What? Don't Remember That...
I think I've written a story about how migraines effect my memory before, but it's driving me crazy, so I need to talk about it again.
Normally I have pretty good memory. I'm not saying it's the best, but I know how to work with it so it can be above average. Which is why this drives me insane! I can't tell you how many times migraines have taken memories from me! I mean, I probably don't KNOW how many times it happened considering you don't know that you forgot something until you're in the situation where you need to remember it. So it's very possible I forgot things that I wasn't reminded about later or I forgot an instance where I forgot something.
It makes the migraine more stressful. The question of, "What memory will I lose this time? The knowing someone for three years, talking to them on a daily basis, then the day after a migraine asking, "What's their name?" The constant worry someone will think you're being rude because you don't remember their name or worse, you don't remember them! The constant worry of if you're blowing something off because a migraine made you forget it.
There are a lot of symptoms to migraines that make the experience hell (including pain that I have yet to meet someone that thinks it's that bad). However, no one talks about actual memory loss associated with it. Like straight up forgetting something and being like, "How could I forget?"
But there's a reason for that. You CAN'T talk about that. People excuse it for regular forgetfulness and always try to push ideas on you. Get a planner to remember appointments. Try harder to remember names. Tell people you're bad with names. But that's not the point here. The point is I'm not normally that forgetful (under normal nonmigraine circumstances).The point is I have a condition taking parts of my memory from me. The point is that my migraines are turning me into someone that's less than my best. The point is, there's nothing that you can do to make sure the migraine doesn't take something from you. No amount of memory exercises or whatever will make you forget things, and you always have to have an excuse for not remembering something like, "Well, I was tired that day" or "Oh, I wasn't feeling well" so people can just laugh you off as forgetful and not know you have an invisible illness. Because saying, "I had a migraine last week and that took my memory" just isn't something that someone can understand.
I know that sharing what I go through helps those that go through the same thing, so I hope that this story is helpful. I haven't seen anyone talk about the memory thing before.
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