ABC News: Psychiatrists say people may try to forget certain memories to deal with COVID trauma

It was last October when Emily Oster wrote a piece for The Atlantic proposing a “pandemic amnesty.” “We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID,” was the argument. Hey, in the beginning, nobody knew anything: We didn’t know that cloth masks were useless, we didn’t know that lockdowns were useless, etc. Sure, there was some overreach by the government: Remember President Joe Biden wanting to send OSHA inspectors to businesses to track down employees who didn’t have their vax cards and fire them on the spot?

ABC News is working on a variation of that theme. Now that COVID-19 is endemic, psychiatrists say that people may try to forget certain memories to protect themselves from the trauma brought on by the pandemic.

As we move into a new phase where COVID-19 is more endemic, neuroscientists and psychiatrists told @ABC News that people may try to forget certain memories to protect ourselves from the trauma that we've been processing over the last three years. https://t.co/UqBjmnz8P8

— ABC News (@ABC) April 8, 2023

Mary Kekatos reports:

When somebody is exposed to a traumatic event, there are two ways memories can be suppressed. Some people can bury the memory to forget some or most of what happened while others just work on ways to prevent the memory from coming back to them.

“For most people, when we experience a trauma, the memory is laid down quite effectively, actually,” Jennifer Holzhauer, a clinical case manager in the department of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, told ABC News. “And, in fact, the most common symptoms that we have is that we can’t forget about it. In fact, most of us want to not have the memories, we call them intrusive thoughts.”

She continued, “So a very common response to that is to try to avoid anything that reminds us of what happened, that will make those memories come back again. Many times, people will try to suppress that memory.”

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Kind of like how the media tried to suppress the lab-leak theory as a conspiracy theory.

Oh, you mean the second class citizen treatment? No we won’t be forgetting that anytime soon.

— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) April 8, 2023

Good luck. I'm not forgetting any of the lies or government overreach

— Cryssie Adams (@CryssieGA) April 8, 2023

We won't be forgiving or forgetting

— PhotographicFloridian (@JackLinFLL) April 8, 2023

I haven’t forgotten and I’m harboring a grudge.

— JCraig425 (@JCraig425) April 8, 2023

I guess if you obediently rolled up your sleeve for experimental pharma products that didn’t end up working, it’s easy to forget. Then you didn’t have to face being fired from your job and segregated from society for months. But you’d just love for me to forget that right?

— Matt Antar (@mantarnyc) April 8, 2023

I will never forget the trauma that you enabled and perpetuated.

— Kumarsalib (@kumarsalib) April 8, 2023

No, we won’t forget what you did. I swear this to you.

— Cuddles of Cthulu (@tweetofcthulu) April 8, 2023

I wasn’t allowed into Canada to see my family. My grandfather passed. I will never forget how awful the people you advocated for were.

— Semper Fi (@_LongMeadow) April 8, 2023

I will NEVER forget the evil perpetrated on the citizens of a formerly free Republic.

— Holger Dansk (@dansk_holger) April 8, 2023

Nope not going to forget:
– Not being w my father when he passed
– being called selfish for not getting a useless shot
– seeing local businesses shuttered
– told I'm not welcome for not wearing a face diaper
– liberals using the covid restrictions like a weapon
No forgiveness!

— Charlie Newman (@cnewmango) April 8, 2023

There is absolutely nothing that will make me forget the dangerous MAGA extremists who claimed that lockdowns and zoom school and destroying people’s livelihoods weren’t the proper responses to a virus with a 99% survival rate.

— 🫃🏼💉🇺🇦Hollaria Briden, Esq. (@HollyBriden) April 8, 2023

Government-induced trauma. We won’t forget.

— Libertarian Mama 🔔 (@LibertarianMama) April 8, 2023

No, we’re not repressing any memories. We remember it all.

***

Related:

Atlantic piece suggests we ‘declare a pandemic amnesty’ and just forgive everyone who got COVID wrong https://t.co/eqlKFpMdWs

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 31, 2022