Is nostalgia painful for anyone else?

[CowsAreCool]

Even just a quick passing memory can ruin my day.

Not because my past was painful. The opposite. I used to be much much happier than I am now.

Anytime I remember old memories, its nice for all but 30 seconds, and them I'm in a bad mood for the rest of the day. It's just a reminder of how much better things used to be. The friends I used to have.

It also reminds me of how quickly time is passing. And how much of it I've wasted and continue to waste.

 

[Sad_Sack]

Yeah it hurts. Good memories are just painful now. They only serve to remind me of a time when things hadn't been permanently derailed into hell and to contrast just how horrible things have become. For all of those old memories Of good times there should be 100 times more that never happened.

 

[freevoid]

Even just a quick passing memory can ruin my day.

Not because my past was painful. The opposite. I used to be much much happier than I am now.

Anytime I remember old memories, its nice for all but 30 seconds, and them I'm in a bad mood for the rest of the day. It's just a reminder of how much better things used to be. The friends I used to have.

It also reminds me of how quickly time is passing. And how much of it I've wasted and continue to waste.

This 100%.

I'm at the point where old memories of brief fun times, listening to music I used to find beautiful and joyful, etc, it just hurts me now. It highlights the deficit and starvation in my soul, of not having my needs met for 30 years. Of constant suffering. I would rather not engage at all anymore.

I'm less sad when I just drift, when I stop trying.

 

[insomni_yak001]

Even just a quick passing memory can ruin my day.

Not because my past was painful. The opposite. I used to be much much happier than I am now.

Anytime I remember old memories, its nice for all but 30 seconds, and them I'm in a bad mood for the rest of the day. It's just a reminder of how much better things used to be. The friends I used to have.

It also reminds me of how quickly time is passing. And how much of it I've wasted and continue to waste.

omg yes. i get a trauma response to the good memories bc things are so irreversibly shit now and i cant get that life back

 

[not-2-b-the-answer]

Yes.... There was a short period of time when I was happy but like all good things, it was ripped away.
Never to come back. When I think about it I just get sadder and more depressed.

 

[Nikki2020]

memories hurt my heart. makes me want to bash my head to make it stop.

 

[fireball2]

Nostalgia is a double-edged sword for me. On one hand, I ache for a time in my life when things were simpler. On the other, I feel so, so guilty for wanting to hurt that smiling little girl my parents took so many pictures of. There's a line from an old play that I've been obsessed with since I was assigned it in high school called Night Mother, about a woman who chooses to end her life and discusses that choice with her mother, and it sums up my feelings on childhood/nostalgia very well. I'd recommend the play to anyone on this forum. I'll put some of the line here in hopes it makes anyone else feel less alone in their feelings, the way it's made me feel less alone:

"I found an old baby picture of me. And it was somebody else, not me. It was somebody pink and fat who never heard of sick or lonely, somebody who cried and got fed, and reached up and got held and kicked but didn't hurt anybody, and slept whenever she wanted to, just by closing her eyes … That's who I started out as and this is who is left. It's somebody I lost, all right, it's my own self. Who I never was. Or who I tried to be and never got there. Somebody I waited for who never came. And never will. So, see, it doesn't much matter what else happens in the world or in this house, even. I'm what was worth waiting for and I didn't make it. Me...who might have made a difference to me...I'm not going to show up, so there's no reason to stay, except to keep you company, and that's...not reason enough because I'm not...very good company."

Sorry if this is corny, and sorry for the word dump. This line is just very important to me and I think it describes SI better than most other media I've found about it. I'm actually printing it out alongside my goodbye letters, because I think it describes my feelings a lot better than I can do myself.

 

[fiasco]

Even just a quick passing memory can ruin my day.

Not because my past was painful. The opposite. I used to be much much happier than I am now.

Anytime I remember old memories, its nice for all but 30 seconds, and them I'm in a bad mood for the rest of the day. It's just a reminder of how much better things used to be. The friends I used to have.

It also reminds me of how quickly time is passing. And how much of it I've wasted and continue to waste.

Yeah, I can relate. Even though I was stressed, and the workload was terrible, the past used to be way better than the present.

 

[Wasabi]

The same thing happens to me. It hurts a lot, really.

 

[onlyanimalsaregood]

memories hurt my heart. makes me want to bash my head to make it stop.

Same

 

[SamTam33]

It's a sharp piercing stab in the heart when something reminds me of a time when I was content.

I was never truly happy, there was always an underlying sadness. But there were long stretches of life where I was content and I knew how to deal with the sadness.

I knew how to pack it up and put it away when necessary.

For as sad as I might've been then, I had no clue how much worse it was going to get.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Yes and no I suppose. Some of my happiest memories were of being with family members long since passed. It does hurt to recall them because I miss them and I don't have any deep connections with anyone like that now (my own fault of couse).

Still, it probably would be worse to have never made those memories.

I can sympathise though when you feel it is a mental state that you can't get back to. That must feel awful. I think I've always been on the melancholy side, so, while I've lost plenty of people/ relationships, I'm not sure my mental state has changed profoundly.

 

[makethepainstop]

Even just a quick passing memory can ruin my day.

Not because my past was painful. The opposite. I used to be much much happier than I am now.

Anytime I remember old memories, its nice for all but 30 seconds, and them I'm in a bad mood for the rest of the day. It's just a reminder of how much better things used to be. The friends I used to have.

It also reminds me of how quickly time is passing. And how much of it I've wasted and continue to waste.

Oh yes, I feel the same. I remember when in the USA we made REAL cars, not those little go karts you see people driving today. I remember the music, the fun, the security I felt. All of which are long gone distant memories. I always say you know your old when you hate the cars and music they are making now. Love to all here, for many of us the past was more fun, than our futures.