# Memory loss, anyone else?



## SorR3n

Hey I have a question DP community, did you guys experience severe memory loss with your DP? I feel that I can follow the basic guidelines for recovery, and I've managed to start to feel much better, but one thing that is persistant is my inability to remember things. I know it's mostly in my head, but I honestly seem to forget most of my life. I can't remember my childhood one bit, not even highschool. Even last month seems a million miles away. It's like I detach from my past as soon as it happens, like yesterday was another lifetime. I also forget basic information about the world we live in, it really hurts my sense of self and my confidence. The worst is not remembering my friends very well, I feel extra distant from them and they seem like strangers, even my parents. I feel like I've lost every bit of myself, and I feel so blank and empty of thought or emotion. Somedays I feel that recovery is impossible if I cannot hold on to anything I learn. But then again isn't the point to not hold on, to live in the moment? I suppose acceptance comes first, then the recovering. I am hopeful that even after 4 years I can recover from this, but I seem to grow more distant everyday. I was just hoping some of you could share your experiences with losing memory, it would mean a lot to me. I love each and everyone of you guys, I know that we can overcome this and in the end become stronger, more loving people.


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## Dumdum

Same here. It's like if suddently i forget everything about this world and who im, and what im doing. Really, it's so scary when it happens.


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## GabbyMendek

The memories I once had seem foreign to me like it was not me who actually experienced them. Does anyone else feel this way?


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## Tronick

Awesome post!

Yeah I have this so badly, sometimes I feel like I have like early onset dementia or something. All of my memories seem as though they are so far away. I use to picture the days of the week in my head clearly, and go through events and memories really methodically, but now it seems so scattered and disorganized.. Does this happen to anyone?

I think the worse thing is forgetting things like appointments and dates, and generally feeling like you are failing at everyday life! But it will get better.. no place to go but up


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## SorR3n

Thanks for responding you guys! I'll glad I'm not the only one, I don't see that many topics about memory loss so I'm glad to have put one out there.



GabbyMendek said:


> The memories I once had seem foreign to me like it was not me who actually experienced them. Does anyone else feel this way?


I feel the same way, the memories I do have are very vague, just flashes of images that I can't hold in my brain, like trying to focus on a blackboard without glasses on. They don't have any emotional attachment, which I think is very important to memory. I think the memory loss is due in part to being emotionally disconnected from ourselves, I know that in the past before DP, I had blocked out a lot of painful memories, mostly of relationships gone wrong, being anxious in my childhood, or traumatic drug experiences. know that it's totally possible to get the connect with your memories back, I think its a matter of fixing the DP/DR and anxiety issues first, then the memories will come.



Dumdum said:


> Same here. It's like if suddently i forget everything about this world and who im, and what im doing. Really, it's so scary when it happens.


Yeah, it's the most frightening experience I've ever had. But for me it gets better at times, mostly when I'm with other people who can help me feel more human. I never feel I have a grip on who I am or what I've done or where I am, but not thinking about it is the closest, and eventually when the fear goes away, reality will too.



Tronick said:


> Awesome post!
> 
> Yeah I have this so badly, sometimes I feel like I have like early onset dementia or something. All of my memories seem as though they are so far away. I use to picture the days of the week in my head clearly, and go through events and memories really methodically, but now it seems so scattered and disorganized.. Does this happen to anyone?
> 
> I think the worse thing is forgetting things like appointments and dates, and generally feeling like you are failing at everyday life! But it will get better.. no place to go but up


Yo I totally convinced myself I had alzheimer's for a while, because I took some test in a book and... well I didn't pass the test... but it's more of a dissociative amnesia that actual physical memory loss, so if we can stop dissociating we can get it all back, right? it's all in our brains, we just can't access it. Scattered and disorganized is the way to put it, I can't keep track of one thought or image, it slips away into another thought too quickly to really process. my sense of time is boggled too... what day is today??? what I have been doing is writing down what happens to me everyday, and even though by the end of the day I have trouble getting it all down, it helps to be able to look back at it. It doesn't work perfectly but it help. No place to go but up is right! we can get out of this dreamlike state, it's a matter of willpower, patience, and discipline. Not to mention hope, compassion, and love.

Stick in there guys, you're all strong people!


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## GabbyMendek

Does anyone feel like they cant remember themselves? This is the hardest of all my symptoms to explain. I literally sit infront of the mirror and keep repeating my name over and over and it feels so weird. Why cant I recognize myself?


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## SorR3n

Well, definitely don't stand in front of the mirror repeating your name, I feel like that would depersonalize you more, if anything. But yeah, I have NO idea who I am haha, I feel like the person in the mirror is a stranger, my body is foreign to me, and so on. It actually freaks me out, I can't look in the mirror to long. Once I was lookin in the mirror and I started saying things that I felt I wasn't saying... it was fucked up... But honestly focusing on it won't do anything, that won't bring back the memories. It's our relation to the world outside us that gives us a sense of self, and when we start to reconnect with the world, ourselves won't seem AS strange. Maybe our bodies are only temporary, and we are simply spirits that inhabit bodies like vehicles, so our body ISN'T really us, so it seems strange. Just an idea. When I was recovering and feeling MUCH better, I still couldn't remember myself, my biographical history, and I still didn't recognize myself, but I was WAY more okay with it, I accepted it, and it didn't bother me. It all came apart when I started obsessing over my symptoms again. We just got to stop thinking about it!!! simply as that


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## Allen12

Yeah if you have silver fillings in ur teeth they can be the cause of all these problems because they have mercury in them once you get them replaced with one without mercury all this shit will go away


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## Anonymity

its the feeling of not knowing anyone you use to know that gets me. being completely isolated from the world with no where to turn. having resources and people in front of you that you simply don't know how to approach, it's all too foreign, all too strange. everything is so pointless, so dull and fuzzy, which ultimatly terrifies the shit out of me knowing that this is what is ACTUALLY going on right now in my life. hope seems lost, and i have yet to find any myself.


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## RichUK

I wouldn't say I forget things but it feels like I do. I can't really explain it but it feels like I forget where I am even though if I ask myself I know where I am.

Its like Im disconnected from my memory


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