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Originally Posted by Angela  Well, it seems like it's a question of semantics, but it has real world applications, because many people live their lives as if the past and future were real -- in the dictionary sense! . |
Very true!
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For instance, you are age 7, you break your dad's special train set, he yells that you're an idiot, and that you ruin everything. He's your dad; you believe him. You internalize: I'm an idiot, and I ruin everything. Now, you're 30 years old and you're wondering: why can't I get a good job? why is my marriage so screwed up? You have packed up the memory of this event that happened 23 years ago and pretend that it's "real" -- you are an idiot and you ruin everything. The past is nothing but a thought that you are carrying around as if it were real here in the moment.
I have a friend who was told by little playmate in the third grade that she had ugly arms. To this day (she's now 50) she will absolutely not wear anything sleeveless. Although I've told her often that her arms are normal, beautiful even, she insists that her ugly arms are "real"; she knows, because someone told her that at age 8. .
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Cases, no doubt, where the past is very painful and difficult to reconcile with, however, denying it and not dealing with it doesn't make it go away. Very serious psychological repercusions can come about if you act as if this was
fantasy. To shove this under the carpet and pretend it never happened can result in pathological problems. How do you think the Jeffrey Dahmers and Charles Mansons of this world came about? To dismiss the past as fantasy when it's horrific and painful, if it's not dealth with, is irresponsible.
It may be easy to tell someone that the past is fantasy but what about the psychological implications?
I daresay, not so easy.