How to Forget Something on Purpose

How Do Memories Work?

We all have memories. Memories are those thoughts and ideas that are fixed in our minds. Sometimes details are remembered only for a few moments, in your working or short-term memory, before you immediately use and then discard the information. Like that SMS passcode that Google sent you this morning so you could log in to your email. At other times, events and your emotional responses to them seem to be immortalized forever in your long term memory. Even if you wish they weren’t.

How does that process of becoming a memory, whether for a moment or for a longer duration, actually work?

There are three stages when it comes to how memories work- encoding, storage, and retrieval:¹

• Encoding: the process where the brain takes the information and turns it into something that can be stored by the brain.
• Storage: the process of maintaining information which has been encoded so that information can be retrieved later.
• Retrieval: the process of recalling (i.e., remembering) information which has been encoded and stored in the brain at a previous date.

Why Would Someone Want to Forget a Memory?

There is an old bit of Irish wisdom along the lines of “may you never forget what is worth remembering or remember what is best forgotten.”

Some reasons people might want to intentionally forget something include:

• Traumatic experiences: those experiences that are closely tied to the emotional fear responses. Traumatic memories being overly present in your everyday life can increase triggers and phobias.
• Painful experiences: those experiences that are connected to sad emotional responses of grief or previous relationships. Recalling painful memories too often can lead to melancholy or increased depression symptoms.
• Embarrassing experiences: those experiences that make you cringe. These are the memories your brain pops in your head late at night, when all you want to do is sleep. Instead, you get to think about that time you told your waiter you hoped they enjoyed their meal too.
• Wanting to move forward: these are those experiences that just get in the way of you moving forward with your life. They may not be traumatic, painful, or embarrassing, but you need to forget them anyway so you can get on with things.
  

Can You Erase Memories From the Brain?

Words like encoding and storage brings to mind computers, where when you want to erase a file you just click delete. Unfortunately, outside of some very science fiction sounding concepts like the potential for neuroscientists to use brain implants to erase memories,² it is not believed to be possible to technically completely erase a long-term memory. As far as science knows, your brain can store nearly an infinite amount of information- up to a petabyte.³ Since you don’t need to erase memories to make room for new ones, there was never a need to develop a way to erase something that has been permanently encoded.

While you cannot erase memories, you can weaken them to the point that you forget about them in your daily life. Or you can weaken the emotional connections of memories, so that they do not have the same distressing impact when you do recall them. And while we cannot completely erase a memory, there is evidence that once something is weakened enough, it may as well be considered “irrevocably destroyed.”⁴

Why Emotional Memories Are Hard to Forget

Emotional memories are memories connected to emotional experiences and interactions. All of your memories are predominantly stored, or at least indexed, in the brain structure known as your hippocampus. However, different types of memories are stored using different systems, and emotional memories can be stored in both your implicit (unconscious) and explicit (conscious) memory systems.⁵

The hippocampus is not the only part of your brain involved in forming emotional memories. Another one of your brain structures, the amygdala, may be part of the reason it is so hard to forget your emotional memories and why recalling them triggers so easily.⁶ The involvement of the amygdala in emotional memory storage has been found to significantly strengthen the encoding and retrieval of memories.

How to Forget Something

If you have a memory you would like to forget, or at least suppress, there are some techniques you can try. You can try these techniques individually, or do them in order as a step by step process.

Identify the Memory

In order to forget a specific memory you have to identify that memory. Sometimes when it comes to bad memories, you may push them away so often that they become like the monster under the bed. You know it’s there just out of sight waiting for you, but you don’t really know what it is. So before you try to forget a specific memory, you need to take a moment to remember the sights, sounds and feelings attached to that memory.

Feel & Process the Emotions

Now that you have identified the memory, it’s time to feel and process the emotions of the memory. Unwanted memories often come with unwanted emotions. You may be dealing with those emotions by pushing them away any time the memory comes up. However, doing the exact opposite might be more helpful. Sometimes it’s important to feel the emotions associated with a memory and work through the difficult emotions in order to process them. As you process and the emotional response begins to weaken, the memory associated with them will weaken as well.

Keep in mind that depending on the memory, and especially with traumatic memories, it might be a good idea to process your emotions with the help of a mental health professional.

Reframe the Memory

Reframing how we understand an experience can help to change the emotions associated with that memory. For example, if you were with your cat for their last moments, a positive reflection or reframe could be that you are glad you got to give your cat comfort and be there for them at the end. Sometimes reframing the emotional experience of a memory can help to weaken the stronger more painful emotional responses encoded with the memory.

