Dissociated Thoughts

Memory Eludes Me

Written for "Journalistic Intentions"  Post 2 of 8
Prompt: Memory Fails Us These Days

         It's been quite some time that my memory has been failing me, worsening by the year it seems. The doctors said it would happen. If the seizures didn't take some of my memory, the medications would. So, for thirty one years I have had an excuse for my undependable memory. I have adapted. I now tell people when I meet them that I will most likely not remember their names, and sometimes their faces, the next time I see them. Seizures and medication - excuses, excuses. And now, new research shows that sleep deprivation, depression, mania, and anxiety all have negative effects on memory as well. As do autoimmune diseases. Like I really needed any more excuses for my crummy memory. But are they really just excuses or do the researchers actually have something there?

         Thirty one years of pretty much being a guinea pig for this new medication or that has proven to me that medications can and usually do have an impact on my memory. Seizures definitely do as well. I am missing weeks of memories because of one seizure or another indiscriminately wiping parts of my memory clean. The worse the seizure, the more treasured memories lost. At first, it was just some of my short term memories but over the years, I have noticed more and more of my long term memories going as well. It became hard to teach my students when I couldn't access the information I took years accumulating and practicing. And it was more than a little embarrassing. Information comes, yet, more and more of it tends to go nowadays.

         This is especially true since becoming ill with certain chronic autoimmune diseases. And yeah, it is worse when I have recently had a depressive episode, a manic attack, or an anxiety attack. At this point, supplements to help memory do not work for me. Maybe too much is stacked against them. I do get frustrated when I cannot remember something that I know I knew. I think my memory will fail me before the rest of me finally succumbs to one of these dastardly diseases though. On a more positive note, I was told I should never have to worry about getting dementia or Alzheimer's. I guess one of the pills in the handful of pills I have to take twice a day helps with it, who knows. I'm still just a lab rat on which my doctors continue to try out the "newest and greatest" treatments for my many conditions. But, hey, they're keeping me alive. Sometimes, I wonder though, when I remember to ponder, "What is life without memories?". Do you suffer from long term memory loss? I don't remember.

LeJenD'Poet - Wait, What?