How do I stop replaying negative memories in my head?

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This is my problem at the moment... and it's just a build up of everything.

Thanks millions for the thread, Mw99. This is very useful.

Thank you Remnant, I think I’ll try that. I’ve also tried Issa’s idea before and found it's not bad. Thanks also to BlueMax’s ingenious idea:

I’m so sure it’ll work on me. Another one I feel promising is flailure’s suggestion, although it requires more efforts.
And I agree with Zeno that good sleep helps, and it seems to help me with many other things. Unfortunately the fact I’m currently obsessing about WP (and the Internet in general) means I’m not getting much of it. Moderation!

Unfortunately, enforcing the memory doesn’t work for me like some others commented, but I heard of another type of cognitive therapy which worked on a friend. You deliberately make your eyes go out of focus when you think about unpleasant memories. Oh, why on earth haven’t I tried that by now?

I think you're onto something here Seabright. I don't think this mental perservation is much, if anything, to do with psychologically-based OCD.

We just have brains that are hardwired to seek logical sequences. We get stuck - or at least I certainly do - until I have found the next step or the missing info that allows me to move on.

My experience is that it is absolutely nothing to do with psychology or holding on to stuff becuase of some great psychological trauma. Rather it seems to me to be almost a physiological trauma that creates mental anguish until resolution (and rewiring ) is found.

i thought i was the only person who did this! it's gotten a lot better lately, but when i was about ten or eleven i became suicidal over the memory of a magazine article i had read about a woman who murdered her husband. i thought, because i seemed so obsessed with the article, that i was a psychopath who wanted to saw people apart.

I know exactly what you all are thinking.
Bad memories keep coming back and sometimes with the same amount of anger or emotions that I felt when it first happened a long time ago. Ruins my day and keeps me from living my current daily life and doing things I should be/ want to do.
Living in the past to be exact. Ruining my future.
Its not simple, I can't just get over it or stop thinking about it. You know what I mean.
People who don't understand should spend sometime thinking like me. Then they'll understand.

I become so obsessed with that couple of seconds or a very short moment in my past.
It feels like its around me right now and it's so ALIVE.
Sad thing is some of these things are really nothing, really small , things MOST people forget about in a couple of seconds '


It feels so good to share this way I think with people who understands.
I don't want to live like this anymore.
I don't want to live in my past anymore.

Good question. If you find the answer, please post here.

My bane is that I remember the bad things, the mistakes and the missed opportunities much more than I remember the good things I have done. Is this Divine Punishment?

As a coping mechanism I metaphorically "slam the door" when a nasty recollection bubbles to the surface. That is the best I have been able to do so far.

ruveyn

-Doing something alone that I really enjoy doing especially if it's something that is productive and I know will help other people. This is creating good new memories.

-Trying to help and mentor others ignored by everyone else.

-Avoiding large impersonal crowds.

-Getting out in the fresh air.

-Being creative.

-Finding alternative ways to approach problems.

-Reading up on a new complex topic.

-Having people that back and accept me 100% by looking at the positive side of my personality and say how I could improve realistically. If these people are happy and supportive without any worries of their own this helps a million fold.

-People who will really listen offering me practical advice that works to address the underlying "problems" behind the bad memories. It also helps if they don't say any "trigger words" to bring up any issues. Having a strong support network that tries to understand and not ignore helps.

-Frequent treats and informal socialising at a slow pace.

-Other people not being disappointed if I can't socialise every five minutes.

-People being clear with their instructions to avoid misunderstandings and embarrassment.

-People not labeling me and recognising me as a capable person with my own strengths and weaknesses.

-Listening to great music alone or looking at spectacular natural scenery, or going to the beach.

These have been the only things that have worked for me.
Avoiding negativity and very stressed out people.
Encountering stressed people that say I'm rude and inconsiderate, people that don't include me in activities, or people that talk to me in a condescending and patronising way, or people that call me "disordered" or "diseased", puts the bad memory tape on replay.

I'm like that. I can be thinking about a memory on the way home and stop walking completely because it seems so realistic. If it'd happened recently I'll spend the whole time walking home trying to think of better ways I could have dealt with it. I do this pretty much every Wednesday because there's this person who, I wouldn't say bullies me as such, but asks me really stupid questions, and I always give an answer which is okay, but I always think I could have gave a better answer which would have left her feeling pretty stupid(tbh, I already think she does)...
There are some moments which I obsess over which happened ages ago, but not for days, just for an hour or so.
EMZ=]

I'm not sure if this is an AS issue or not, but I can pass on what a therapist told me on the topic.

We have two types of memory. Rational and emotional.

Rational memory is logic based (what did you have for breakfast). Those memories tend to naturally fade over time unless we routinely remember the details.

Emotional memory is timeless (something hurtful or embarrassing or stressful). All you need is something that triggers the memory and it returns full force in total detail.

