Why We Forget

Memory is often thought of as a reliable archive, a mental record that fully preserves our past. But science has revealed a more complex side to it, that memory is flexible, selective, and deeply influenced by emotion. 

For most of us, forgetting is frustrating - it can lead us to lose our belongings, flunk a test, miss an important event, etc. But when forgetting happens in the context of trauma, it can serve a separate function. The human brain has adapted to not only to remember but also to shield itself from experiences that threaten mental stability. This process allows a person to continue functioning despite overwhelming emotional distress.

In particular, people who have experienced trauma may forget or distort painful memories, and not because of carelessness or aging. Forgetting, in this sense, becomes a coping mechanism.

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”-Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore, 2002)

In more extreme cases, trauma can lead to dissociative amnesia, a condition where a person is unable to recall important personal information, usually following a deeply distressing event.

Octave Félicien Monjoin, a French soldier who fought in the Franco-Prussian War was found wandering aimlessly in a Lyon station, unable to recall his identity, origins, or even his role in the war. He was later diagnosed with dissociative amnesia, the psychologically driven loss of autobiographical memory triggered by extreme trauma. Monjoin’s case became one of the earliest documented examples that linked severe emotional shock to memory loss. His amnesia was not due to physical injury but rather a sort of overload - the horrors of battle effectively overwhelmed his ability to integrate his experiences, leading his mind to effectively ‘shut down’ or disable access to those memories.

“If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.”-William James (The Principles of Psychology, 1890)

Motivated forgetting is the idea that people can intentionally or unconsciously forget information because remembering it would cause discomfort. Sigmund Freud first introduced this concept as repression, his theory suggesting that the mind buries traumatic memories in the subconscious to protect the self from anxiety and guilt.

Research using brain imaging has shown that individuals can suppress unwanted memories by employing the prefrontal cortex to lower activity in the hippocampus, the part of the brain that stores and retrieves memories. Essentially, the brain can ‘turn down the volume’ of painful memories, making them less accessible. 

“Forgetting is essential to action; without forgetting, it is quite impossible to live at all.”- Friedrich Nietzsche (Genealogy of Morality, 1887)

Emotional avoidance is the tendency to evade thoughts, feelings, or reminders associated with a painful event. While motivated forgetting and dissociative amnesia involve disruptions in memory retrieval, emotional avoidance operates on a more conscious level. It’s a habit of steering away or distracting ourselves from difficult feelings such as fear, shame, or grief in order to maintain a sense of control. This avoidance can manifest in various ways like: avoiding certain places or people, numbing emotions through substance abuse or overworking ourselves, or minimizing the significance of the trauma through humour. In the short term, emotional avoidance helps reduce anxiety and allows the individual to function day-to-day. However, when emotions are continually avoided rather than acknowledged, they tend to resurface in indirect forms such as irritability or anxiety. This is likely something we have all done: if thoughts are too uncomfortable, we store them away in a ‘I’ll deal with this later’ box, one that we are likely to never revisit. If a task is stressing you out, it may cause you to procrastinate it just from the sheer emotional burden.

“Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.” -Mary (Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind)

Healing is complicated as the paradox of trauma-related forgetting is that what once served as protection can later hinder recovery. Healing often requires remembering, bringing buried memories into consciousness in a safe environment so they can be processed. 

Forgetting, especially in the context of trauma, is not a sign of weakness or failure, it is evidence of the mind’s ability to adapt and protect itself. Whether through motivated forgetting, dissociative amnesia, or simply emotional avoidance, the act of forgetting can be an essential survival tool.

“The past is preserved by itself automatically. In reality, we forget nothing; we only obscure our memories.”- Henri Bergson                                                                                (Matter and Memory, 1896)

Ultimately, the way we forget reveals just as much about the human spirit as the way we remember.