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At 60, I have lots of memories but most are of significant events but I still pull up memories from some where when focusing on remembering. My first memory is very vivid, picking up my mom and baby brother from the hospital, I was 2 years and 11 months old at the time. I can describe the whole event and who was with us, etc. I can draw a floor plans of the schools in detail, name teachers and fellow students. I have lived and traveled and can remember vague details of grocery stores in the areas, etc. I am a visual learner which really helps in many ways as well as keeping mentally and physically busy.
I have known several people in their 80s that were sharp as a tack in remembering and some in their 40s that were not.
When you remember the good memories, you remember the bad ones too.
As I get older the memories are indeed failing (ie losing detail) although if I try or if I have some object from the past, I can usually recall some part of the memory though I doubt I could remember much more detail like the day of the week or the weather unless I was outside or the memory was specifically dealing with the weather. I know that the memories are there, I just need some way of finding it... like if I think about my ex-girlfriend in college I'll remember that day I took the wrong way to class because I was following her and the friend I was walking with had to ask me where the hell I was going.
The earliest memory I have is as a very young child maybe 2 or 3 when I had a fever and laying on my gradmother's lap while she yelled at my mother for something.
I can still remember events like when my mother killed a frog, a turtle or made cow brain soup.. but only because they were so odd that they probably burned into my memory forever.
My wife's sister is one of those savants who can remember a surprising number of things like if a song plays on the radio she'll say that song went to number 1 on the charts on June 17 1963 and it was a monday.
Alzheimers typically affects short term memory first. My friends mother has alzheimers and she can remember the names of all of her children except the youngest of 7.
I have heard it said though, that those with Alzheimers tend to remember when they were young or the very day that they got married but can't recall where they went yesterday or five minutes ago.
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In particular stages of the brain degeneration, yes. Not true of Alzheimer's, overall, at least not as a static thing. But, yes, most people who suffer Alzheimer's-related dementia will pass through a stage where the ability to form new memories is compromised (and therefore, short-term memories aren't there to retrieve), but the neurological processes controlling the retrieval of long-term, stored memories prior to the development of plaques and tangles in brain tissue remains, for a time, unaffected. Most people, if they live long enough, will lose both as the disease progresses. But different types of memory are controlled by different systems of retention and retrieval, neurologically, and they're affected at different rates as the brain degenerates.
I cannot remember the vast majority of my childhood nor my high school years nor my college years nor the 16 years I was married.
And I could not remember any of the above at any time through the decades as I've grown older.
It does upset me a lot not to remember. I feel it's a great loss not to remember.
And I never drank nor smoked nor took drugs.
Same here. I joke that i live in the present, only because i can't remember anything of my past.
When I think about it, I have some vague memories of high school etc., but they are all like bits of silent movie. I think to myself, 'did I never speak'?
While I can remember some things from as far back as my childhood, the majority of my memories are now so vague that it almost seems like those experiences never even occurred. Seriously. Sometimes when I think back to a specific experience that I know for a fact happened, I actually wonder if it even happened at all. I think to myself: did I imagine it or did it really happen? And that's because with the passing of time, the memories of some experiences get more and more vague.
But maybe it's better that way. After all, why would one need to remember most of the things that happened in the past? The present is what matters.
Alzheimer's disease struck my grandfather in his mid 50's. He knew in the beginning and had my grandmother sit outside the board room while he spoke, then would come out and check if he missed anything. Gradually he stopped knowing others, and when grandma died, he spiraled out of reality quickly.
There are cognitive tests your physician can do to help ease your mind. And if there are changes, getting early treatment can add years to your brain's health.
We do live in a very chaotic world, and our brains absorb so much that goes on around us that I swear it tucks things aside just so your head doesn't explode! I would say that eating as clean/whole as possible is one way to nourish the brain, as too, getting outdoors and moving. Good luck!
To me, it feels as if a different person must have lived my childhood, teen years, college years, and 16 years of marriage. I cannot remember 98 percent of it.
It makes me wonder if I was sleep walking through life, not being really aware. I feel as if I do not know the person who lived those years. Who was that person?
As I mentioned earlier, when I was in my 30's, 40's, and 50's, I could not remember any of the above. And in my 20's, I didn't remember my childhood much.
I often think 'what was I thinking during those series of years' as a child, teen, college student, married person.
It really bugs me that I cannot remember what I was thinking nor how I went about making decisions nor how I decided to behave in certain ways.
If I could remember what I was thinking, I would be grateful for the insights into past behavior. But it definitely feels as if another person lived all those segments of life.
My 49 year old partner came to work one morning complaining that her memory was failing her terribly. Given my medical background she asked if it was some disease process or if she should be taking medication. "No," I told her, "It's just CRS. Hits everyone around fifty; you're 49 and eight months. Don't sweat it."
"CRS?" she asked. "What is it? Is it treatable?"
"No," I said, smothering a chuckle. "Can't Remember Sh... er, Stuff" comes with age, and until you can grow in reverse, it's pretty much with you. Get used to it."
She got over it and we went back to work.
(She's fine now.)
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