There’s a theory that a PTSD brain has structural similarities to an Alzheimer’s brain. I wonder about this every time I think about the trouble I go through to remember things.
I spent a week devising a Father’s Day gift for my best friend. And when the day came, I had forgotten about it until my mother reminded me what day it was. The gift is a set of homemade organizing trays that fits inside a drawer where he puts his wallet and keys at the end of every day. My plan was to make them out of fabric and white glue. I had bought the glue a week and a half prior. The days passed while figuring out when to make them. And then a mental roadblock happened. I remember looking at the bottle of glue, but I had no association for it. I think it was the Friday before Father’s Day.
It had been a busy week at work. My mind was overloaded with catching up on a project into which I was pulled in late. The team was relying on me. I worked overtime and every night I crashed, sleeping a solid 8 hours each night. It was as though work thoughts crushed those plans to make the organizing trays. Fortunately, when Sunday came, my friend went out with his son and I was able to make the trays and put them in the drawer before they came home.
There are ways to keep track of things to remember. For example, at work, we use Slack messaging app to instant message co-workers. Our company doesn’t have the revenue to spend on message archiving, so I use the program via Adium, another messaging client, which has the ability to save chats on my laptop. I refer to the chat transcripts often. They are as valuable as messages saved in folders on Outlook. Over and over, someone will mention something of which I have no recollection. It takes time to search previous conversations about what I don’t remember, but it’s much better and probably more time saving than talking to my co-workers as if these somethings never happened.
And then there’s this blog. I have many drafts that have never been published. But I don’t delete them because to me they are as valuable as pictures of loved ones.
I wonder if my ability to remember is declining. But maybe there’s a way to improve it.