The mind is a crazy thing. It protects you when it's important. It turns physical signals into sounds and feelings. Sometimes it jumps to conclusions for you — and that can be either positive or negative. They're not always the right conclusions.

One of the most interesting things that the mind can do is to repress memories. Someimes you don't even realize that it's happening. Your brain can repress memories from when you're in a lot of physical pain, but it can also repress memories that cause a lot of emotional pain, too.

Some children that are abused can't even remember that anything happened to them. It can take extensive therapy to get them to reach even the tip of the iceberg as far as their repressed memories.

But it doesn't only happen to children of abuse — it can happen to just about anyone. You might have some repressed memories that you don't even realize. If you've been in any form of abusive relationship — romantic or otherwise, physically abusive or otherwise — your brain could be protecting you from experiences that were just too painful to take up room in your mind.

My mom and I went on a trip, when I said, "Wow, it looks really familiar here." My mom looked confused, but she didn't say anything about my comment. We continued on with our day, hanging out and having fun, until I made another similar comment.

"We've been here," she said. No, we hadn't. "When?" I asked. Apparently, we had gone on a day-trip to the same place with an ex-boyfriend of mine. To this day, I don't remember it. She described the day we had together — we seemed to be having fun. We weren't fighting, at least to my mom's knowledge.

So why had I repressed the memory of that day? Why couldn't I remember it? I tried and tried, but still couldn't do it. If there was nothing negative, I should remember it — right?

My mind had repressed a lot of memories associated with him. Not only that — it had changed a lot of my memories. I didn't remember everything about our relationship clearly. It was really fuzzy.

Think back to a relationship you've been in. If it was a negative one, was it mentally or physically negative? It might have been worse than you're remembering.

Your brain may be protecting you. I remember some pretty crappy times together, but my brain protected me from remembering all of them. I guess I could be upset that I don't remember one of our very rare good times together, but I'm really glad that our memories aren't taking up space in my mind.

My brain has other things to dwell on besides that relationship. It was a bad one but it doesn't need to define me. There were a lot of specifics that I won't get into here, but I can assure you — it was mentally abusive, emotionally abusive, and physically abusive.

I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone — but maybe, if you're lucky, your consciousness will protect you from the worst of it.