For context: I’m a young adult, I don’t think I have any serious brain issues yet.
But I’ve recently been just trying to remember the past and although its kinda tragic, there are very interesting moments and I want to keep these memories forever.
But brains aren’t perfect, and I’m just so scared.
Even re-reading the events from a journal woudn’t exactly be the same as remembering it.
Idk, I’m kinda just obsessed with some memories for some reason. Don’t wanna let go of it. Having this “backstory” (for lack of a better term), is what drives me forward, without those memories, like if I get a concussion and forgot everything, I wouldn’t really be… well… “me” anymore, and the thought of that is terrifying.
Mate, I look at it this way: if you’ve forgotten your memory, how would you know that you’ve lost it? You’ld just carry on.
I know that I lost most of the memories of my childhood, because I barely remember any of it.
Well, I can remember a lot of it with the right prompts, just can’t recall at will. Yay ADHD!
I think most people can’t just replay their childhood at will. I’ve recently been talking to my siblings a lot (and have also previously had similar conversations with my spouse about our history) and am often told that they’re very impressed by the scope of my memory.
However, the stories I recall to them aren’t just memories that I sought out and retrieved. They’re things that I was reminded of by the path of our conversations (or other external stimuli) - what you might call prompts.
If you were to browse my comment history, you would see a similar phenomenon: I tell lots of anecdotes and they are (at least in my eyes) relevant to the conversation, but for many of those stories, I didn’t have them immediately available. Instead they were summoned by the comment thread.
edit: Maybe this is an ADHD thing. That said, while I’m almost certainly neurodivergent, I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD and don’t believe I have it. However, it’s not impossible and I don’t mean to invalidate your perspective, just provide mine.
I do not remember the name of a song that I listened to in the early 2010s, but I remember vague details. So yes, you can know you lost a memory.
I’m not sure that doesn’t make prospect even more terrifying.
This makes it even more terrifying. If I had uncurable dementia I’d probably just commit suicide. Much better than rotting away forgetting all my loved ones, and eventually forgetting who I am.
Maybe a geriatrician can chime in, but I’m not so sure people with late stage dementia even know they have dementia. Not arguing that it’s scary from the outside though. Even in their 40s, some people start becoming aware they’re forgetting stuff, or at least not having the data available at hand. E.g. takes more time to find words that used to be second nature.
There are people who exist with a syndrome where they have nearly perfect memory recall of their lived life and can remember nearly every moment of their lives very clearly.
Most of the people who live with it do not enjoy the experience.
Surprisingly, forgetting is a necessary and healthy thing, especially when it comes to things like traumatic experiences.
There’s actually been several social scientists who claim that the permanent memory of the internet is extremely damaging to young people because they literally cannot escape every deeply embarrassing mistake they made in their youth. It follows them, haunts them, colors every aspect of their life, especially if the embarrassing moment causes bullying against the young person, leaving them constantly afraid of someone noticing them lest that person bully them for their past embarrassments. They advocate the idea that society and humans need to be able to forget to have healthy lives.
Memories fade.
Take tons of pictures and videos now. Make sure you have storage and backups.
When I was younger I didn’t like taking pictures.
When I got older and had kids I didn’t want to spend all my times taking pictures. We were “building memories” was my excuse.
Now all I have are memories, but those will disappear when I cease to exist. I don’t like that one bit.
I’m 51 and I have an astonishingly complete long term memory, I can remember parts of being 2 years old, and pretty much everything from age 4 onward. I mean not every single day in kindergarten or anything like that, but I have a pretty good grasp on what my daily life was like most of the time. I kept a friends only online blog for years, and when I’ve reread it, there’s only bits and pieces I don’t immediately remember, nothing significant, but when I read it I have good recall of what happened, it’s just not immediately on the surface of my mind.
My short term memory is sometimes iffy, it’s largely due to stress though from my violent ex, but it improves when I am feeling safer.
I think this is because I read so much.
I also think people who read have much better memory. I just dont know if its from reading, or because you have such good memory that it makes you enjoy reading.
For me, my memory is average. So I dont enjoy reading that much, because I will anyway forget most of it. Things like movies stay in my memory better.
Maybe its that simple. We like what we are good at.
You can get genetic testing for Alzheimers done; I lived with the Fear for many years until I got the testing done and found I didn’t have the gene… such a relief. I’m still a forgetful fuck though
Start journaling now.
Yeah… I told myself to start a year ago…
Maybe I’ll start tomorrow…
You pick up the journal you bought last year. It’s been sitting on the shelf since you lost interest 11 months ago. You had hoped it would be a way to reassure yourself in the face of eternity. But, what’s this… The book is almost full, and the last entry is dated yesterday.
