Please remove yourself from my mind.

September 19, 2011 3:46 PM

How do I remove memories of an unpleasant person from my mind?

For about 10 years I worked with a horrible person. She retired about 10 years ago, but she still haunts me. Rather than get rehash what she was like, suffice it to say, cruelty was her forte. She an equal opportunity offender. I was not her only victim; they were many and varied. If it were not so hot here, she would have worn Dalmatian puppy fur coat.

Now 10 years later, if I see some one with her color hair or hairstyle, voice, or anything that reminds me of her, I get washed over with seething hate and remember this person. It is like Proust's taste of madeline, only not happy or sweet.

Generally, I am well liked and viewed as a nice person. It is not like me to fume. If you are familiar with "Gone with the Wind," my family called me Melanie.

So how do I remove the memories from my mind?

posted by wandering_not_lost to Health & Fitness (17 answers total)

I know it's the AskMe standby, but this is therapy worthy. To hold on to feelings for 10 years about someone you loathe really implies that professional help would definitely help you.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 3:55 PM on September 19, 2011 [3 favorites]

I know you'll feel like you're being overdramatic talking about it in this terms, but you're actually describing symptoms of PTSD. If you can re-frame or re-visualize these things, or re-frame the situation*, you should talk to a therapist. It's a real thing, and there are methods for decreasing its hold on your life.

*For me, what I do is consider how largely horrible the life of a person like that must be. Make it less about me and more about someone else's problem that affected me on a temporary basis. Sometimes it's just not possible or enough, though, and that's where a professional can get you back on the right track.
posted by Lyn Never at 4:05 PM on September 19, 2011 [9 favorites]

Oops. "If you can re-frame or re-visualize" should be "If you can'T re-frame or re-visualize"
posted by Lyn Never at 4:06 PM on September 19, 2011

Another technique that may be worth a try is to visualize that person in an unbelievably goofy situation. In your mind, put a cat on her head and Groucho Marx glasses on her face, twirling plates and swinging a hula hoop while wearing Bjork's swan dress, singing "You're a Grand Old Flag" and stomping grapes Lucille Ball-style. Something so ridiculous that, when she comes up in your thoughts in a negative way, you can quickly picture that crazy-ass scenario, one that is so far from reality you can't help but bust up laughing (at her expense), instead of being drawn into viscerally reliving your time with her.
posted by argonauta at 4:17 PM on September 19, 2011 [4 favorites]

In my experience you can't, but the closest thing is this: Forgive them.

(For me, forgiveness is a process, forgiveness is not attained immediately when you decide to forgive ... Humility is involved, it's hard to explain, but not that hard to do. It's hard to decide to do it. But it works.)
posted by krilli at 4:21 PM on September 19, 2011 [4 favorites]

Every time you have this reaction, you are giving this horrible person power over you.

Forgive them. After mentally running them feet-first through a woodchipper a couple of dozen times.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 4:32 PM on September 19, 2011 [3 favorites]

Good advice above. I also remember a story Terry Poison, an old aikido teacher of mine used to tell about "killing the enemy."

The Mohawk Indians, who live not far from me in Vermont, have a tremendous feeling of anger.  they believe they face real genocidal opposition on the part of the whites.  To deal with their feelings, they have a traditional ceremony called "Kill the Enemy."  Let's say I have an enemy.  Let's say it's Yamada.  I choose several other people to help me, to join me in a sweat lodge.  Our task will be to think of every positive attribute of Yamada.  "He's tall.  He's handsome.  He's very strong.  He's not lazy.  He gets up early, blah, blah, blah."  We do that for a set period of time, maybe a few hours.  By the end of that time, since only his positive aspects have been focused upon, we've essentially killed the enemy.  He's too good to be our enemy, we like him too much.  We are in harmony.  Pretty soon, it's impossible for me to remember Yamada was my enemy.
posted by jasper411 at 4:35 PM on September 19, 2011 [15 favorites]

In my experience you can't, but the closest thing is this: Forgive them.

I'm a religious person, and what has worked for me in similar situations (though not as intense as yours, I don't think) is to pray for the person, to take a minute every day to say, "God bless so-and-so." Nothing more than that. It really does work on you over time. A good secular alternative might be to take a minute every day for a few months to say, "I forgive so-and-so." After a few months of doing this with one person, I found that thinking of her, or hearing her name, or seeing her (as I do from time to time) no longer brought that hot jolt of adrenaline.
posted by not that girl at 4:38 PM on September 19, 2011 [3 favorites]

You're doing a Great thing for yourself in asking this question. It was a big deal for me when I realized that seething wasn't harming that other person at all, but it was harming me Every Day.

It helped to get validation from others that the person's behavior was Really Not Ok. It helped to realize that while I was relatively well liked, they went through life alienating and hurting everyone, and thus cutting themself off from the joys of happy social interaction. It helped to move from anger at the injustice of it all to pity for that person. You have chosen the high road - now enjoy it!
posted by ldthomps at 4:49 PM on September 19, 2011

I am not as good of a person as everyone above. The only thing that's worked for me with my versions of these people is revenge. By which I do not mean you should go find her and do mean things to her. I simply mean eventually, she will need something from you and you'll have to politely decline. Or you'll run into her and she'll look terrible and you'll just feel bad for her. Or you'll hear that she finally got sued or fired from her job for her cruel ways. Or she'll do some public thing that reveals she really isn't very intelligent. And then you will simply no longer care. All of which, I think, comes down to her losing the power she once had in your own narrative of your life. Knowing that this will happen, in some way, eventually, helps me to not actively think of these people very often. I think I've said this on here before, but forget, don't forgive.

