wrongful romanticizing (a draft)

Past is a place that is unattainable. It’s a realm of all of our memories that we are not able to relive. So, why do we, as humans, tend to romanticize past relationships? Why do we make our present fulfillments seem worse than they actually are? It seems like this is simply the way we function but why is that so? And more importantly, is there a way to overcome it?

It is a well-known post-break-up technique to remind oneself of all the bad qualities of that past partner or of the bad times in the relationships and the reasons why it didn’t work. The idea behind this lies within our survival mechanism (and thus, tendency to remember good times). As we all know, not all of our memories are rainbows and butterflies but many times, our brain will trick us into remembering the good memories, instead of the bad ones. This can be explained by our natural mechanism of survival, which makes us erase the harmful memories. Taking this information into account, it seems logical that we would only, or mostly, think of the good times with our past partners. This ultimately makes us romanticize our past relationships, even if they were toxic.

If it’s simple as that, then why do we, even with knowing all this, find it difficult to control ourselves? Why do we write songs, poems and letters for them? Why do we cry for hours thinking about the past? Why do we cyber-stalk them? Why do we get this unbearable urge to contact them? Why do we give into this urge and end up actually contacting them? Why do we still carry this hope that one day we might get back together with this person who is apparently not right for us? (At least not in this stage of our lives.) We know that none of this is healthy nor useful but we still can’t keep ourselves from behaving like this.

After a break-up, we often try to distract ourselves with other things, so as to not think about the person who broke our heart. Usually we push ourselves to go out, be with other people, try out a a new hobby or a new hair style. This proves to be helpful, since it actually distracts us from dwelling in the past. Still, even while doing all these, it can be a lengthy and painful process to completely get over someone. It is a highly subjective matter and the process is peculiar for each and every case. (There is no right or wrong.) And ever so often, even when we have finally convinced ourselves that we’ve totally moved on, we might find ourselves being caught up in these false images again. In such moments, it might feel as if we hit rock bottom. We might go through the same stuff as we have in the beginning. Sometimes, it will be a smell that reminds us of them, a song, or a word that somebody uses in a certain context — it can be just about anything. And it is okay to fall back into this trap, so long as we know how to get right up again.

So, in the end, how do we control these falsely fabricated images that our brain serves us? The first step may be recognizing this issue. I believe that this is a highly crucial step, since it will make us aware. (For me, personally, awareness is perhaps the most important value in life.) But as I have mentioned above, it is not only a problem of knowing — in most of the cases, we will still fall into the trap. So what do we do? One way is the technique that I have mentioned above, that is, constantly being reminded of the bad stuff about the relationship. But what else can we do?

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