This. Reading what you personally write is really good for recalling the related memories. Doing it often will strengthen the connection.
My mom was put out for a big surgery, and she still has memory holes and foggy bits from the anesthetic and the morphine beforehand. If made her previous memories foggy and impairs new memory formation. So she’s a little fuddy, but it’s improving.
Write down your favorite ones, take pictures and get them PRINTED videos future you will thank you
Sounds quite simple - if you are healthy, nothing to do. If you fear losing memories - write them down. Like, a diary or journal, but you now write down what happened in the past, how you saw it, how you experience it. That way you have memories written down. You can also over time re-read them and update and double check do you still remember them the same way you used to, or do your memories get “watered down” over time.
Having this “backstory” (for lack of a better term), is what drives me forward, without those memories, like if I get a concussion and forgot everything, I wouldn’t really be… well… “me” anymore
Emotional memories is how we develop a sense of self. So if you are really attached to who you are then it will be terryfing to loose who you are.
But we can do really wacky stuff with our memories. We can delude ourselfs into makeing new false memories or misremembering them.
Also you constantly get new memories and change who you are, so you aren’t the same person as you were years ago.
I have grown up without that sense of self and I had to sculpt one from the ground up. So I am not really terrified of loosing the sens of self as I can make one once again. It will be different but it will still be ME.
Memories are not permanent, it’s not their nature.
Separating sewage and drinking water wasn’t “natural” either. Its natural to live short miserables lives before modern medicine. “Natural” doesn’t mean I have to just accept it and never figtht back against the cruelty of nature.
Nature is being a bitch for trying to take away what I cherish. Fuck nature.
I take it from your username you are fan of Steins;Gate. I feel somehow the thought of “fear of lose of all the merry times” quite fitting the aesthetics of Stiens;Gate, and some inherent bluesness about these things all around that corner of culture, like literally every other anime featuring highschoolers.
Aesthetically, I classify this as milking, i.e. a concept works very well and is easy to pull, so they pulled it a lot. The had my tears in Gate and Angel Beats and probably that comic with 3 boy highschoolers hanging out, but not really after those because there really isn’t much arguments in that department so you grow used to them.
Personally I don’t really give a f to it, partly because I really just don’t - not something I normally would be contemplating about if not brought up - partly probably I felt like I have already done this before.
So my opinion on this is:
- It is an idea, and some felt it. It proves its ability to cultivate strong emotional feelings, which has been milked over the years in the content industry. There is a certain net of aesthetics and culture, philosophical stuff around it. If you wish to experience that particular blues feeling for aesthtics reasons, you can pull it yourself by thinking these pretty effectively.
- there isn’t really other realistic use thinking it, all it does is making you blues. If you forgets, you would be forgetting, journalling won’t help because you be forgetting; if you don’t, you don’t have an issue then. Journalling is a good habit, this idea is pro that, so that’s good; but there’s not really anything you can do if you can’t “re-live the moments reading the journal”.
I have very similar feelings towards my memories. I’d like to tell you why and offer a solution that’s been very transformative for me – and even for those closest to me.
Writing them down is one of the best things you can do here. Maybe for yourself in general, but that’s a different rabbit hole.
I’m approaching 30 and it’s only for the past couple of years that I’ve been journalling things consistently. I started after stumbling upon a very old notebook that I used for all sorts of stuff: writing short bits of fiction, making small notes, processing my feelings, doodling, etc. Between that moment and the oldest entry passed maybe 5-6 years at the time – and I was shocked to find out how much of that I had forgotten to a point that I felt a jolt reading about them; like a memory injected into my brain, suddenly and all at once.
I can’t say every single one of them was pleasant, but over the years, each and every one of them felt valuable. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be reading about your past self from 10, 20, 30 years ago – that’s gotta be like reading about someone else entirely, but much weirder, because you know you’re the same person.
Write that down. Don’t overthink it – don’t look for systems, don’t optimize, don’t make it pretty. Just write, and in time, you’ll find the way that works for you the most.
And backup. You’re one accident away from losing years or decades worth of your life’s most dearest memories. If you write by hand, either take photos and back them up (multiple times, different mediums), or digitalize them and then do multiple backups as well. I am speaking from experience.
Honestly, going through and getting therapy and doing the work nowadays, I’m more afraid of the ones I’ll find than the ones I’ll eventually lose.
Everytime you access a memory you change it. Create memoirs (journals, pictures, collages) to snapshot them at a point in time.
Not really. Just because you can’t actively remember something doesn’t mean it’s lost. Just the pathways to that memory are not being stimulated at the time. There will be random times you remember something you thought you lost but the brain is resilient.