Reflect on the Positives

If the memory you want to forget was related to grief, a past relationship, or another painful experience, it may be helpful in your quest to forget the memory to reflect on what was positive about the memory or experience. For example, a tumultuous romantic relationship may have taught you what things you are not willing to compromise on in a partner and led to you having a stronger sense of self. Like with reframing, recognizing potential positives can help to weaken the negative emotions connected to a memory.

Forgive Yourself, Out Loud

When it comes to memories you want to forget, sometimes the reason you want to forget them is because you feel like you did something wrong. Like in the case of memories that make you cringe or where you can think of a hundred things you should have done better or would do next time. For these memories, take a moment to intentionally think about what you feel like you should have done, and then explicitly, out loud, forgive yourself.

Say, “I forgive myself for (name whatever you did or did not do) when (describe the events of the memory).“ For example, “I forgive myself for not being able to get a flight home quickly enough when my grandmother was sick.”

Create New Memories

Sometimes the easiest way to weaken old memories, especially ones where you have already processed some of the emotions and reframed some of the experiences, is to create new memories related to the setting or other things about the memory you want to forget. For example, if you had a bad breakup during dinner at a certain restaurant, you could consider inviting some friends for lunch to create a more recent happy memory at the same restaurant. Creating happier memories at places or around other related experiences can help to weaken the recall of more negative memories associated with those same places or things.

Coping Skills for Unwanted Memories

Coping skills alone won’t in and of themselves help you to resolve or forget your unwanted memories. However, improving or adopting additional coping skills can help you deal with the emotional reactions and other distressing symptoms related to your unwanted memories while you are taking steps to resolve or forget them.

Here are some coping skills for unwanted memories:

Address Memory Triggers

Memory triggers are items, settings, or topics that can activate you remembering things you would rather not. Often these items, settings, or topics are directly related to the memory. For example, a memory trigger may be wearing a shirt that is similar to the one you had on during a bad car accident. Some memory triggers may be more easy to work out than others.

Addressing memory triggers can help with coping by avoiding activating memories when you aren’t prepared to process them. In the case of the shirt that is so similar to the one you wore during the accident, you may want to address that memory trigger by considering putting that shirt up for a while.

Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness may help you cope with unwanted memories. Mindfulness is the practice of staying in the present moment throughout your day and focusing purposefully on what is going on around you and in your body. Practicing mindfulness has been linked to a decrease in cortisol.⁷ Cortisol is a stress hormone linked to traumatic and distressing memory formation and recall.⁸ This means that increasing mindfulness may help reduce your stress response to memories.

An easy way to incorporate mindfulness into your everyday life is with handwashing. Mindful handwashing is a very basic mindfulness exercise. Whenever you are washing your hands anyways, take that time to purposefully focus on each part of the handwashing process. Intentionally turn on the water. Put your hands under the faucet and let yourself feel the temperature. Feel the soap and the slippery bubbles as you lather your hands. Then focus on feeling that lather as it washes away when you rinse your hands. Continue the process of purposefully focusing as you dry your hands before you are ready to walk out of the bathroom and return to your regular daily experiences.

Be aware that mindfulness may increase symptoms for those with unprocessed trauma. If you have unprocessed trauma, please work with a mental health professional in relation to the practice of mindfulness.

Try Meditation

Meditation is similar to mindfulness in that you focus purposefully. However, in meditation you set time aside to engage in that purposeful focusing. Just like with mindfulness, meditation has been shown to reduce levels of cortisol,⁹ and so may help to increase coping ability and decrease stress responses to unwanted memories.

Meditation does not have to take a lot of time, but does involve setting some time aside. If you have 5 minutes to set aside one day, you could try a very simple meditation. Make sure you are in a comfortable position and set a timer for 5 minutes. Take a moment to intentionally relax your body. Notice how each part of your body feels. One you have noticed how each part of your relaxed body feels, begin to count your breaths. Pick your favorite number and count to that number. If you lose count or find your mind wandering, that’s okay. Just start counting again when you notice. Continue this until your timer goes off. If you are interested in exploring more about meditation, apps for meditation can be a helpful resource.

Like mindfulness, meditation may increase symptoms for those with unprocessed trauma. If you have unprocessed trauma, please work with a mental health professional in relation to the practice of meditation.

Engage in Affirmations

Affirmations are short positive statements that may help improve your emotional state, decrease anxiety, and help with managing stress.¹⁰ An improved emotional state and less anxiety can make it easier for you to cope with the negative emotions that your unwanted memories may prompt.

