| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 1:46:14 PM | Suicide and even euthanasia are mostly illegal. If you cut off your own hand because it offends you, you are not going to be regarded as sane. If they use this kind of drug I hope it is regarded as brain surgery, only for use in cases where it is clear that the treatment is required for the mental health of the person involved.
It is hard to deny people such relief if they desire it, it is not as terminal as suicide and in cases of terminal illness many people are sympathetic to relieving that suffering. I don't believe in any deities or higher force or grand scheme. Life is unreasonable and unfair to many people and I am all for making it better. I just question whether we are smart enough to decide what is right in individual cases. A child abused by a parent in one horrible event may have that memory erased -- but how can the gap between everything leading up to that and the aftermath be resolved? Wouldn't the gap and lack of memory haunt and confuse them as with people who have trama-induced amnesia? Mightn't the imagination supply scenarios worse than the truth?
I think it the case where a single event is running and ruining someone's life, whether they cannot function at all as a result of being stuck in a moment, selective amnesia might seem like a no-lose idea, but I have doubts even in this most clear-cut scenario. Our understanding of how the brain works is really so far extremely limited. As a result of a single experience and repeated recall of it, all kinds of "pathways" in the brain might change shape, size or direction, learning... and removing the reason for that change, the source of it would not be like resetting the brain to before the event. It could be like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted -- new fears have been learned, but the reasons for them are gone and the context for tacking them cognitively is gone... | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 1:48:25 PM | One thing you do NOT want to do to get rid of bad memories is drink alcohol.
Alcohol causes the brain to reinforce memories - except for those that happened while drunk. So drowning your sorrows may give brief relief, but reinforces the recent bad memories into long-term memory. | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 2:05:51 PM |
Imagine this pill does become readily available...would you take it to help you forget about a relationship gone bad?
and live a Groundhog Day life?
Why on God's Green Earth would you want to do that????
Wow!!!
Would you want to get taken for a fool by the same people over and over again?... get bit by the same dogs? have the same accidents?
GAWD!!!
Not to mention that you might forget more than you want to...
What if you're ambivalent about something?
I forgot more than you'll ever know about her.
You think you know the smile on her lips
The thrill and the touch of her fingertips
But I forgot more than you'll ever know about her.
You think you'll find heaven of bliss
In each caress, in each tender kiss
But I forgot more than you'll ever know about her.
You stole her love from me one day
You didn't care, oh, it hurt me
But you can never steal away memories of what used to be.
You think she's yours, to have and to hold
Someday you'll learn, when her love grows cold
But I forgot more than you'll ever know about her.
-Cecil Null (later recorded by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, among others) | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 2:15:47 PM | After mulling this over a little more I compare this potential drug to what I "once" did when I played a sport. I ripped up my ankle pretty good one game in the playoffs and for me to play "without pain" in the next one, I was told I could freeze the ankle. Being young (and stupid) I did it, but basically destroyed the ankle for 4 months. I never froze again. If I hadn't froze, I may have been able to play with the pain, but at least I would have "felt" when I couldn't push it anymore.
You want to FEEL, either pain or happiness or whatever in between. Shutting down emotions and memory is just plain silly. | |
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gintip
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Joined: 2/21/2008
Msg: 30 | |
| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 2:22:22 PM | | amazing--I'm taking a drug perspectives class at college. I happened to have come across that article today and printed it. Mostly aimed at suppressing memories of people who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 2:30:05 PM | | what a great defense!!!" Mr. President, don't you remember nuking that foreign country??" " No I took the painful memory pill" Enough said. | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 2:35:24 PM | I don't think we are the sum of all our experiences. I hate that spiritual line.
I am myself in spite of all that has happened to me.
And let me tell you there are some memories i'd like to get rid of. Or lessen their emotional effect on me. I was me the day i was born and i've always been me. Sure i've had to hide myself from some and i've even behaved badly when i couldn't cope. But i've always been me.
What people have done to me is wrong. You think you get over these things but I really think you take these things to the grave. If i could get rid of some of my memories and know it wouldn't alter me. I'd do it in a heart beat. However if it caused dependency or made me less of who i am then nope. | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 2:40:10 PM | I didn't know that an actual medication was being developed, but I know that there is a radical type of cognitive therapy. We are not talking about bad relationships or depression here, we are talking about very traumatic events that are triggering such awful reactions that it is impossible for the person to move forward. What the original poster said was true, though. If a person has had a terrible trauma, the BODY remembers and can exacerbate panic reactions in the future.
But we're not talking about just taking a pill and making the problem go away. We're talking about radical measures to get the person to the point where they can have a hope of success in therapy. I know about this, because I was assaulted and then had to deal with a year of post-traumatic stress disorder. Years later, I tried to take a martial arts course and it sent me into a tail-spin. The counsellor I went to see suggested a very expensive radical therapy just to get me past my panic to a place where I could talk about it. I didn't do it, because of the expense, and luckily counselling helped me. | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 6:00:12 PM | Here's another twist on the trauma issue:
Would you take the pill to help you deal with the emotional issue associated with the bad event? In other words, you do NOT lose the memory of the event but the emotional aspect is in some way "reduced" allowing you to deal more effectively with the issue...
BTW, this is a quote from the original articel..."the research has suggested only that the emotional effects of memories may be blunted, not that the memories themselves are erased."
