The following message was posted on a SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory) message board, write an essay on your thoughts on it? What does the author feel and what's the essence of their message? Do you agree/disagree with the authors claims/assertions? Would you qualify their reflections as reasonable or irrational? Is there an objective/scientifically correct "truth" to all this?

the post:

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speaking of breakups and moving on, was wondering if anyone else on here relates to lacking a sense of closure in relationships?

I'm more specifically talking about the notion of past relationships being this definitive closed chapter, closed book, done and dusted in your life type of thing

It feels like when it comes to my ex-partners or well... other people in general lol
they can all cling onto _something_ very firmly from that past relationship, whether it's a grudge or seeing the other person as all bad or having their narrative/chronology of how the whole relationships ended, there's this conclusion ties it all up.

For me I have that of course in the present at the time of the breakup. Tons of proactive stuff to get closure and talk everything through and if that's not possible, have some conclusion or reasoning I reached myself in my head and that's nice. Though then later on as time flies by let's say weeks/months/years my memories of everything that happenend are foggy and I'm in a bit of a limbo. I have to look up past messages etc and remind myself why it ended the way it did, whether the person/relationship was even good for me or not and so on. I just have this vague notion that I was very close with this person before but I find it hard to retain the "bad"

I can't tell if that's just detachment or forgetfulness lol
In a way I kind of envy the capacity of those with more vivid episodic memories in the sense that it seems they have this ability to have their mind made up in a more lasting way, even if it's being all caught up in their side of the hurt etc since that keeps them away from reinterpretations, ponderings and pointless backtracking.

> not long after a breakup my life has continued and the past is the past. I don’t dwell on things

I suppose that's what it is too. Daily life it doesn't really come up as it's out of sight and so I don't dwell on it either, but if I see say a past persons user tag which I have a history with for instance, some associative memory kicks in.

It can be appealing to erase such things but I'm hesitant to do that since it's all I have of them right?

> but i cant even imagine having to deal with images of someone in my mind, and being able to replay moments so vividly

Isn't the "nothing" that we experience still "something"? 😅 

At least logically, (can't speak for myself as I didn't experience it on my skin):
Sure even if it's hurt, "baggage", reliving of the same things... it seems more favourable to have all this history and information available to you in a vivid form which you can process, work through and in the end, be _certain_
There's so much more that you can work with rather than a pointer to something that _was_ there via association... I mean what can a person do do with just a label.
It's a bit like having a text file saved on your computer but you can't open and read the data or re-experience the images of that folder. All you have are these filename as a hunch of what it may have been.

This does give some carefreeness but the past always catches up with you at some point if not taken care of. It's there _somewhere_ stored up and bottled up and being unable to fully recall, deal with things and process them, maybe make appropriate actions and have a _true_ resolution that is really lasting seems like a bit of a downer.

At the same time lots of memories are reconstructed and confabulated, reflecting our present feelings and headspace so hey maybe that's all for the best 💁
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