determined to forget

Have you considered being proud of who you are rather than embarrassed by who you are? You are spending a lot of energy and resources trying to forget, when it is your experiences that are your unique story.

The choices you made are only a problem if you try to run from them. Running from them, trying to forget them means you might very well end up repeating those same choices. You will meet an older man and let them be your sugar daddy again, because you have forgotten what you want to forget, so having a sugar daddy isn't so bad, right? It was only dinner and drinks you say, so you repeat the same behavior and must relearn that there are other consequences to prostituting yourself.

We all make choices we regret, but trying to forget those choices is not a solution but rather compounds the problem. One reason you struggle with your identity is because instead of embracing it, you are trying to run from it.

What if I get into a relationship and a line i would never cross is cheating..therefore I would never make that decision again, right? So then I could go into something with a clean slate.

reallyconfused wrote:What if I get into a relationship and a line i would never cross is cheating..therefore I would never make that decision again, right? So then I could go into something with a clean slate.

Not if you forget the bad parts of making such a decision. Bad memories, mistakes, failures, regrets, these are all part of life, part of learning and they help us not to repeat the same decisions. If you effectively erase those things, you have no basis to not repeat the experience. Didn't like sticking your hand on a hot stove? Erase that memory. There is a hot stove, how do you know not to once again stick your hand on the stove? You don't, because you erased the pain.

Okay, what if you do intensive therapy and THEN have the memory removed or altered..that way, the motives and the lack of consciousness is removed and therefore less likely to happen...you would be aware of the consequences and the feelings but not the specific incident(s)?

reallyconfused wrote:Okay, what if you do intensive therapy and THEN have the memory removed or altered..that way, the motives and the lack of consciousness is removed and therefore less likely to happen...you would be aware of the consequences and the feelings but not the specific incident(s)?

Someone will be more than willing to take your money and promise you that they can make such a thing happen. They may even be very well intentioned and believe it themselves. But, before you open your wallet in pursuit of such a path, consider the below rhetorical questions.

Do you not believe that there are people that have had abortions, committed rapes, been unfaithful, seen all sorts of horrific acts, suffer from memory driven PTSD and all sorts of other memory based anxieties, fears, and regrets? Do you believe your situation is uncommon or rare?

You sound like a reasonable person that recognizes fully that the vast majority of people have memories they would love to erase. Many have searched for the same for which you are searching. Many have opened their wallets and been taken down the rabbit hole of trying to forget, using hypnosis, prescriptions, alcohol, illegal drugs, etc. all in trying to obtain the same outcome you are wishing for.

NO. Outside of a lobotomy or destroying your brain with lithium it can't be done. If it could be done, there would be a billionare with a memory wiping therapy center next to every Starbucks. The military would love to have such a wonderful tool. Society would love to have such a tool. Go kill someone in defense of your country, watch the horrors of war, then wipe the memory. Why don't these things exist? Because wiping memories is pseudoscienctific BS sold for varying price ranges to gullible people.

Funny thing about the brain, the more often you access a memory the stronger the neural connections become. As you search to forget, it will simply make it that much harder to forget. If instead of making out what you did as some awful thing, you accepted it and moved forward in life, got more engaged and created new memories, the weaker the neural connections would naturally become over time. In this sense it is actually counterproductive to seek therapy, because every time you go, you reawaken and reintroduce that memory, strengthening the connections. Even posting in here just continues the cycle of strengthening the memory, lodging it that much further into your psyche as a relevant aspect of your identity.

Okay..stop me at any point. I'm enjoying the education. What about.. learning how to change your thought process, not deleting the memory, but changing the associations...like learning to forget about remembering it..that compulsive thought process. So when you go into therapy you're not erasing it, or talking about the issue itself, but relaxing your mind and allowing yourself to shift your focus..a bit like meditation..hypnosis is supposed to be a deeper meditation right? Like meditating to make new associations, give you confidence, rationalize..things you should learn growing up, but if not, would this be a viable option if traditional therapy scares the crap out of you?

Any amount of time you spend doing things other than thinking about this memory is good therapy. Go on a vacation, write a book, run a marathon, bake a cake, yoga, meditation, finger painting, binging on Netflix, sing karaoke, take up golf, join the local chess club.

