Losing it
November 05, 2015

I am starting to get really scared about my memory problems. I don't know if it's menopause, or just age, or the Hashimoto's, or I'm losing my mind, or if it is just because you have to care to remember and I don't care about anything anymore. But my memory is like swiss cheese these days.

And here's the thing--up until about 2011, I had a phenomenal memory. Practically nothing escaped it. So I feel devastated by the loss, for one thing. It was one of those things that defined me as a person--a core piece of my identity.

And for another, after a lifetime of never having to come up with any memory aids, I feel like I have no tools or habits to help me now. Hell, this diary is taking on a whole new role in my life, because I need it to figure out when various things happened. That started with "oh, did that happen in '05 or '06?", but has progressed past "last month, or the month before?" and is currently to the point where I can barely remember the weekend by Monday. I'm afraid that before long, I'm going to have to make an entry every day, just to keep track. My scribble book, too, is coming into play as a memory tool--I found myself looking through it the other day to see if I could figure out a date. And I actually NEED a calendar!

All those things probably sound perfectly commonplace and normal to most people. But--once I wrote something down, I never used to have to go back and look! Just the act of writing it down was enough to cement it in my brain. I'm having to do these things, and I hate it, because that's not the real me.

Seriously. It's bad. It's affecting my work, it's complicating my relationship with Spouse, and it's kicking the shit out of my self-esteem. I'M FREAKING BROKEN.

/end vent