You can choose from a list of positive affirmations or you can make up your own. When making up your own affirmations, start small. Affirmations do not have to be grand statements. They can be as simple and mundane as, “I’m going to take a breath and be okay until I clock out at 4:00.” You can say it out loud, say it inside your head, or write it down somewhere you can see it. There is no wrong way to express your affirmations.

Practice Self Care

Self care is well named, as it is the practice of taking care of yourself. If you are running yourself ragged, you may find it more difficult to cope with stressful memories and the negative emotions they evoke. By choosing to engage in self care on a daily basis, you can help make sure that you are in a good place mentally to cope with your unwanted memories.

Take a moment right now to think of what are those things you do just for yourself. These can be hobbies, long baths, making sure you have your favorite veggies and fruits stocked in the fridge, or anything else that helps you to take care of you. If you are new to the idea of self care, a list of ways to practice emotional self care is a good way to get started.

Talk to or Spend Time With a Friend or Family Member

Talking to or spending time with a friend or family members can help to improve the amount of social support you experience. Social support is important and can help you cope by helping to reduce your stress and some symptoms of depression.¹¹

If you have a friend or family member who has shared part of your experience, it may help to commiserate with this. Or, you may have a friend or family member who is willing to listen when you need to talk. You don’t have to talk about your unwanted memories to improve your coping skills. Sometimes just hanging out or doing something fun will help distract you from those memories and that will also help with coping.

Impacts of Negative Memories

You may have noticed that it is easier to recall negative memories as compared to positive memories. This is not a you thing, rather it’s a human thing. You use your memories to inform your actions and choices.¹² Remembering when bad things happen could help you avoid experiencing them again. Unfortunately, remembering the bad things also has other impacts on your everyday life.

Negative memories have negative impacts on mood, are correlated with depression symptoms, and can negatively impact your self esteem or identity.^{13, 14, 15} Negative memories popping up unexpectedly can make it hard to focus during class or while at work, and can interfere with what should be positive experiences at home or while out with friends and partners.

The Risk of Forgetting Something

There are some risks associated with forgetting even negative memories. Sometimes your worst memories center around important information that you may want to retain, at least for the time being. For example, you may be involved in a court case where you are a witness or where your emotional response plays a part in the judgment of the case. In that scenario, you should carefully consider whether you want to work towards processing and forgetting memories related to the case now, or if you want to wait until the case is resolved.

Another risk when it comes to purposefully forgetting things is ethical in nature. If you are working with a professional there are many techniques that can be used to help forget a memory or to replace a negative memory with a different association. Some of these ways of altering memory have the potential for creating false memories. Remember, you have a right to make an informed decision about any procedures you are considering and it is important to carefully vet your care professionals.

Treatment Options for Problems Associated With Memories

You may not be able to tackle forgetting or reprocessing the memories you want to forget on your own. Especially distressing memories, like those from traumatic experiences, often take the help of a professional mental health provider to resolve. You may want to consider seeking therapeutic help if you have symptoms related to depression, suicidal ideation, or intrusive thoughts, or if the distress from your unwanted memories is negatively impacting your life in ways that you don’t feel in control of.

Fortunately, there are multiple treatment options for if you are seeking therapy for psychological problems associated with unwanted memories.

Treatment options for memory issues include:

• Cognitive Processing Therapy: CPT  is a type of CBT developed for working with PTSD. If you engage in CPT, you will be prompted to consider your traumatic memory and how it affects your way of thinking. You will also be prompted to evaluate how accurate your thoughts are and to determine if you have developed negative or unhelpful beliefs because of your traumatic experience.
• Exposure Therapy: Exposure Therapy can be used to help deal with distressing or anxiety causing memories. If you engage in Exposure Therapy, you will be placed in situations that are related to your distressing memory and activate your distress. By activating, rather than avoiding, the distress, you can increase your tolerance for the situation and work towards processing it.
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing: EMDR was developed specifically around working with memories. If you engage in EMDR, your therapist will use an eight-step protocol and bilateral stimulation to help you effectively reprocess your traumatic or distressing memories and to improve your overall emotional regulation.

Where to Find a Therapist

A helpful resource for finding a therapist is an online therapist directory. In the United States, it is important to know that therapists must be licensed in the state you are physically located in when you see them, even if you attend sessions using telehealth. You can sort the directory using many different filters. Three important ones are location, speciality, and by modalities. Location will help ensure the therapist is licensed in your state or available for in person treatment where you are located. Speciality will depend on your specific memories, but you might choose trauma, anxiety, or grief. Modalities are the type of therapy, like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.