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This is a followup to my last blog about getting hit by a car a bit over 2 weeks ago.
My recovery overall has been quite good. On Wednesday I had surgery to reconnect my cheekbone and upper jaw. Now I can set off metal detectors with my face. Things went smoothly and I will be getting my stitches out this week.
The thing that is problematic is that the blow to my memory was greater than I thought it was. Of course you can't tell what you don't know so I'm not sure why I thought I had a good feel for how much I'd forgotten. The doctors told me lots of stuff will come skittering back over time, but it's really strange. I just rediscovered bwchart and remembered that I went to a TL meetup early this year. I found a nintendo 64 emulator on my PC and a handful of random albums and songs that are again new to me.
Now that I'm back in my apartment there are loads of short term memory related stimuli and it has me feeling like the guy from Memento. I think things will get better as my sleep schedule gets back to normal and my daily activities are put into order again.
The overarching effect is that I am unsure about so much. My life feels like it's in total disarray just weeks after it was finally ordered. I'm probably stressing too much about something that isn't really as scary as it feels.
I just wanted to vent my feelings a little. Feel free to share anecdotes about memory loss in general. If you have suggestions or encouragement for me I'd appreciate it.
 
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that's ridiculous man hope you get it all back!
It might be kinda cool to rediscover music though at least you have that!
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Encouragement: you remembered TL, and not only that, your login and password too!
Suggestion: do whatever the fuck you feel like, and if the consequences look bad, claim you don't remember.
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the most important thing is that you remember us! <3
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Yeah, remember Starcraft.
Also, does rediscovering new things feel cool or annyoing?
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Yeah, out of all things, I'm surprised you remembered your username and password....and TL in general. Luckily for me, TL and my username is all saved on my computer so I'd probably get one of those "Memento" flashbacks if I just sat on my computer and opened a tab.
Sucks though.  Hope you get it back ASAP!
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I've sometimes thought that it wouldn't be so bad to lose select parts of your memory (when it comes to books, music, TV shows, movies, and other media). That way, if you're bored with your supply of entertainment, you can choose to erase your memory of a specific item and then experience it again as if for the first time. Watched Zoolander six times? Now you can watch it anew. Maybe you want to read The Stand again without knowing what happens. At least then you can experience the suspense you got the first time you read it.
But enough about my digression. Obviously, losing your memory indiscriminately isn't good, so I'm sorry to hear about your ordeal, Thopol. Hopefully, everything works out for you in the end!
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On September 27 2010 02:43 neobowman wrote:
Also, does rediscovering new things feel cool or annyoing?
I'd like to know this as well. It would be interesting for you to describe your feelings after you remember something.
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On September 27 2010 02:43 neobowman wrote:
Yeah, remember Starcraft.
Also, does rediscovering new things feel cool or annyoing?
It's just disconcerting at the moment. I am going to enjoy watching some movies, listening to music, and reading some books but I think it will take some time. It feels like I need to accept what state I'm in and it's really difficult to do. I'm just starting to get a new idea of the scope of my losses and it's a little frustrating. I have gotten a lot of support from lots of angles to help me through this personal crisis but this is more of a personal problem. It's something of an existential hurdle.
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I missed your last blog, good luck on your recovery! Remember meeting me? I'm Jonathan.
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On September 27 2010 02:41 BottleAbuser wrote:
Encouragement: you remembered TL, and not only that, your login and password too!
Theres an interesting psychological thing I read about once regarding logins/passwords/signatures. The story was that a guy experienced complete [temporary] memory loss, was found without an ID and no easy ways to identify him. What they did was asked him to sign his signature and, thankfully, it was decipherable.
The idea being that muscle memory is much different than your average memory. Typing in things like passwords, if you've done it 50000 times, becomes a second nature and you type it by instinct. This is probably more true if you have a sensible password, as opposed to a random series of numbers and letters for maximum security.
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On September 27 2010 03:13 Jonoman92 wrote:
I missed your last blog, good luck on your recovery! Remember meeting me? I'm Jonathan.
Yeah, I totally remember you and Ben and a couple other dudes.
It's not like the memories are gone entirely, at least not most of my affected ones. Instead there's just a lot of stuff from the past year or so that I have to work hard to get revealed. There are certainly those things that I remember from ideas that surround them, but can't remember the specific thing itself no matter what angle I take. I knew what bwchart did, for example, but I didn't remember what it looked like even though I used it all the time. Then I saw some games vs some high apm dudes and remembered the LAN. Actually, the more I think about it the less consistent the whole phenomenon seems.
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Great to hear you've recovered well, must be strange to lose random parts of your memory.
On that note, you probably forgot, but you owe me $1,000,000.
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A story like yours is truly inspiring. If I were you I'd be pretty damn bitter and pissed. I hope whoever hit you is in jail for a loonnnggg time. I don't know... I'm just amazed how well you're taking this. Anyways, rediscovering all these little things sounds like it'd be really interesting. The mind is really something that is just fascinating. Although I can't tell you for sure that things will get better, it sounds like you're making great progress on your recovery so don't stress it too much! Good luck on your recovery  !
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It sounds like you have to use new strategies and ways of thinking to remember each "new" thing. Is that the case or does it feel like you have been able to remember some things by thinking in a similar way that you did when you remembered something else?
If you have to think in new ways all the time, it could just be like "re-learning the language of memory." Your brain is probably going back through the Memory 101, 102, 103, 104... processes and helping you remember things at the same time. You're rediscovering memory!
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That sucks, I hope you get better and recover your memory
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I'm really glad stuff is starting to come back. Also glad you made it okay, I mean some people have had entirely changed personalities after accidents like that. That's one of the scariest things I can imagine, being fundamentally changed so that me or my family wouldn't be able to recognize my personality.
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On September 27 2010 04:26 hp.Shell wrote:
It sounds like you have to use new strategies and ways of thinking to remember each "new" thing. Is that the case or does it feel like you have been able to remember some things by thinking in a similar way that you did when you remembered something else?
I'm finding it to be a combination. There are techniques, like listening to a long playlist of songs, that will help me with lots of music and even some things that I associated with certain songs or albums. Last night I kinda freaked out and looked at all of the clothes in my wardrobe, and that actually did some stuff. I'm not sure that doing that type of thing is a good idea though. Today and tomorrow I'm going to just get stuff in order. Clean my apartment, buy food, and try to sleep and eat as much as I can.
Thanks for all of the very positive replies. It is stressful recovering from something like this while in a foreign country, so your comments have really been helpful.
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jumped here from your other blog
this isn't necessarily bad. You know how awesome of a feeling it is when you find some money in your pocket?? You get to have that exact same feeling with pretty much everything over the next few weeks!
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EPT
