I have improved substantially. I didn’t realize how substantially the amnesia/file retrieval difficulties had improved until recently. AND am glad I ignored medical advice and concentrated upon improving them.
Recently it came into sharp/er focus just how vulnerable living in a state memory-less-ness and without the capacity to form or remember a narrative can and could make a person.
About a decade a go, a few months after my third major head injury a friend asked “Have you seen Memento?” and recommended I rent it because “You’ll relate to it”. I did.
The brain injury was difficult on anyone who knew me before, including the dog, because who I was - I wasn’t anymore.
I’d had a stenographic video-like memory, could follow and cross reference complex material/s and then- poof- all that was gone. I’d look away from your/a face during a conversation and with that turn of my head- the memory of your face, your name- who I was talking to - who I was sitting next to in relationship to the topic- all that information would be gone- immediately and instantaneously. No idea who I was sitting next to, had just been speaking with and often I was still speaking I just had no idea to whom. That turn of the head and whoever, or whatever, was there just disappear/ed.
‘Pop quiz - who’s sitting next to you right now?’
If I wasn’t looking straight at them- I had no idea. Heck it didn‘t take long for me to forget whether or not there was someone there. Nope I’d turn my head and whoever- whatever disappeared. Visually- that’s still true but improvement of short term memory and being able to construct a narrative has helped.
“Segmented consciousness,” a girl from class had called it.
”Segmented consciousness” damn sight better terminology than what I was hearing from the SC(UM) medical profession within the Confederacy of Dunces. “You really had your bell rung?” was the reply I’d get whenever I asked: what happened to me?
What can be done? “Done- nothing you’ll be better in six more weeks” “six more weeks” then “six months” and then (and without warning) “you may be like this for the rest of your life”.
Ten years, a lot of work and an unwavering belief in neuro-plasticity - and I do remember. I can. Some.
The amnesia’s way better, I figure I just have to keep rebuilding a section at a time. The book of faces I had figured it would help: old names from old files arranged with and amid old as well as age/time adjusted photographs and then recently there was/were the following exchange/s.
“The old gang,” said one of those face-n-tags recently from within c/hat.
“…the old gang…“
The old gang?
“We didn’t have a gang” I informed the digital estimation? The cat in the ©hat or is it c/hat? An old friend’s beau. An old defensive line-man? Or was it offense?
Odd…
I really have and did work on getting my memory back. Why? The more neurons I have reconnecting and able to fire- the better? That’s been the hope; plus its weird when people talk about their lives, tell stories and you literally got noth-in.
Odd too, recently there was a chat or c/hat or a ©hat with some1 wherein we did have a gang.
“Best Secret Santa,” my old eight grade locker-mate/buddy declare(s/d).
No, that is incorrect- I instantly and sadly knew.
“Eight grade?.. I wasn’t your Secret Santa.”
I remember who I was 8th grade Secret Santa to - and it wasn‘t her. See there was a story- a whole thing which could be summarized in the following Aesop-ian caution:
Don’t judge a Christmas stocking (or a Secret Santa) by the top layer as you never know what might be just a bit farther down (at the end of the week).
Believe? Hope. Trust- I’m not your friend so I can screw you over. By the last Secret Santa day of 83/84 I was redeemed-
?
Me, I hadn’t seen the point in daily bits of knick-knack and believed it would be a greater gift - a better gift that could really be used, enjoyed and perhaps remembered?
Though she may have preferred something store bought everyday. I didn’t take into account that she might, understandably, have been disappointed most of the week. “Best Secret Santa,” (!)allegedly my old 8th grade locker-mate/buddy inaccurately beamed across the digital divide as and in c/hat.
No I wasn’t - not in that year of baked goods, clove pierced citrus and Jean…
Do you really remember me?
Do I really remember you?
(Yes)
Do I know you or is this just another layer upon another layer of masked balls danced upon a web while tracked inside a net?
(The 8 ball says yes and no on that one)
What if I hadn’t worked and worked and worked to reroute the old wiring- connect the disconnected and reclaimed the files that were temporarily lost? Out of bounds? Unfound? Not allowed? Access restricted? TBI amnesia -ed? (Because once upon a time - I had one the best memories around.)
If I hadn’t worked to get that back would I have simply believed and accepted the input a computer screen was presenting me? Would the following have become my truth because I’d been fed the data:
“I was my locker-mate/buddy’s Secret Santa in the 8th grade”
Would I have just gone with that?
Had I not worked on the amnesia and re/built those routes and paths- if those files weren’t now super easy to get to and totally accessible -I could have even been sold on that: so, so easily. And by who? Or what.
Anyone.
My old locker-buddy-mate? Who back in the day did actually shoot straight with me. The girl who‘d clue me in when someone wasn‘t being straight with me - someone I had love/d.
I brought bourbon balls into Middle school!?
Yes! That’s entirely plausible and probably entirely true - except that’s not what happened, not entirely.
To me they would have been a low cost item/baked good already around for the holidays wherein I could bring something, give something that day that didn‘t cost hardly anything and thereby give something really big on the last Secret Santa day. That was not really the best kind of Secret Santa perhaps but that‘s the kind of Secret Santa I was…
... And I wasn‘t the c.hat friend‘s secret Santa that year.
Merry/Happy Kwan-ukah-ristmas-solsti-tick-tock--tick-tock-how-many-sh(o/i)pping-days-are-left-Every(1/one)!
E/specially 2 u of the 8th grade crewcru.
(I really do prefer)
-Camille
PS: I wasn’t entirely accurate with you recently. I was actually a communications ma(j/g)or which at a small school is/(can be) like creative writing. And like journalism. And there was plenty of both. I also got credit within my major for poetry writing, screenplay writing, playwriting, technical writing, in-depth reporting, editorial writing…( worked hard to get some semblance of all that back too.)
I was a Writing Major?
Except that Major didn’t and doesn’t exist at my college.
“Creative Writing Major” - I spent a good deal of time (the major-ity?) writing, much of it creatively. Even technical writing is creative- (loved that class) but they only seem to hire engineers for writing manuals. Which of course is why VCRs were flashing “12:00” all over the nation and the world for nearly two decades.
Anyway hope that clears up any inadvertent confusion from our c/hat per my course- of study.
I like/d your Mom- glad to hear she’s living a love story, and hope she is.
