On Forgetting To Remember

How do you know if you’ve forgotten something?

This is a great question posed by the wonderful podcaster Jamoalki over on the Depressed Not Dead blog  click here to read his post!

My memory is generally pretty awful, it can be handy as I am one of those people that can watch the same movie three times and still not remember that I have watched it and frustrating because I have a habit of forgetting appointments or double booking dates. “Thursday the 6th? That sounds great” No, it doesn’t sound great, it sounds familiar because I have already got three things lined up for that date but I won’t remember until the morning of when I will inevitably end up disappointing somebody!

I think I have blogged about memory issues before but I can’t remember if it was here or not (and also can’t be bothered checking right now!) In my non-professional medical opinion, depression itself is DEFINITELY a huge factor. Every single person I have ever met with depression has some sort of memory deficit as a bonus prize. Perhaps it’s to do with our pre occupation with the existing thoughts endlessly circling our brains that there is no room left for us to make any new memories  – I am certain there has been much research in this area and I think my psychiatrist explained it to me once but I don't recall what she said and if I try and research it now I will just get distracted by the internet and forget what I was doing here in the first place, so please feel free to google it!  

Medications can also cause memory problems, I find Lithium completely kills any ability I have to retain new information, even reading a fiction novel is useless because I can read through three chapters and suddenly realise I haven’t retained a single thing. I stopped using Lithium for this reason, I couldn't do my job anymore as it involved continuous learning and I just felt completely stupid all the time.

Hypomania seems to improve all aspects of my brain function, memory included – it’s like somebody has cleaned a window and everything suddenly makes perfect sense, I will even remember things long forgotten from childhood but as soon as it escalates to mania I don’t retain a thing and once back to my baseline or a depressive phase my memory becomes very fuzzy again. 

I somehow managed to write a memoir despite all this, but I think it was purely because I wrote it over a 6 week period while hypomanic and as I have kept journals and various blogs for so long I could refer to things I’d written long ago and the events and the emotions that went along with them came flooding back to me. I don't remember half of them off the top of my head right now, however  when I read back over my words its like "Oh that's right, that did happen!" 

What saddens me most is how much of my children’s lives I have forgotten, first words, birth weights, milestones in general. I came across some old video footage of when my youngest was about 1 & ½ she hadn’t been walking long, my three boys seemed so young, they were all singing and jumping around the living room like nutters having an absolute blast. It was beautiful to watch but sad at the same time because although I could hear my voice talking to them as I was recording the video, I have absolutely no recollection of that time in their lives and the footage didn’t jog my memory, it’s like it had all happened to someone else.

I know that I disassociate sometimes- all be it mildly, usually it’s as though I am watching myself from a distance but I will lose time occasionally, people tell me about phone conversations that I don’t recall. I wonder if this patchiness in my memory is also related to that feeling of being distanced from everything, time spent in mood episodes seems to be lost to the wind with just the writings from those events reminders that they ever happened at all.   

Watching my Dad being very much aware that his once infallible memory is slowly but unstoppably deteriorating saddens me deeply. I can relate to the pain of not remembering things that you know were once so important to you, words or names on the tip of your tongue but not quite within reach. The main reason I am so terrified at the thought of ever having ECT treatments that have been recommended to me in the past is the fear of losing even more of my memories, I would rather die knowing who I was than live a life I don’t remember.

So Jamoalki asked, how do you know if you’ve forgotten something?

Well I guess the answer is you don’t know, ignorance can be bliss sometimes or if its super important then someone will eventually let you know, the mechanic will call asking why you haven’t brought the car in yet (yesterday) or the school will ring you to come and pick up your children (ok, that’s only happened once…) 

Routine is essential for me, if my morning routine is thrown out my memory goes along with it, school notes don’t get signed, chickens don’t get fed, dishwashers don’t get turned on and my whole day is turned upside down! Post it notes on the steering wheel can be handy too – just watch the Aussie summer sun with those as the glue from the back will leave sticky residue all over it!

I find writing to do lists helpful, I put them on my phone so that I have them with me at all times great for stuff like ‘remember to bring in the washing before it freezes to the washing line’, ‘clean the guinea pig’ or ‘pay the electricity bill’. When I have a blog post idea I have to write it down (again on my phone) or it’s gone forever, then I can go back to them when I have time later. Sometimes I will find 4 or 5 long forgotten half started posts in my “notes”!

Do you have memory issues? If so, how do they affect you and what do you do to combat them?

Flashbacks

My reflection is staring at me from the computer screen as I type. I look old today, the three lines in the middle of my forehead from furrowing my brow too often appear deeper, the circles under my eyes darker and the skin of my eyelids seems to sag heavily as gravity slowly gets the better of them. 

It has also been exactly 2 years since I was released from my two month psychiatric hospital stay after my last suicide attempt. Those years have mostly passed quickly in a memory-less blur. For many, many months following my release I felt nothing. Semi disassociated from the world, my feelings were numb and it was as though I merely watched myself going about the motions from a safe distance.

I have had to learn to feel again, learn to love my family and friends again. It’s like they were from someone elses life where I had just watched the training video and then was expected to step into the main character’s role without any actual experience.

Blocking out the painful stuff is a tactic I learned in childhood, ignoring bullies didn’t make them go away but ignoring my feelings worked well, replace the pain with food and fake laughter only letting it creep back in at night time when I was alone and could cry myself to sleep. Some traumas could for the most part be shut out altogether, I remember ‘refusing to think about that’ and mentally changing the subject, but avoidance only takes you so far.

Real feelings have been sneaking back in, memories lost or blanked out reappear suddenly and startle me, usually in that twilight haze just as I begin to fall asleep. I find tears flow randomly and seemingly without provocation, tears for a life that was saved but perhaps lost after all.

