MEMORY ISSUES AND AGING: AN INTRODUCTION

3/5/23
BLOG POST #1: INTRODUCTION

This blog revolves around memory issues and aging, both individually and collectively. In particular, mine. The sources of my issues as I’ve come to know them, the situations in which they manifest themselves, and the effects and coping skills I’ve created are what I plan to share, hopefully on a biweekly basis.
If these topics are easy for you to read about, then I hope my running commentary will provide some insight and provoke discussion.
If you’re not sure but curious, then this blog is especially for you. I hope to provide considerations that get you thinking.
Regardless, I welcome your comments and feedback. I have no formal training in any of this. You will not hear clinical jargon or see scholarly references unless they provide connective threads for comprehension. It’s simply my words, my life, my perspectives.

A BIT ABOUT ME

It will help to tell you a bit about me, and what has spurred me to do this.
I have been what many call a scatter-brain for as long as I can remember. Which is sketchy, for my memory has never been the great. I can’t pin that on any period of time, or one event. I’ve been told that I had extremely high fevers when I was 18 months old, somewhere around 106 or 107, and was given ice baths and medicines. There have been brain impacts that occurred in the course of living, some of which may have been severe enough to cause a concussion, but they were never analyzed or treated. Falling backwards from a skateboard onto concrete. Doing the same while playing broom hockey and knocking myself out, despite wearing a helmet.
I just know that my ability to remain focused has always been a struggle. I also know that I’ve always been horrible at finishing things. So throughout my “career years” I developed coping mechanisms to get by, having to revise them periodically. The people around me praised my accountability. I became known as the person that honored commitments and got things done. Little did they know that it was a ruse. I simply didn’t want the embarrassment of exposing my mental issues.
I’ve dealt with varied levels of depression off and on, some severe. I’ve also dealt with extreme anxiety. I can remember taking a math test in high school, and not remembering if 1 x 1 was 1 or 2. Brain freeze. I also remember feeling suicidal when turning thirty, confident that I had lived half of my lifespan by then and wondering if it was worth staying around for.

A DECISION POINT

In my early fifties, my mother went on the devastating path of dementia and Alzheimer's. I was her overseer for her final four years. It was devastating to see her lose connection with reality. Since she and I shared similar scatter-brain tendencies, I began wondering if that would be my fate as well.
But I’m an analyst and statistician. I decided that if that was to happen, that I would do my best to quantify and recognize it. Over the following years I began Alzheimer’s assessment as part of a research project. I used games and such that measured aptitude and performance over time. I schemed a method of playing crossword puzzles to test my memory and cognition.
I also noted that I was about 5000 days from reaching 70, and made it my goal to document, as best as possible, what that journey was like. I gathered thoughts, but kept them in a passworded file on our family computer.
And then, like so many other things, I forgot about it. Came back to it a couple of times, and forgot again. A few years ago, I returned determined, but could not remember the file password. The information was lost.
And so the idea sat until recently, when writing interests in my life required regular attention. And that is how this blog came to be.

INTENTIONS

I intend to post twice a month to start. I don’t have a word count in mind, but won’t want to bore you. The posts will include insights and discoveries. They will also include daily memory “events” that I’ve gotten pretty good at capturing before I forget them. Thank goodness for smartphone reminders!
This will let me set a foundation, from which I will continue until I can’t remember to, or something else dramatic happens.
Welcome to my world.