We manipulate our memories to brace for future hardships Jeff Galak, a Carnegie Mellon behavioral scientist who worked on the study, suggests that we remember hardships as worse than they actually were so that when we face those experiences again, they will be less painful than we expect. Galak thinks that by understanding this “bracing” strategy individuals can learn to overcome it and stop fearing exaggerated pain. He acknowledges that doing so may backfire, howeverit is possible, he says, that by bracing for the worst, we actually suffer less. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-power-of-negative-thinking "People Who experience mood swings, fear, voices and visions"