Would You Use a Pill to Erase Bad Memories?

I saw an online article about a new pill that is being tested that is supposed to "erase" bad memories. As a survivor of years of childhood sexual abuse and incest, it would seem that being able to take a pill and forget about all those horrific memories would be ideal. However, that is not the case, at least not for me.

First of all, my own mind pretty well took care of erasing the majority of those memories. Dissociation serves us well during our childhood and I remembered only fragments of various abuses. That did not, however, keep me from having PTSD and reacting to things in my present life that were similar or in some way reminded me of past abuse. Even though I did not remember specifically what happened to me, the triggering of the abuse was alive and well. Healing from this type of harm comes from "remembering" and forgiving. Without the willingness to recall what is needed, we cannot forgive our abusers. I still have not "remembered" everything that happened to me. Remembering the abuse does not in any way resemble remembering as if we recall something that happened to us only a few moments ago. The type of memory recall comes about in so many different ways that it does not remotely resemble "remembering".

Pills are not the answer to this kind of "working through" painful life events. We are not required to remember whole events that cause us pain and trauma. We work through the damaging part of the memories and that does not always require remembering the actual abusive incident. For instance, one of the memories I had was about my father abusing me in the kitchen. The painful part of that abuse was not what he did to me physically but the betrayal of trust surrounding the abuse. I thought he was proud of me for riding my bicycle so well and he called me inside because he wanted to give me a hug. He hugged me, but not in the way that a father should hug and love his daughter. The sting of that disappointment and betrayal was huge to a six-year-old. The sexual abuse that followed was dissociated and I still do not know exactly what he did.

Many people think that in order to recover from an abusive childhood, we must remember all the details of the horrible things that happened to us. That is just not true. In fact, so many of the sexual abuses are so similar in nature, that recalling only one incident will help us heal from a host of repeated episodes of similar abusive acts.

I can speak only to the recovery process of childhood sexual abuse, incest and rape. I cannot speak to those who suffered the crimes of the holocaust or to those who fought in wars in foreign lands. Perhaps remembering is the problem and being able to forget would be helpful to some. However, at the same time, if a pill erases what happened to us, doesn't that erase our history and change who we are? I am not what happened to me in my past, but sexual abuse is a part of my history and I do not wish to erase my story.

Sources:
My LIfe
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1145777/Pill-erase-bad-memories-Ethical-furore-drugs-threaten-human-identity.html