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Re:Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world? by DyslexicAtheist on Monday April 27, 2020 @08:07AM (#22995019)
that's actually a pretty effective way for overwriting/replacing your bad memories with something new. Less drastic / and practical examples:

Say you went through a really bad breakup and your partner let you down by cheating on you with your best friend. You still love them and really want to those memories gone. You got 2 options:

1) stop listening to favorite songs, no longer visit specific restaurants or pubs, stop doing a sport you did together,

2) replace these memories by doing exactly those things with your new partner. soon you will have forgotten about them. Instead what remains is that activity/place now being your memory and not associated to another person (or the 2 of you).

Re:Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world? by saiya-jin on Monday April 27, 2020 @12:45PM (#22997486)
That's... pretty dumb way of dealing with breakup, and I can't see it reliably working as you describe. Humans are way more complicated than that.

What has at least a reasonable chance of working in similar situation - come to peace with whatever happened and simply move on. It doesn't matter anymore. Don't cover bad memories with new shiny ones and pretend those old ones aren't there - of course they are, till your last breath they will be.

It really doesn't matter who did what and who hurt who once things are over, it's over. Process things, expose yourself to them (at least for me it works, weird as it may sounds smoking weed and mulling things over and over makes them closed quite effectively in relatively short time - but that's my own unique mindset, no clue why it works like that). They are your emotions after all, part of you. No point trying to act differently.

How to know you really processed them? For example meeting your ex won't trigger any stupid emotional reaction. Imagine granny meeting grandpa when they are 80, would they still hold grudges? What would be the point?

Re:Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world? by cthalupa on Monday April 27, 2020 @04:24PM (#22999614)
I think I have to at least somewhat agree with GP here. Obviously you need to come to terms with the relationship ending and move on in general, but I think there's some truth to making new memories in these places being beneficial. I would argue it isn't necessarily specific to a partner, however.

I don't frequently meet up with my ex's, but have caught up with them for lunch or other things from time to time. I don't really have any sort of emotional reaction to those - the relationship is over, I've got no desire to get back together with them, etc. And it's easy for me, because I know and accept that who we are now wouldn't work out, and that's why we broke up.

But memories don't always have that same perspective. They're a crystallized point in time, and maybe that point in time is before whatever happened or changed that resulted in the relationship not working out. To me those "ghosts" can be significantly tougher to deal with than interacting with the person in present day. Making more memories in those places doesn't make me forget, but it does help redefine it as just another memory in a long list of them. It gives me options of other things to remember.

Re:Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world? by SketchySeaBeast on Monday April 27, 2020 @09:41AM (#22995696)
I wouldn't recommend letting your new partner know that you're doing that though.
Re:Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world? by DyslexicAtheist on Monday April 27, 2020 @09:52AM (#22995799)
yes would be a very bad idea :-/ there would probably be better examples (dealing with a breakup was in retrospect a terrible use-case to make my point).
Re:Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world? by eeZah7Ux on Monday April 27, 2020 @11:07AM (#22996529)
> that's actually a pretty effective way for overwriting/replacing your bad memories

Please avoid this oversimplification of human psyche.

We are not fruit flies, we are thousands of times more complex than "replacing your bad memories"