Self Doubt, Memory [1/2]
Tonight I watched an actor I adore and have seen many times before in a film I didn't expect to see him in. I remember looking at him and thinking he looked familiar... but I didn't get that it was him until the credits rolled.
...I think I might have some form of face blindness? 'cause this happens a LOT to me, even with people I know well. I always feel awful about it.
This opened me up to thinking about my memory and how terrible it is; something I think about a lot.
Self Doubt, Memory [2/3]
I've always had a bad memory for recalling things on my own. I forget names of people I see and talk to every day; I forget words -- and not weird words like antidisestablishmentarianism or cantankerous, but really basic words like fire or bread.
I can't remember major life events until someone can remind me of their contents; then they start coming back.
I'm so frequently embarrassed by my memory that I'll often pretend to remember things I don't. >..<
Self Doubt, Gaslighting, Memory [3/3]
I've been in a handful of really emotionally abusive relationships over the course of my life, and in most of them, I've been gaslit pretty badly. I'm very susceptible to gaslighting because of my awful memory... and I have a theory that the gaslighting I've been subjected to has caused me not to trust what I _do_ remember.
I don't know what to do about this. I've been through brain function tests with no memory anomalies... could it just be psychosomatic?!
Self Doubt, Gaslighting, Memory [3/3]
@mawr Remind me to talk about this tomorrow/soon because it's my bedtime now but: dissociation does really bad things to memory.
Self Doubt, Gaslighting, Memory [3/3]
@starkatt Reminding as requested-- I'd really like to hear what you have to say on this topic. ♥️
Self Doubt, Gaslighting, Memory [3/3]
@mawr So I actually don't have a ton more to say but basically like... yeah, dissociation is really bad for biographical memory. In the first place it fucks with memory formation, but depending on what exact flavor of stuff is going on it can also make retrieval not work great either.
Memory/Dissociation
@starkatt I never really understood what dissociation meant until a year or so ago when I finally looked it up and realized it's a thing that happens to me more often than I'm comfortable admitting. :x
Memory/Dissociation
@mawr @starkatt *looks up* ... oh. huh. uh... yeah.
I know I've had a depressive disorder my entire life; there wasn't anything particularly traumatic about my childhood, but it's possible that I developed dissociative habits in attempting to cope with the depression. now that my depression is mostly in remission, I don't have as many episodes of it as I used to...
Self Doubt, Gaslighting, Memory [3/3]
Memory/Dissociation
@mawr I figured out the other day that there was some actions of mine not that long ago that I literally did not remember because of dissociation. I had events on either side, but not the middle.