I have been having a lot of flashbacks to my time in the hospital, the fear and humiliation of not knowing where I was, of being stripped to nothing but a gown in a ward full of big psychotic men and being made to sleep on a mat in the middle of the common room floor like a dog for weeks on end because by trying to end my life while in their care I had betrayed the trust of the doctors and nurses.

I think about what could have been done differently, what I could have done differently, I had the option of returning to a different mental health unit when I was released from intensive care and I chose to go back to where I thought I would feel safe and familiar. It didn’t work out that way. I was the enemy now, I had tricked them and no doubt been the cause of a great deal of paperwork and legal meetings. But that wasn’t my intention, I just couldn’t live with the pain anymore.

My psychiatrist added a new med on my last visit around 6 weeks ago when I started to fall back into depression after being brought down from my manic episode, it is a low dose of an anti-depressant. There was always the fear that it would make me manic again, but touch wood that hasn’t happened. The tablet is possibly working, I think I am less suicidal than I was – suicidality is always lurking in the background for me, it’s more a matter of how often I think about it than ‘if’ I do. I don’t know, it’s hard to tell how far I would have crashed if I hadn’t started taking it. 

The new med is kindly only giving me a few side effects, carb cravings that scare the hell out of me because I CAN NOT gain weight, my labido got up and walked out and one that seems to unfortunately be getting worse by the day which is shocking night sweats. I wake up freezing and drenched as though I have been running on the treadmill for hours its really gross and I’m tired all the time from the constant broken sleep. But I’m not manic and I’m not dead so I suppose I should be thankful.

Sorry, this got whiny fast. That wasn't my intention when I switched on the computer! It's 1pm now, I should really go hang out washing, clean up my bomb site of a house and do a water change on the fish tank but instead I think I will curl up back in bed and watch a movie while playing hashtag games on twitter.

Trigger Happy

*Trigger Warning*

“People are triggered by EVERYTHING these days!”, “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it!”

These were a few of the comments on The Mighty’s FB thread in regards to the ‘trigger’ potential of the new Netflix movie “To The Bone” which is about a girl suffering from an eating disorder.

The Mighty offered trigger warnings at the beginning of the thread and many people with eating disorders recommended not to watch the movie trailer, however on the same thread they also supplied a YouTube link to the trailer. So of course I watched it.

That was my choice to make but in the throws of an addiction (which is exactly what an ED is like), we find ourselves drawn to our triggers the way someone fearful of sharks will watch a documentary about them. If I relapse I tend to seek out doco’s, movies and TV shows about EDs, I don’t know why I do this, perhaps it makes me feel less alone? Obsessions are all consuming.

There are different ways that people can be triggered by things, bad memories can be suddenly brought back to the surface from a simple image or even a sound or smell. These memories can cause us psychological stress, anxiety attacks and promote behavioral relapses.

People can be given ‘ideas’ on how to ‘go about’ certain ED behaviors from shows that discuss and sometimes appear to glorify the topic and there is always the fear that someone contemplating ending their life will be tipped over the edge or learn new methods from a story about suicide.

So yes, I watched the “To The Bone” trailer and yes, it triggered me. There was an image of the main character’s back bone that made me instantly want to be back there, miserable but skinny. That being said the movie looked quite good, stereotypical perhaps (the main character is a teenage white girl) but also potentially educational for people who don't understand the complexity of Eating Disorders.

A big issue that people had was with the way Netflix apparently automatically streamed the trailer without a trigger warning so unsuspecting ED sufferers didn't know the subject matter that was coming up.

Honestly though, walking past a café, opening the fridge or seeing a very thin person will also trigger me. The trouble with eating disorders are that other humans are unavoidable, food is unavoidable, so many of my main triggers make up a huge part of the society we live in.

“Facebook friend just checked in to Jenny Craig” No big deal, right? Good on her for taking charge of her health and wellness!

 Except every fucking morning when I see this status update from a FB friend I just want to slit my wrists; it triggers the hell out of me. 

Because what I see when I read that status is someone holding up a mirror, emphasizing my physical flaws, accentuating my cellulite and tummy rolls, telling me I will never ever be ‘good enough’ while reminding me that I didn’t run yesterday, I claim it is because I have injured myself and need to rest – but is it really that or is it because I am a fat, lazy cow? Why can’t I be more like her? Disciplined, IN CONTROL.

Watching the TV series Orange is the New Black I found myself laughing and crying hysterically, it had unexpectedly triggered me in another way, while I have never been to prison, the institutionalization & banter between inmates reminded me strongly of my time spent on the psych ward, and it brought back strong memories; both horrendous and hilarious. 

So are we being too fragile?

This is the dawning of a new era in mental health, an era of awareness and acceptance. Triggers were always there, people have always been triggered but now more people than ever before are speaking up about how common triggers affect their mental illness and in an effort to assist these people to make an informed decision about what they read or watch ‘Trigger Warnings’ are often placed at the beginning of articles or videos.  

I know this is MY problem and I have a responsibility as an adult to be aware of what my potential triggers are and avoid what I can and work through my reactions to things I can’t avoid with a therapist so that I can participate in life more freely. 

But I also think trigger warnings for topics known to commonly cause distress are very important, unexpected triggers can send a person spiraling back into a mental health crisis and if we are able to reduce that risk for people then it is our duty as civilized human beings to do so.

I am choosing not to watch "13 Reasons Why" due to my history of  being bullied and a suicide survivor and I am grateful that I was made aware of the trigger potential of the series so that I could make that decision. There wasn’t a whole lot of effort involved in typing the words *Trigger Warning* at the beginning of this post, so surely others can do the same.