scary evening

My husband wanted to go out to eat. He failed to mention that I was to meet him at Piazza Hut after work. I made it all the way home and realized he wasn't there. My cell doesn't get a signal at home so I started driving towards town and called him. He told me we were suppose to meet and where and I headed in that general direction.....not quite remembering where it was. Halfway there I remembered we have two in town and the other was closer....but I only knew it was on the main road not exactly where. I turned around and started driving that way. I called him to make sure that was the one he was at and he said..."why don't I just meet you at subway". I had no clue. By this time I was frustrated and about to cry. I told him to just stay where he was and I would find him. It doesn't sound like much reading it now as I write it but I was scared to death. I felt lost. My memory is getting worse, it seems as though it is worsening daily. My husband says it is only because I am worrying about it more. I dunno. He also says to take notes. There is no way I can write down everything that happens daily and then read all of those notes daily.

I was lost....scared...alone and I should have known exactly where I was.

The situation you found yourself in is a hectic one to begin with. The chaos is enough to make anyone stressed. But when you add the scare of not remembering something that you feel like you should, I can understand how scary that can be.

As for improving memory, there are lots of mind working games designed to improve memory. You can download them to phones, computers, a number of things. And you can create your own as well. It doesn't much matter what it is you are memorizing, but practicing the store and retrieve process ofmemory helps improve memory overall. Taking notes, I believe, would help you practice the storing part of memory, regardless of what or how much you wrote down. You could make that into a game by writing down what you can remember from your day, and then, to work the retrieval process, in the morning, see how much you can remember from what you wrote. And if you do well, seeif you can remember what you wrote about the day before. It's not so much about studying everything you do in a day as it is about working your memory to strengthen it in general. You can make random lists to memorize or try to memorize as much of pi as you can. An endless sequence like that might be good for you. I prefer the memory games because they are more fun, but working with pi or a listthat doesn't change, like the notes/journaling activity I mentioned before, would be working with the same, unchanging sequence and just constantly adding to it, which would work long term memory, as opposed to the short term with the games. It won't be quick, sudden, or drastic, but it should help withmemory in general, even if just a bit.

Hope that helps.

One thing you could try for now to alleviate some of the anxiety, since you have a partner, is having him tell you the location of places you are supposed to meet him or be at by address. As if you'd never been there. Instead of pressuring yourself as someone who's just "supposed to know", give yourself some slack. I've moved to quite a few places in my life, and getting around wasn't always easy, but gps, calling in-the-know friends/acquaintances, and writing down directions did ALOT for helping keep me on track as far as getting around. I understand you're upset since these are places you're "supposed" to know, but just be who you are, it's ok.

Text Text Text ......we send oursleves texts as well as anytime someone tells us something we have to remember we have them text it to us the phone is always with us no matter what a hard and fast rule especially for the little ones...so if they get stuck out or something happens they can call a safe person.

I know it doesnt really address the scary part Im sorry Im sorry it scared you so much.

Those were all terrific ideas! Thanks!

It doesn't happen too often but the absolutely gut wrenching fear I get when I am driving down a road and suddenly can't remember where I am and feel like I've just been transported to another town that I have no clue how to navigate through... is intense. I can relate for sure

For some reason I never read this thread before today. Better later than never, eh? I want to chime in and say I have had this kind of experience too. A couple years ago I was driving a colleague to lunch at a restaurant. The colleague started talking about a book, Jessica Stern's Terror in the name of God: Why religious militants kill. Jessica Stern also wrote Denial: A memoir of terror, which has a lot of parallels with my own trauma history. As the colleague talked about this topic I became severely depersonalized and disoriented. Briefly I did not know where we were or where the restaurant was, or how to get there. Stopped at a traffic signal, I took some deep breaths and did a quick mental grounding exercise. And then my usual secure orientation came back to me and I saw the restaurant right in front of us. Whew.

I told the colleague what I had experienced and asked that we not discuss any further Jessica Stern's work while I was driving, as it was currently too triggering for me.

Hi Una+ and yes it is better to be late than never!

I wanted to ask one more thing. Has anyone ever been riding through an area you've been through many, many times before and recognized it but at the same time it was like you were seeing it for the first time, with new eyes? This is a bit freaky too!

Snuffthroostr wrote:Hi Una+ and yes it is better to be late than never!

I wanted to ask one more thing. Has anyone ever been riding through an area you've been through many, many times before and recognized it but at the same time it was like you were seeing it for the first time, with new eyes? This is a bit freaky too!

All the time lol. Happens while driving, at work, at home, everywhere.

Yeah- this is the scariest to me. I just got lost driving STRAIGHT DOWN the street to the store where I've been hundreds of times over... like absolutely LOST and couldn't remember where along the street it was and why it was that I had made turns when it was a straight-shot. ERGH