I’ve always been fascinated by the way the mind works, and the role that biology and psychology play in making us who we are. One area that particularly intrigues me is trauma. Why does one person seem to take a distressing event in stride while another person is consumed by it? War is deeply traumatic, but not every soldier returns with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. One person might survive a fire and all but shrug it off, while another is deeply scarred by the experience. Is it something within them, or something about the environment they grew up in, or something else altogether?
A few days ago a friend of mine sent me a link to a New York Times article that sheds new light on this question, especially for me personally. It’s about something called overgeneral memory, “a tendency to recall past events in a broad, vague manner.” If I were to ask you to think of a specific time when you felt relaxed, could you come up with one? Maybe a vacation you took to the beach last year, or a hot bath at the end of a long day last week. I can’t. My mind is blank. I’m sure that at some point in my life I must have been relaxed, but I can’t find it. And if I can’t find it, I can’t use it to help figure out something I can do to relax myself now.
This is bad for a person in general, but it’s really bad for a writer. How am I supposed to write from experience when I can’t remember what my experiences are? I do have a few vivid memories, usually of bad things (being yelled at by a teacher, etc.) and I have vasts stores of useless trivia and song lyrics at my disposal. But large swaths of my life exist to me not as distinct events but as sort of lumps of experience. For example, when I was a child an aunt and uncle of mine lived nearby. We probably went to visit them dozens of times, but in my mind it was two or three times tops. If I talk to someone about it, I might be able to tease out a couple of different times–oh, that was the time we went sailing, or that was the time we played Pong–but without that coaching, it’s all the same day.
So I was excited by the discovery of this condition but I was also depressed by the ramifications (especially since the article is actually about how overgeneral memory contributes to depression and PTSD). Lucky for me, though, just when I was getting really bummed thinking that I was stuck like this with no hope, I got to the part with the solution: mindfulness. I need to put more of a conscious effort into being present, paying attention, and processing my experiences, good and bad. Which means I also need to limit my multitasking. I can probably get away with putting the dishes in the dishwasher or moving the laundry to the dryer while I’m chatting on the phone, but the days of trying to watch the news while I’m doing the finances should probably end. If I want to be able to remember something, I’m going to have to give it my undivided attention. I’ve already learned to do that with my writing. Now I just need to expand that to other areas of my life. Because if it’s worth doing, or watching, or reading, then it’s worth remembering.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,