(I don't know for sure, but maybe just imagining your revenge would help. Don't dwell on it, because what you need to do is forget about her! But just for an hour, once - or one minute a day if that's more your style - imagine how you'd react with confidence and put her in her place if she turned up and tried to be nasty to you again.)
posted by DestinationUnknown at 4:55 PM on September 19, 2011 [3 favorites]

With this type of thing, I would try to come up with some reasons to pity her and to attribute her cruelty to having an empty, pathetic life. After countering the unpleasant thoughts a few dozen times, the anger feel when you think of her will hopefully be replaced with sympathy and gratitude for your own lovely life and disposition. It worked for me with someone who I once believed could make Satan cry for his mommy.
posted by defreckled at 6:15 PM on September 19, 2011

I agree with Lyn Never, this sounds like PTSD. It can feel like an exaggeration to call something as apparently trivial as this PTSD, but the physical sensation of immediate hatred and anger when you see or hear something that reminds you if this person is one of the hallmarks of PTSD. The fact that it hasn't gone away after ten years is another.

I've had treatment for PTSD using EMDR and it completely de-fused the memories and events that used to trigger the feelings of fear and anger in me. It was a ton of work, and a tough slog, but by the end, the way those memories were re-organized in my brain so that they lost their emotional charge was completely transformative.

Really, if there's any way you can manage it, I recommend finding a psychologist who specializes in trauma and uses EMDR in his or her practice.
posted by looli at 6:51 PM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, one thing that helped me was to focus on what I learned from the situation.
My "Newman" happened to be my boss in the first real job in my chosen career.
I hated, hated, hated, HATED, H-A-T-E-D this person--
but I also know that I had learned some important things along the way.

I learned how much a crappy management style can effect the employees.
I felt first-hand how an unfair boss can make their employees feel insignificant.
I realized that I had unwittingly learned how to take charge of any situation, because our boss never showed leadership.

And once I was out of the situation, I realized something very interesting.
I realized that my crappy boss had learned all of this bad treatment from HER crappy boss. Since a few of these upper bosses were still in place, I could really see that my selfish, selfish boss had learned all this behavior first hand, over the course of 20 years.

So, what have you learned from your experience?
posted by calgirl at 9:26 PM on September 19, 2011

Go in deeper. This person keeps haunting you because, face it, she is a part of you. She, or something about her, or your associations with her, mean something to you. The question is, what? Unless you figure that out, she will keep haunting you. So I suggest you engage with "her" - I mean the representation of her that lives in your mind and your emotions. Talk to her. Daydream about her. Yell at her. Write letters to her. Don't hide from her.
posted by univac at 10:34 PM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'll second EMDR as weirdly effective, even for non-full-on-trauma situations. If a physical reaction like that comes up when you're reminded of the person, it might be worth a try.
posted by little cow make small moo at 6:52 AM on September 20, 2011

Go meet a lot of new people. Most of them will not be horrible. You might find some awesome ones. For me, increasing my awareness of awesome people decreases my thoughts about life-suckers.
posted by WeekendJen at 9:25 AM on September 20, 2011

This has helped me a lot of the road to not internalizing other people's bad behavior such that it gives them emotional control over me.

Often, we are distressed by bad behavior not because it's a nuisance to us, or we simply find it annoying, but because we perceive that other person as having some sort of power over us in their badness, and we've internalized (even if unintentionally) whatever status of inferiority they are trying to impose on us.

What I've started doing is asking myself this question: what would the ideal person look like (or how would I myself behave) were I, or that ideal person, in the other person's shoes that is acting inappropriately? This strong focus on the ideal brings their behavior into stark contrast, judges it, and lessens its emotional power. It helps me to internalize differently the kind of control their actions have over my internal state, as it then becomes very wrong and unjustified. I take that ideal representation and focus intently on it and try to give it as much internal value as I can. I internalize it not only as a preferred way of living, but one that others should emulate, not only out of general goodness, but in order to live a better and worthwhile life. What you have, then, is an external judgment about their behavior that gives you permission to set it aside, as behavior that should be pitied rather than focued on for any length of time. Whatever control that person's actions had over your internal state are thus very illigitimate and not worthy of the percious focus of your internal resources.

Now, it does not mean that people can't exhibit power over you inappropriately in a controlling or annoying way. But what the change of perspective does is it helps keep me from internalizing it such that I carry it with me and ruminate on it incessantly. Things that are simply irritations we can naturally set aside after awhile, and I don't keep them with me. I've learned to internalize that at the end of the day, when people fall short of an ideal in such a pitiable fashion, it says a lot about them rather than me, and I view it through their imperfection, rather than whatever imperfection they are trying to force me to internalize through their inappropriate behavior. When we internalize their inappropriate perspective on some level, I think this is why we carry it with us. Because often, power moves are about trying to make others internalize their inferiority; and sometimes we do this, against our better judgment on a subconscious level, even when we don't think it's right in our conscious mind. The alternate internalization that I mention above has allowed me to deflect that attempt, regardless of what it is they might be trying to impose. They are being bad, not me. I thus don't need to carry it with me.
posted by SpacemanStix at 11:19 AM on September 20, 2011 [2 favorites]