perhaps someone will be able to enlighten us.:blush:

[Thyme]

Very interesting question Miss Moose. It does also beg the question "Are Panic Attacks learned behaviour?"

I suspect that they may well be, when I consider my own it is quite possible that I unconsciously learned to panic as an inappropriate response to a perceived threat. Therefore if you can't remember what has been happening in your life then you don't perceive the threat and so it might be said that amnesia is a cure for panic attacks. However I don't think that I would want amnesia either, I already have large gaps in my memory where I seem to be blocking unpleasant thoughts and it isn't helpful.......I think I'll stick with controlling the PAs.

Incidentally I think that true amnesia is extremely rare and is used in soaps as a plot device. I can only remember one case of real amnesia and that was that guy who could play piano really well who turned up on the south coast. Turned out he was German I think.

[seeker02uk]

I have often wondered this myself!

I think it is all learned behaviour, so if I lost my memory, I would forget that i was anxious or had panic attacks, but then I think that I could still get them as a 'new' thing and have to lose my memory all over again.

I also get very frustrated about people saying the more you do things the easier it gets, yes it does, but for me somewhere along the line I end up back at square one, as doubt creeps in.

I had a fantastic year last year, med free for three years, no anxiety to speak off, felt able to get a new job and new relationship, everything felt great!

Except in the back of my mind crept doubt, and ohhhh this could come crashing down etc and of course self fulfilling prophecy and lost the relationship and the job, by falling into the pit of anxiety again and now on meds again and struggling with mild depression, due to circumstances!

I would dearly love to knock myself out and wake up forgetting how it feels! But still I will get there again and again and again if necessary, I will never give into it GGRRRRRRrrr....