I can think of several cases where this would be really helpful... | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 6:15:09 PM |
Would you take the pill to help you deal with the emotional issue associated with the bad event? In other words, you do NOT lose the memory of the event but the emotional aspect is in some way "reduced" allowing you to deal more effectively with the issue...
If I am not mistaken, there are already many varieties of that pill out there. Are you sure you are quoting from the same article I read? | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 6:18:51 PM |
If I am not mistaken, there are already many varieties of that pill out there. Are you sure you are quoting from the same article I read?
Here's the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43210-2004Oct18.html | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 8:19:27 PM | Another pill that will be used (and abused) to escape reality. As if alcohol wasn't bad enough.
great. just what we need.
How about people just take responsibility for their actions and learn from their mistakes instead of wiping the board clean everytime? | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 8:21:42 PM |
How about people just take responsibility for their actions and learn from their mistakes instead of wiping the board clean everytime?
Why in sam's hell would you suggest something as ridiculous as this? o.O
You obviously watched Matrix in reverse. | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 8:48:32 PM | I have an ex-sister in law, that was shot through no fault of her own. She was at a motel, holding her granddaughter, and the people upstairs from her were stealing a bunch of stuff, and keeping it in this room. And they were playing around with one of the guns, and shot it down through their floor, right into her chest, knocked her to her knees, and she dropped her granddaughter, which really freaked her out, because she didn't even realize yet she had been shot. It's a really long story, but she ended up with traumatic stress syndrome, a lot of medical problems, due to the bullet riccocheting around in her body. And honestly I don't know which is the worst for her, the physical, or the mental. So IMO, there are some people who could really put this drug to use. It ruined her life, and eventually her marriage. I don't believe she will ever be okay. And there are many other cases out there that I'm sure that could benefit from this. You just never know what is going to happen to you in life, and some situations need more desperate measures than others.
But of course, even if it is a good thing, someone will turn it into a bad thing. | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 9:18:20 PM | OH BOY .....Another pill !!!!! ....Good God....what's next....surviving anything...makes us better people.....It's called....LIFE ! | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 9:38:12 PM | Heidi, unless something really new just happened there are not varieties of the pill, in terms of impact. There are varieties of beta-blockers used (that's what it is) but they're pretty much doing the same thing. What you are talking about is a hypothetical result that has yet to be proven. The emotional effect appears pretty convincingly demonstrated.
It's been pretty clearly demonstrated that the emotional impact of a traumatic event can be eliminated. This also, as Bethlett is concerned, tends to diminish learning. In fact, when they first tested this in mice what they discovered is that the mice then do the thing again that leads to the traumatic event.
The hypothesis is, that when the trauma no longer has an emotional component this will make it less likely to be recalled in the future. But, whether it is or not it is not going to evoke the "body memories" mentioned earlier. There's not contradiction Heidi.
The idea is that it would be a prescription medication for those who have PTSD from any source, war, rape, etc.
There are serious issues though. The drug has to be administered at exactly the right time when you are experiencing the emotion and physical reaction. If it is not it has no effect. This leads to problems in administration. Furthermore, it hasn't been tested to work in individuals who are prompted to intentionally recall and feel the event. Is that even ethical for a Dr. to ask a patient to do?
The abuse that's really being worried about is that the military, for example, will use this to keep sending soldiers back ton the front lines who should otherwise be discharged. Another example might be an argument of diminished harm in the case of rape, or using that to deal and make it easier to avoid prosecuting the perpetrator.
To those who think people should just "deal" I think that perhaps your imagination hasn't extended far enough. Take someone like a fireman for example, who has to deal with having a baby burn to death just out of his reach, and be completely incapable of saving her. It's pretty hard to argue that's going to somehow make him a better person in the long run to just "deal" with it. This is an unavoidable tragedy and we as a society have hired him to try to help in these situations. Having him just deal with it when it can be taken away is both terribly unfair and doesn't really help at all. But I'm sure someone on POF will just give it a cracking shot at explaining why that kind of trauma should be something they should learn to deal with it...
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 9:47:20 PM | | As much as I would love to delete some of the crap I have dealt with, it would also erase the person who did the crap. I know that would be mistake to take something like that. Put your hand in fire and get burnt, do I want to forget that fire burns? | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 9:48:32 PM |
Scientists are working on a memory erasing pill
People are zombies from all the drugs they take right now and this one will erase their memory?
Wonder what will happen when it gets into drinking water?
Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water
AP
Posted: 2008-03-09 2114
Filed Under: Health News, Nation News, Science News
(March 9) - A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows. | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 9:54:08 PM | Don't need no stinking pills!
"There's booze in the blender and soon it will render that frozen concoction that helps me hang on." | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 9:55:52 PM | damn. are these american doctors? we can't deal with shit anymore. not even a cold. there's a pill for everything. my mexican homies at the campus are gonna die laughing when i tell them this.
he jokes us americans about how soft we are everyday. | |
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| an easy way to purge bad memories
Posted: 3/11/2008 11:14:22 PM | ... just imagine all the book that would never get written ... imagine forgetting all the things we have learned... learn how to Make people stronger not weaker in their hardest hours....
nahhhh too many people are already over medicated.... NOT another one! | |
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