Memory Problems
My memory problems started not long after I reached 40. It started with aphasia, the
inability to remember words. I can recall that the thing in the corner is for sitting on,
that it has a back which differentiates it from a stool, but I'll be buggered it I can
recall that it's called a chair.
But it didn't stop with aphasia. Now my chances of recalling what's said in a meeting
are negligible even a day later, and what little ability I had to put a name to a face has
deserted me completely. There are coping strategies one can employ, such as taking notes
of everything and using the computer to remmber everything you can't, and for the most part
I function quite well. But don't ask me about that person we saw last month, or who said
what in the canteen, because I just won't remember.
Of course every cloud has a silver lining - I can now put a book down and know that I can
go back to it in a year or so and will have forgotten the entire thing, so I can read it
again as new. Of course finding it again might be a problem :-). Of course, memory is a
complex and slippery beast - I can recall whole passages of books I read 25 years ago, lyrics
of songs from the seventies and eighties (not the nineties, obviously - no worthwhile music
was produced in that decade) and so forth. Just the stuff that happened after I passed forty
is more or less gone.
So if I struggle with your name or walk past you in the street, please don't be offended.
It's all I can do to remember who *I* am, let alone you.