Time

[waterspyder]

In my family, we don't take pictures to record every moment of our lives. We take the occasional photo of something that might serve to remind us that we were once there, but we don't try to preserve the moment. In fact, in my family we can hardly think of a worse thing than to record the past in such a way that doesn't leave room for interpretation. Sometimes I wish that I could, so that I could counter my mother's insistence that I always loved mustard with incontrovertable proof, but that would require us to have taken pictures of every meal I've ever eaten. It's little excessive considering what's at stake.

In our family, we rely on time to blur the details. We remember brides being pretty rather than dressed up in an awful gown that was in vogue in 1984, but now resembles a $4 hooker costume. We forget the exact reason why we stalked out of the house in bare feet at the age of 13 in the dead of winter. We forget how our lively grandfather was before he was stricken with cancer and spent 6 months hauling around an oxygen machine, and only the happy fisherman lives. It dulls the edges, lets us forget, allows us rewrite things into a happier ending.

Forgetting the details makes it easier to forgive others, and forgive ourselves. It allows us to move past our own faults and move on to successes, as long as you chalk up some "lessons learned". It provokes friendly disagreements about who encouraged who to jump off first. It also gives us time to heal, to forget who broke off a relationship with whom and over what. We know we don't like broccoli, we don't have to constantly remind ourselves why. We sleep better at night.

People were built with a fallible brain, and I believe it's because we wouldn't be able to face ourselves in the morning if we remembered every instant of embarassment, every falsehood told to a parent and every time we failed at something new. Maybe poor memory in people with depression is a defense mechanism to held them to heal. Who knows the real reason why, but humans are fallible, and time helps us manage that.

Comments

[ms-danson.livejournal.com]

Maybe poor memory in people with depression is a defense mechanism to held them to heal.

Studies have shown that people with depression are more likely to recall negative (ie mood similar) memories and forget positive ones (ie they literally can't remember being happy). (I don't have the studies here to show how this correlates to brain activity or lack of it in certain areas.) Hence the reason why they believed that all was, is, and ever will be hopeless.

A similar situation exists for manic states.

[waterspyder.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. This is absolutely true. Some people also experience flat affect where they remember being neither happy nor sad. I personally found that when I was able to get help for depression, having the period fogged out to a certain extent did help with the overall healing process, because looking back, I wasn't able to remember what, if anything, made me sad.

I'd also be interested to see how sadness is defined. Do people identify it as a lack of happiness? or a feeling in and of itself?

Ugly used to be defined as an "absence of beauty" but is now an entity unto itself.

[ms-danson.livejournal.com]

Yeah... coming out of depression or mania and having the memory fogged in retrospect can be a blessing.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

I think studies in general memories tend to be keyed into moods of all sorts, so if you always tend to remember things better of times when you were in the same mood as you are in now. This includes moods brought about by drugs and whatnot (which is why if you're drunk when you study, make sure to be drunk on the test).

[ms-danson.livejournal.com]

Given that intoxication impairs cognition and judgment I would not recommend it for either studying or taking tests. Besides, showing up drunk to an exam is a good way to get thrown out.

[purplezart.livejournal.com]

This includes moods brought about by drugs and whatnot

i'm not completely sure about this, but i think this phenomenon has less to do with the mood you're in and more to do with your state of consciousness. this is also why you can sometimes remember your dreams right when you wake up (especially if you wake up suddenly) but not remember later on.

however, i think i do remember learning about a similar phenonmenon related to depression and mania, again not strictly related to "mood" per se, but more about the neurochemistry.