I happened to read a book named “Blood Memory” by Greg Iles recently. Well ok, not so recently. It’s the only book I’ve read by the author so I won’t comment on his style (diverting from my usual judgmental self.). Anyway, though the storyline (don’t remember much of it in detail) isn’t the best ever, the suspense in the book is killer.
Anyway what struck me most about the book was the topic it dealt with. On the surface it’s just a book about a crime fighter (the protagonist) with past issues that she sets aside in her daily dose of alcohol, has an affair with a married man but overall does her job well.
As it turns out, her past issues deal with what is known in the medical world as “repressed memories”.
In the story (going to kill the suspense here... so if you want to actually read the book, skip this part) the protagonist was sexually abused as a child by her grandfather. This is where repressed memories step in. by the time she had grown up she had completely blocked the traumatic instances from her memory... for her she had no idea anything happened.
According to sources (read: wikipedia):
A repressed memory, according to some theories of psychology, is a memory (often traumatic) of an event or environment which is stored by the unconscious mind but outside the awareness of the conscious mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory
I also realized that this was not the only place I had read/heard about this. The same stuff has been seen in the movie “The butterfly effect”. I remember watching some crappy show a long time back wherein another girl had repressed memories but she recovers them by some means. Even Harry potter has a mention of it (remember Slughorn and his memories about the horcruxes?).
On the surface, it seems a pretty nice thing, not being able to remember the bad stuff. It’s like having a black spot in your mind. You remember everything before and after the incident but not the incident itself. Your mind automatically blocks out the entire incident to save you from the trauma of having to live through it in every nightmare that you have.
But this is not the case normally. While you may not remember the incident, you do remember that something happened, just not what happened. People usually even have nightmares (as in the story) where they live through the incident… again without actually knowing what happened. At times a certain trigger brings one back to the situation. That in a sense could be a lot more traumatic.
Researches say every person has some repressed memory... it could even be as simple as an embarrassing moment for someone… like going blank on stage… a game you lose very badly… anything that for you on a personal level was too much to handle emotionally. You don’t ever want that to happen again… so you pretend it never happened in the first place… And your mind helps you by blocking it out completely.
My point is,
What is your black spot??
Anyway what struck me most about the book was the topic it dealt with. On the surface it’s just a book about a crime fighter (the protagonist) with past issues that she sets aside in her daily dose of alcohol, has an affair with a married man but overall does her job well.
As it turns out, her past issues deal with what is known in the medical world as “repressed memories”.
In the story (going to kill the suspense here... so if you want to actually read the book, skip this part) the protagonist was sexually abused as a child by her grandfather. This is where repressed memories step in. by the time she had grown up she had completely blocked the traumatic instances from her memory... for her she had no idea anything happened.
According to sources (read: wikipedia):
A repressed memory, according to some theories of psychology, is a memory (often traumatic) of an event or environment which is stored by the unconscious mind but outside the awareness of the conscious mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory
I also realized that this was not the only place I had read/heard about this. The same stuff has been seen in the movie “The butterfly effect”. I remember watching some crappy show a long time back wherein another girl had repressed memories but she recovers them by some means. Even Harry potter has a mention of it (remember Slughorn and his memories about the horcruxes?).
On the surface, it seems a pretty nice thing, not being able to remember the bad stuff. It’s like having a black spot in your mind. You remember everything before and after the incident but not the incident itself. Your mind automatically blocks out the entire incident to save you from the trauma of having to live through it in every nightmare that you have.
But this is not the case normally. While you may not remember the incident, you do remember that something happened, just not what happened. People usually even have nightmares (as in the story) where they live through the incident… again without actually knowing what happened. At times a certain trigger brings one back to the situation. That in a sense could be a lot more traumatic.
Researches say every person has some repressed memory... it could even be as simple as an embarrassing moment for someone… like going blank on stage… a game you lose very badly… anything that for you on a personal level was too much to handle emotionally. You don’t ever want that to happen again… so you pretend it never happened in the first place… And your mind helps you by blocking it out completely.
My point is,
What is your black spot??
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