Why difficult experiences return until they can be understood and carried differently
Some experiences do not become past simply because time has passed.
They return unexpectedly: in dreams, bodily sensations, familiar places or thoughts we believed we had finished thinking. We may wonder why we keep revisiting something that happened years ago.
Yet returning to an experience does not necessarily mean being stuck. Sometimes we are trying to understand something that was too painful, confusing or overwhelming to make sense of when it first happened.
A stone made from what could not be digested
A bezoar is a compact mass of undigested material found in the digestive tract. Psychoanalyst Martin Stanton used this image to describe how traumatic experiences may return repeatedly, gradually acquiring new meaning through reflection and communication.
The metaphor is imperfect, but evocative. Just as food must be broken down before it can be absorbed, some emotional experiences need to be revisited before they can become part of our personal history.
We may remember exactly what happened without understanding why it affected us so deeply. Sometimes the emotional meaning only becomes apparent years later.
When the past returns
Imagine someone who grew up having to be independent. As a child, they were praised for being mature and never causing trouble. Only years later, perhaps while caring for their own child, do they begin to recognise how lonely that independence sometimes felt.
Or someone who experienced a frightening event and believed they had recovered, until an ordinary sound or situation suddenly brings back the same bodily alarm.
Our understanding changes as we change. Experiences that once seemed normal may later appear neglectful, frightening or unfair. Equally, events we remember with shame may become easier to understand when we recognise the circumstances and limitations we faced.
Psychological processing is not simply remembering. It involves developing a different relationship with what we remember.
A personal reflection
Some years ago, I returned to a place I had known during a difficult period of my life. I had not visited for a long time, yet the buildings, the light and the atmosphere of the streets felt strangely familiar.
I remembered how uncertain I had felt there, how narrow my sense of possibility had been. But standing in the same surroundings years later, I could see things that had been invisible to me then.
I noticed how much responsibility I had assumed, how little I had understood about my own vulnerability, and how some decisions I had subsequently criticised were perhaps the only ones I could have made with the resources available to me.
I had revisited those years many times in thought, but returning physically brought something different. The memory became less about judging who I had been and more about understanding the circumstances in which I had been trying to live.
Perhaps this is one of the quieter ways we process experience. We return not to change the facts, but because we have become capable of holding more of their complexity.
When repetition helps — and when it doesn't
Not every return to the past brings understanding.
Sometimes we replay an event endlessly, asking what we should have done differently. We search for certainty, become increasingly distressed and arrive at the same painful conclusions.
This is closer to rumination than processing.
What makes the difference is whether something new becomes possible: a feeling we could not previously tolerate, a different perspective, or a more compassionate understanding of ourselves.
Research into emotional memory suggests that recalling an experience in a new emotional context may sometimes change how it is represented and experienced.
The past remains the same, but our relationship with it can change.
How therapy helps us digest experience
Trauma can remain in the body, emotions and relationships long after an event has passed. Different therapeutic approaches help us process what remains unresolved.
Trauma stabilisation develops emotional regulation, grounding and a sense of safety before deeper processing, where needed. EMDR helps reprocess distressing memories, while Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and other somatic approaches work with bodily sensations and protective responses. Relational psychoanalysis explores experiences that have not yet found words, while MBT helps restore curiosity and understanding when emotions become overwhelming. Compassion-focused approaches address shame and self-criticism, and parts-based approaches, such as Internal Family Systems (IFS), explore conflicting emotional responses and protective patterns.
Healing does not require repeatedly retelling painful events. It involves developing enough safety, flexibility and understanding to carry the past without continually reliving it.
Carrying the past differently
There is something moving about the possibility that an experience can remain painful without continuing to dominate our lives.
We may never feel grateful for what happened, nor should we have to. But we may eventually understand ourselves with less shame, recognise what was missing, or discover that our past no longer determines every response in the present.
Perhaps the more useful question is not Why am I still thinking about this? but:
What am I able to understand now that I could not understand then?
Sometimes the mind returns to an old experience not because nothing has changed, but precisely because something has.
References
- Stanton, M. (1998). The bezoaric effect: Working with traumatic process. The Psychoanalytic Review, 85(3), 331–348.
- Lane, R. D., Ryan, L., Nadel, L., & Greenberg, L. S. (2015). Memory reconsolidation, emotional arousal, and the process of change in psychotherapy: New insights from brain science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 38, e1.
- Bromberg, P. M. (2011). The Shadow of the Tsunami and the Growth of the Relational Mind. Routledge.
- Stern, D. B. (2010). Partners in Thought: Working with Unformulated Experience, Dissociation, and Enactment. Routledge.