My Bad Short Term Memory

Memory..
Short Term Memory..
Memory Recall.

These three things...
Are very funny things indeed.

I never knew how bad my short term memory was
Until I actually started to focus on it
Started trying to remember all the little things
Parts of my day, the day before, something I read
Even something I typed very recently.

After I finish this blog
I probably would forget what it says within a few minutes
If I were to come back later today
Or even tomorrow
I would have to read all of the blog again just to know what I said.

After realising this, it is actually fucking ridiculous.

I know when I speak to people
Quite often I will start repeating things that I said within 10 minutes or so.
I would have forgotten what I had said
Or what I wanted to say
I would just be caught up in the talking part of the conversation.
Much like what I am doing now.

My long term memory is much better than the short term
I can remember things from a long time ago
I can remember little things and stupid details
But the problem comes in
When I actually try to think of all these Memories

I can easily remember most things when someone asks me a question
Yet for me to think back to any specific point
I draw a blank

It is as if I have no control over my own thought process
My mind is just one giant blur
And the mist clears as soon as someone else flips a switch.

Let me use a nice example
To demonstrate how bad my short term memory is:

A few weeks ago, the girlfriend and I had a breakup
The breakup did not come from my side
It was very unexpected as we had been together for a very long time
Almost 7 years to be exact.

So my long term memory is full of happy and good memories
Of me and her being together, and ideas of us being together forever.
Although we had three minor breakups
We always got back together and the breakup would be erased from my mind
Because of there always being the connection between us
It is easier to think of the 7 year period as one giant whole
Instead of a whole separated with 3 few month holes in-between.

So now the breakup has happened 6 weeks ago
We have been over the breakup atleast 5 - 10 times
Going over causes and reasons
Discussing where things went wrong and identifying problems.

The final conversation was not even a week ago and we spent 9 hours discussing the breakup in order for me to try and understand and grasp the whole thing...

Four Days later...
I had forgotten almost all of the reasons.
I can remember some reasons here and there
But the whole conversation is just one giant blur.

It got very emotional towards the end of the conversation
I did end up crying a lot at the end..
I have read that stress can make it hard to remember clearly.
Anyway.. the thing is.
It is as if the conversation never really happened

Which is really fucked up
As I said that would be the last time we speak about the breakup
And I would like to keep to that agreement
But as you can imagine

There is nothing I want more than to have the conversation over again
Not for a different result
But just to be able to remember what was said!

It really is super annoying
Also I have been in the same situation for the last month
There is no way for me to progress from the state I am in

I am still in the point that we were during the relationship
I have not been able to form the new memories
Which tells me that we are now separated.

Saying it
Thinking it
Discussing it
Accepting it..
Nothing helps.

So that is a Scenario of a giant life event I cannot build into my short term memory..
I have even tried sleeping more
In order to try and get my memory to get better
But sadly...
Sleep has not helped much
Or maybe it has.. I cannot really remember :/

Lately I have been reading a lot
Reading has been the only thing I have wanted to do since the breakup
I have never enjoyed reading before and hardly ever read anything
But since I have started, I have enjoyed it much, much more.

After the breakup I fell deep into depression and quit smoking Cannabis.
I have been smoking cannabis for also about 7 years
And after starting to smoke
Life really just got so much better
I started enjoying things and people and stuff.

When I was smoking
I do remember my memory also being bad
But the only thing was
I did not really care about the memory being bad
I just figured that it was part of being stoned
But, once I sobered up
I realised that it was not actually the being stoned part
Which was the cause of the bad short term memory

But that the weed just made me not care about my memory being bad
That was the nice thing about being on the weed
I just did not care about all the problems that I had.

Cannabis had been my treatment for a very long time
I was self medicating unknowingly
And as soon as I quit
My body started acting very weird after about 2 weeks

I went to see a psychologist and he put me on some anti-psychotics (SeroQuel)
This made me able to focus
This made me able to read.
This made me focused on reading.

Reading became the only thing I could do to keep my mind occupied

As my dosage increased, so did I become more focused.
The harder I focused, the more obsessive I became
Next thing I know
I have full blown Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as well.
It is something that I had as a child
But it went away over time
It almost stopped when I use to smoke weed.
It never really stopped, I just did not notice it
Looking back, I can see it was there all along.

Now having ADHD does affect short term memory
As at all times you are absorbing information from all around you
Or you are distracted by what you are thinking about
And cannot pay attention to what it being said

You just have to many trains of thought to be able to converge them all into one place.

This is a very important thing to realise
That your short term memory is bad.

I think that is part of why I do not really change my routine that much
I basically just forget to do new things
I do not really remember what I was planning to do
And then get distracted by what I am busy with
Or what I plan to do next.

I suppose memory and attention have a lot in common
You have to pay attention to remember

How do you pay attention?
Well I guess it has to be something that interests you
And it is not always possible to do something interesting
We try to do what interests us
Some of us try to hard
And some of us just do whatever
Although it is not very interesting

I think that my be part of the problem
We can only remember
What we want to remember

And being self absorbed
Living internally
Being one with our mind

Makes us the centre of it all
Makes that the most interesting thing on the planet
Even though we may feel we are super boring
And completely uninteresting

To ourselves, we are the centre of the universe
Our little universe at least.

I just remembered I wanted to make a video today
I was already starting to set up my things for the video
But then I got distracted
And ended up here

I have been thinking of keeping a little notepad
A little book to remind me of what I need to do
Because really
I need to start writing things down in order to remember them
As I honestly cannot remind myself.

I have been thinking of the notebook for over a week
But I have not remembered to start doing so

Anyway..
I hope someone finds this interesting and even perhaps learns something..

I have always believed that all knowledge
Is worth something to someone
Even if it is just a new idea
A little something to think about
Before you forget about it.

And sometimes..
Ideas can stick with you much longer than you thought they would.