À la recherche de la mémoire perdue...
With my apologies to M. Proust for taking liberties with his title… ;)
I mentioned in my post yesterday that my memory is for shit these days. It's been this way for a while, actually, at least a year if not more, but it's been getting worse as time goes by. I'm talking specifically about my short-term memory. My long-term memory seems to be mostly unaffected, but my short-term memory has degraded at what I feel is an alarming rate.
I didn't notice how badly my memory and my attention span had deteriorated until pdaughter moved in. We started jokingly calling them "Peanut Butter Moments," after an incident in which I was helping to reorganise the pantry. I looked up to see a jar of peanut butter on a shelf where it didn't belong, and asked "What's that doing there?" The answer, of course, was that I had moved it there not five minutes before. To this day, I have no memory whatsoever of moving that jar of peanut butter. There was no, "Oh, right, how silly of me!" moment. I truly don't recall doing it.
That's the funny part of this problem. Unfortunately, it's mostly not all that funny. I can't hold numbers in my head, I forget entire conversations, and I end up doing a lot of things two or three times instead of once because I can't remember if I've done them or not.
It's especially frustrating for pdaughter (and other people), because I ask the same questions over and over again, or forget stuff they've told me not 24 hours ago. It's not quite like living with someone with Alzheimer's or the onset of senility, but I imagine it's like a watered-down version of that. It gives people the impression that I don't listen when they're talking to me, and I can understand why that would make them feel frustrated and unappreciated and ignored.
"But I just told you that yesterday!"
It truly must appear that I'm in bad faith, when in fact, as a rule, I simply forgot. From one moment to the next, my brain no longer retains information. Writing things down helps, but isn't a guarantee I will remember. In fact, sometimes I write things down and then forget where I wrote them (unless I put it in the small notebook I always carry with me). Sometimes I write things down and forget I wrote them down. "I should write that down!" I think, and then after I open my notebook I find that I've already done so.
It's incredibly frustrating for everyone involved. It affects every aspect of my life, from family and housekeeping all the way to work. My new job is highly dependent on remembering all the standard operating procedures in place. I'm lucky enough that I'm a good note taker and have written down about 80% of what I need, but every time something unusual comes up that I know we've covered but that I haven't written down, my recall fails me.
In short, my brain is a pile of mush, it's getting worse rather than better, and this is making everything hard. /o\
I mentioned in my post yesterday that my memory is for shit these days. It's been this way for a while, actually, at least a year if not more, but it's been getting worse as time goes by. I'm talking specifically about my short-term memory. My long-term memory seems to be mostly unaffected, but my short-term memory has degraded at what I feel is an alarming rate.
I didn't notice how badly my memory and my attention span had deteriorated until pdaughter moved in. We started jokingly calling them "Peanut Butter Moments," after an incident in which I was helping to reorganise the pantry. I looked up to see a jar of peanut butter on a shelf where it didn't belong, and asked "What's that doing there?" The answer, of course, was that I had moved it there not five minutes before. To this day, I have no memory whatsoever of moving that jar of peanut butter. There was no, "Oh, right, how silly of me!" moment. I truly don't recall doing it.
That's the funny part of this problem. Unfortunately, it's mostly not all that funny. I can't hold numbers in my head, I forget entire conversations, and I end up doing a lot of things two or three times instead of once because I can't remember if I've done them or not.
It's especially frustrating for pdaughter (and other people), because I ask the same questions over and over again, or forget stuff they've told me not 24 hours ago. It's not quite like living with someone with Alzheimer's or the onset of senility, but I imagine it's like a watered-down version of that. It gives people the impression that I don't listen when they're talking to me, and I can understand why that would make them feel frustrated and unappreciated and ignored.
"But I just told you that yesterday!"
It truly must appear that I'm in bad faith, when in fact, as a rule, I simply forgot. From one moment to the next, my brain no longer retains information. Writing things down helps, but isn't a guarantee I will remember. In fact, sometimes I write things down and then forget where I wrote them (unless I put it in the small notebook I always carry with me). Sometimes I write things down and forget I wrote them down. "I should write that down!" I think, and then after I open my notebook I find that I've already done so.
It's incredibly frustrating for everyone involved. It affects every aspect of my life, from family and housekeeping all the way to work. My new job is highly dependent on remembering all the standard operating procedures in place. I'm lucky enough that I'm a good note taker and have written down about 80% of what I need, but every time something unusual comes up that I know we've covered but that I haven't written down, my recall fails me.
In short, my brain is a pile of mush, it's getting worse rather than better, and this is making everything hard. /o\