Challenges of being forgetful

I’ve been very forgetful recently (past year or so, getting worse in the past few months). I’m not sure why. “Fibro fog” due to fibromyalgia and long covid are possibilities. There are other possibilities, too.

It’s very frustrating when I think of something I need to do, open my computer and go to the proper website… and then forget what on earth I am doing. Then I have to go back and reread what I was just looking at to see if I can get my brain to conjure up the same thought again. This method worked just now, but it often doesn’t work, and then I just don’t do what I need to do because I can’t hold onto the thought long enough to do it…

Sometimes I can’t write something down fast enough because that’s how quickly the thought leaves my mind. So my sticky notes are jumbled and unclear because they’re the only two words I could hold onto long enough. Then it’s difficult to interpret them later on.

In conversations, I often forget what we were just talking about. Or I had something to say earlier, but now I forget it, so I’m just silent. Sometimes it’s awkward.

(TW: bathroom; just this paragraph) When I use up the last of the toilet paper in the bathroom, I tell myself “toilet paper toilet paper toilet paper,” while I’m wiping and washing my hands so that I don’t forget. Even still, the thought leaves my head by the time I exit the bathroom. And so the toilet paper roll is empty when the next person wants to use the bathroom, despite my best efforts.

This is just a vent-type post to acknowledge the struggles I’m having with this particular thing. Writing it out makes me feel more valid. These really are struggles that happen very often to me and have real consequences.

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