4 ms·

I'm not sure of your life exeriences but as a soon 40 year old I would have enough nightmare stuff to severely mentally handicap me unless I had some way of cop

• Sileni 8y ago
  Counterpoint; trauma is so difficult to forget that the relatively small footprint of forgetting random, unessential facts just doesn't compare to the benefit of being able to forget something you would otherwise get into PTSD-style thought-loops over. Don't think about the time a close relative passed away; think about the types of torture John McCain went through. Do you think he could have come back and been the man he was if he couldn't lock some of his memories away? And there is no "initial phase of emotional reactivity". It's a continuous spectrum of reactions and reactions to those reactions. Real trauma is like being hit by a train, or getting cancer. Yeah, you'll recover, but you'll never quite be as healthy as you were before the event even if your recovery is miraculous.
  • 1000units 8y ago
    It's a continuous spectrum of reactions and reactions to those reactions. That's life, period. Yeah, you'll recover, but you'll never quite be as healthy as you were before the event even if your recovery is miraculous. I'm not quite a former war prisoner, but I'm objectively a more effective person in many ways because of what I went through. I am worse off some ways, too, sure. But again, that's life. Little comes free. I want to remember.