Your brain doesn't differentiate between therapy neural connections and skydiving or hiking or eating a pizza neural connections.

Therapist here...

Sounds like you've had quite the ride so far in life. And you're asking some really good questions.

From hearing about your experience is it seems like you're carrying around quite a load of Shame, guilt, and anxiety. And that's really no fun at all. You might want to perhaps consider focusing on that as your target, instead of the specific memories that you're talking about here. It might as a whole change your quality of life.

There are quite a few options available to you.

One of them is cognitive behavior therapy. It can help change the way you think about these things so they aren't as distressing as they are now.

Another option is acceptance and commitment therapy, it's called ACT, which is an approach that helps you learn how to deal with thoughts and feelings and still focus on doing what you value in life. An excellent book that goes into the approach is called the happiness trap, written by someone named Russ Harris. It's very clear to read and understand and implement.

A third option, and this is what I would recommend more than the first two, is called dialectical behavioral therapy, or DBT for short. It was specifically designed for people who are struggling with very difficult pasts, who struggle with a tremendous amount of Shame and guilt, and it's a very effective approach.

Ask for hypnosis, I wouldn't think that it would be useful for you to try and forget these incidents. It sounds like your quality of life is being more affected by the pervasive shame and guilt that you experience, and it's not so much about the specific incidents. In addition, as Richard has pointed out, hypnosis is not very effective in helping people completely have amnesia for troublesome memories. What it is effective for is helping people remove the emotional distress connected to those troublesome memories. Once that is taken care of, the memory has an effect on you just as much as your memory of going to buy milk last week. It's still there, but it doesn't really make that big of a difference in your life.

However I would warn you that there are many hypnotists who are not at all skilled at what they do, with some of them being even downright harmful. That's because hypnosis is an unregulated profession, anybody can hang out their shingle and call them hypnotist, and there's no oversight body that they have to answer to. This doesn't mean that every person who is in a profession with an oversight body is competent, safe, and ethical, many times they aren't. However the ratio of harmful and ineffective practitioners is less when you're dealing with a profession that is regulated.

And so if you do choose to pursue the hypnosis route, I suggest that you do your research are carefully and make sure that you're finding someone who is effective, safe, and ethical. I also suggest that you make sure that the practitioner is comfortable and has experience working with people with a history such as yours. If they claim that your previous history and what happened to you when you were a child in regards to your experience with your parents had no effect on your life and makes no difference in the treatment, I personally would advise you to stay away.

Lastly, and as I spoke about before, it might be worth finding an approach that can do comprehensive work on the shame, guilt, anxiety, and other struggles. That would probably be more helpful than simply focusing in on a specific few incidents and trying to disconnect that unpleasant feeling from them. I think DBT might be an approach that can help you with that.

Good luck, and keep us updated.

reallyconfused wrote:What about.. learning how to change your thought process, not deleting the memory, but changing the associations...

You could try reframing it. The old geezers were presumably happy with what you gave them, while you did what you had to do for you and your little one to survive. There's no shame in that.

First I would like to state. I am not a doctor. I am not saying anything to discredit anybody above. I am only speaking from my experience.

Second, if you do decide to go with hypnotism to "get rid" of these memories you need to know a couple things, even if they have been stated above. Hypnotism can be quite powerful against the willing in my experience. I have helped a few people who have wanted it desperately. Hypnotism will not erase the memories, it only buries them under blocks. Those blocks also are not permanent. If you don't keep them maintained, they will fade away and could cause you a harmful surprise one day.

I would suggest you try other stuff especially the stuff the above people suggest before jumping into hypnotism. At the end of everything, if you are still having the problems thinking of yourself like this then try it. Remember these things before you jump in though. Hypnotism only has power over you if you let it. It can only do what you are willing to let done to you. If you are going to go with a hypnotist that you don't fully know. Then you will want to fail the first induction they try to do and fake it, act like it worked, to see their reaction the first time.

Good people, hypnotists, will be patient with you and be trying to help you. Don't be afraid to do research them or talk with them before hand ether.