Forgetting

One of the hardest things to deal with when you have anxiety problems is the range of different ways in which the mind and body are affected. Combine this with a person who is low in confidence as a result and full of self doubt and easily spooked then it can become a living nightmare. Yesterday's big issue is soon swamped with another and another until finally one of the old ones resurfaces and it seems like there is never a minute in the waking day where something adverse is not happening.

Take waking this morning. It was the pinnacle to a lot of recent worry and scared the life out of me. I woke up and for what seemed like a long alarming period of time but was probably only seconds I could not recall anything. Most of all I could not recall where I was. I obviously didn't have clear vision on waking or the bedroom was not familiar. Scary. And I could hear an adult male voice shouting at a crying child outside. I just could not recall where I was. In that moment I knew who I was but not what stage I was at. I couldn't recall that I was married and had kids. It did all come flooding back but that moment was scary. Then of course I am left wondering if it was anxiety or something else.

There have been a lot of similar episodes over the past 6 months. At one point I could not recall whether my sister had 2 or 3 children. The other week I asked my wife if her brother-in-law's mum was still ill and with a shocked look she told me she had died at the start of the year. Who wouldn't find that scary and worrying?

So then I ask myself if there is there a reason for it. Could it be explained in some other way? Well I suppose so. In these previous instances I have mentioned the fact I am so cut off from the world could explain it. I never see anyone. I am out of the loop so maybe then it is harder to retain facts I have maybe been told. When you are not around these people their lives do not leave the same imprint it does when you are around them. There have been a few instances like this and I guess what I worry about most is that they are all recent. Or are they? I have said many times I have a bad memory.  

Even the episode this morning could be explained. This is the first time this has happened. One thing I have to remember though is that I was probably woken from sleep by a foreign voice. Being woken from a deep sleep would tend to do that to you and if it was an incident on its own then I probably would not worry. That is though a likely explanation. I think also though its the connections. I think back to the episodes of fleeting images from my past and that was followed by horrible moments of deja vu leading to this.

Then again maybe its all just anxiety. I just don't know.

The last thing I want to do is scare anyone reading this who also has anxiety problems. It is one of the many known possible symptoms of anxiety and panic. So I had a look back through notes I keep and at the end of 2012 I wrote about the same fears after forgetting my parents had been to Las Vegas and a few other things. A further search revealed in 2011 I had the same fears again forgetting things that had happened recently to that date. Very strangely both these notes were taken on my last 2 birthdays. Now that says something. As I say I am cut off from the world and then on birthdays people come and I am out of touch so its all a bit unreal and hard to grasp. Its from being cut off and being introspective. And on the subject about forgetting about the death although I have no note on that I seem to recall that I was not told about it at the time and only found out much later so that is maybe why I did not retain it. Anyway I just wanted to end by saying as worrying as it can be it can be attributed to anxiety/panic and even if you are free of those it does still happen when then mind is overactive and/or you are a very introspective person.

The hospital

Lately I've been having this recurring scene in my head which I put down as something else to do with anxiety. Nothing scary but just something that appears to be from childhood. The strange this is that it is new and I cannot for the life of me remember having it before. But because of this I was unsure whether it was a dream I was remembering or an actual childhood memory.

The thing is I was sure it was in Glasgow. That is where I was born and that is where I stayed until I was about 4 years old before we moved away. The recollection is very clear. I am lying in a single bed on a ward which is on the ground floor and I must be 3 or 4 years old- that's how I feel for some reason, maybe younger. The ward had about 10 or 12 beds in an open plan arrangement. Behind me is a wall but ahead of me are windows looking out onto some greenery.

It is unusual that the lighting is dim. It must be late and I think that is how I can see outside so clearly. But it is not darkness outside but more like the onset and everything is that dull grey blue, twilight. At the foot of my bed are my gran and my mum who are waving me goodbye and I feel so sad inside because I don't want to be alone. I've never been left alone before. So I am 3-4 years old. I am sure my brother, who is 5 years younger, is not yet born and I'm old enough to sit up in bed and communicate with them

The most bizarre thing to pop in to my head and its been recurring. Still though I did not give too much thought to it until the weekend when two things happened. The first of these was a little bit of genealogical research. As part of my records I like to collect photographs. This is probably because I don't have many family photographs. I've never seen what my maternal grandfather looked like nor my mum's older sister. Both are dead now but no one has any photographs and there are some family I have met but do not have photographs of. So what I tend to do is collect photographs of places. At the weekend I was on a site which is great for old photographs in Glasgow and I was searching for Poorhouse photographs as I have a few ancestors who died in Poorhouses. To my surprise among the search results was a name I knew- Stobhill Hospital. The reason being because I was born there and my grandparents worked there. Its not a Poorhouse but once was Barnhill Poorhouse. So I clicked on the photograph and I could not believe that I recognised it. It was the place from my recent recollection. I can see roughly where I would have been.

I knew one thing. It could not have been from my birth as there is no way I would remember that and it didn't feel like I was a baby. But as far as I was aware I had never been in hospital for anything so it was a little bit of a mystery and one I would follow up when I next talked to my mum- we haven't talked in a few weeks.

On Sunday my mum phoned to see how we all are and you would think after this little episode I would be chomping at the bit to ask about this but in truth I had forgotten and my mind was elsewhere. It was only when we were talking about the kids and how they were doing that the memory returned to me. I have a niece who is very ill and her brother was also ill as a baby too. My wife is convinced that it was because her sister never breast fed and my mum said that it wasn't true because she never breast fed and we were never ill. And that was it. That was the moment I remembered and asked about my recurring memory.

She paused for a bit and then it seemed like the penny dropped. Yes I was in hospital ans I was about 4 at the time. She had only just gotten out of hospital with an appendix problem and my gran was looking after me. My gran had then phoned her to say I was very ill and had to be taken to hospital so the two of them got the bus there and I was kept in overnight. When I described the scene she said that was about right and how she remembered it. It was on the ground  floor in an open ward and it was after visiting time because I had just been submitted so that's why the lights were dim.

I then asked what was wrong with me and she said she can't really remember. It was something to do with an ear infection that then led to problems with my stomach. Why she has never told me this I don't know. About 6 years ago I had to go to hospital with an ear problem and now my hearing is not good in my right ear due to a perforation in the ear drum. Why didn't she tell me about this before? I am sure there is some link and maybe a bit of warning would have got me there sooner as I put up with it for months before my wife forced me to go. She also forced me to register at the doctors as I had never done it before.

Anyway that was my little bit of strangeness and I just wonder if I am going to get any more memories coming back now. I hope so as I have learnt something new that I never knew about before. And that is the problem with my parents. Unless you know what to ask then you don't get offered any information and even when you do it is usually some ambiguous answer.