Emotional memory can "fade" with time, but it's more that we don't experience a trigger to remember it. The only way to nullify an emotional memory is to find "closure." I thought closure was some artsy-fartsy psychobabble term but the doc explained that what it involved is coming to peace with the incident to where it no longer elicits an emotional response. This can take a lot of time and work, but once it is achieved, that emotional memory begins to fade just as a rational memory does.

Having AS, I suppose we are prone to "obsess" over an incident and "self-remind" or "self-trigger" the memories that bring us pain where a NT person might be less prone to do that.

In any case, the solution is to come to peace with what happened and work thorugh it. Then, it should become less and less of an issue for obsession.

I couldn't agree more. For most of my first 40 years I was plagued by incessant replays of scenes gone wrong, and new ones arose with dismal regularity. Even a day of blissful perseveration free of these obsessional memories was no assurance of not being invaded in dreams.

Only when I actually visited the physical scenes of the worst of these haunting memories and looked back on them with the understanding of myself (and life in general) I now have was I able to bring a sufficient degree of closure to finally stop being controlled by the invasive memory. Non, even on the off chance I recall a snippet from the scene, the feelings are completely gone, detached, replaced by at least the overtone of satisfaction from defeating the devastating effect of the memory's grip. While there are still a few more memories that need to be simlarly neutralised, things are much better today than just a few short years ago.

i have this problem so much too.i had so bad times when i was child.all the time thinkin thinkin critise my self critise my parents while i thinking bad things im not in this world and i had so many problem at work too.

i found something about how to stop your bad feeling about something or past life.its eft.

emotional freedom technic.

i tried and i really feel comfortable about my some bad memory.eft make them negative.

i think all people should try this technic write in youtube or google there are many info and video about this.

its really worth to try..

This thread has been so helpful. Thank you a million times to everyone who posted.

Just wanted to add (sorry if this is repeating what someone else has said) that for me, the way to get over intrusive memories has been to write them out, in detail. I learnt this technique from a book on PSTD - that if you tell someone the memories, or write them, then it helps stop them being intrusive. And it has worked for me. I wrote them on an online diary site, where strangers read and commented, which also helped because I felt that the memories were no longer stuck in my head. They were out in the open and had been read by others.

There are some great ideas in this thread which I am going to try out. Thank You.

I have suffered from this also. It seems to come in waves sometimes. I have spent some time reading and trying to find solutions. Here’s the most useful stuff I have come across :
It seems this process of painful events creating a mental trigger, for the brain to use as future pain infliction, is similar to the Eastern concept of karma. The emotional sticky note you attach to the memory, allows the brain to serve it back up to you, over and over again. Many of the suggestions in this thread, where one consciously examines the memory (and dispels the ridiculous nature of re-experiencing the pain), form part of the solution they offer. In essence, try not to file memories involving pain away, before neutralising how they affect you. And if you have, neutralise them as they come up.

Another really excellent source of help (for me) has been some of Eckhart Tolle’s teachings. He refers to this suffering process as “the pain body”. Which in his description, rises up inside, triggers negative emotions via re-running mental movies from the past, or by creating fresh painful experiences (such as conflict). He says (and I have been able to confirm myself) that as you are re-running these memories, the pain body is feeding from the pain in those thoughts all over again. The feeding session can be minutes, hours, or days. During that time your energy is being depleted (feel weak, perhaps tired, depressed, etc).
His solution involves consciously watching the pain. Watching it and studying the patterns it uses, the thoughts it prefers, etc. Shinning the light of consciousness, takes away it’s energy. In my case he was right, most of the time I slipped into these thought patterns, I wasn’t conscious. Wasn’t present. I was day dreaming away…

I've had the same problem too over the years. The intrusive memories of things like the 4 summers my parents and sister forced swimming on me daily, the constant bullying and harassment I got in school, my parents' frequent shouting matches at me, and the list goes on.

One thing that happens to me is I sometimes fantasize of a different outcome of the events. Lately I've been obsessing about my high school years. In grade 9, we were forced into this demeaning, humiliating hazing week which I refused to do. The result was I was never treated the same as everyone else. I sometimes fantasize about my parents taking my side, screaming at school officials for me, than enrolling me somewhere else where I would be treated better.

Another fantasy I have is how in grade 11, I was taking a class from a horrible teacher, and not doing well. I wanted out and my parents went down to the school to get me out of it, but the principal wouldn't allow it. One fantasy is at that point, I transfer out to another school and a better life.

Another thing that happened with that incident is I was told there was no way I could get out of the class, yet other students were told they could drop at mid term. In reality, my parents did nothing but in my fantasies, they did. What actually happened was other students dropped at mid term and my parents asked again if I could drop, but again, the principal said no and I just had to tough it out. In my fantasy, my parents tell him that class goes or I go, principal says no, and I'm off to another school where I'm welcome and treated better. It never happened, but I so wish it had.

I have that too, it can really f**k me up. I hate constantly thinking about something that makes me low or angry.

My "cure" is intense sensory stimulation. Very loud music usually does it. It's hard to dwell on memories with death metal pounding in your ears at over 80 decibels.