Sometimes it feels like I lose track of everything.

Names, places, conversations, memories, clothes.

I forget things mid thought, mid sentence even and can’t get it back.

I can’t place names to people for the life of me, let alone keep track of people or characters names in books, movies, and television.

I have no idea who’s named what in the bands I listen to, because I will lose track of it and forget it, regardless how much I love their music.

I try to memorize things, people, places, and I quite literally can’t retain it.

Well, I’m alright with geography…but I feel like that’s different, that deals more with pictures really.

But names escape me all the time.

I’ve gone a solid year interacting with someone on a regular basis and I had no idea what they told me their name was and played it off.

And it’s embarrassing, really.

I feel like a child when I can’t remember folks’ names, like my brain hasn’t connected that part yet or something.

Faces are hard for me too – always have been.

Celebrities? fuckin forget it – I don’t know many names at all.

Even with people I really like, I forget their names all the time.

Last names are even worse.

There’s no way I can focus on the last name when I can’t even retain their first.

And when books bring in all theses characters with full names and nicknames or whatever, I’m done.

Put a fork in me, seriously.

It’s like that part of my brain doesn’t work properly, or work well or something.

I have no proof other than migraines, but I know my self harm behaviors over the years have given me countless concussions and maybe that’s a part of it too.

At least, maybe that has more to do with my current memory issues.

And maybe I’m just getting older too, but I’ve always been like this, it’s always been a struggle.

Even when I was young I couldn’t keep shit straight with people’s names.

I hate it when I run into someone that knows my name and I have no clue what theirs is.

I’m so not trying to be rude.

It’s like I don’t have the capacity to remember it or something.

I remember being in college and having to memorize things for classes and they left my memory the second I was done with the test.

I’d have to make word analogies to remember things.

Like the type of plankton that creates red tides is called dinoflagellate.

The only reason I remember that is because of the prefix “Dino” and that means dinosaurs, and dinosaurs are fun.

And I had to have google fill in the rest of the word when I looked it up just now.

And that’s one of the only things I remember from my biology class at Michigan State University.

I feel like my diploma is a lie.

But I did do the work, otherwise I wouldn’t have it.

I was fucked up on morphine and vicodin when I was going to school.

That and mental illness mixed together, I’m floored I graduated at all.

I never thought I’d live this long, either.

I figured I’d OD by 35, so I’m needing to switch gears now into me living as an actual adult.

One who is in semi control of my life – as much as I can be.

And maybe the antipsychotics will help me retain names better, but so far, it hasn’t helped in that area.

When I was working I mainly did retail or receptionist jobs, where there are regulars who come in all the time.

I can tell you the name of two, nope three people who were regulars at my last job.

Further back then that, nothing.

And I worked at a beer store for like five years and I don’t remember anyone who came in besides one person.

I don’t think I’m wired to absorb that type of information for some reason.

I always joke about how my left side is messed up, I’m blind in my left eye, my left shoulder gets chronic bursitis, my left knee is worse than my right and my left ankle and big toe have had to have surgery on them the other year for an arthritis clean up.

So, I think there’s something to it.

And thinking on that, if the left side of my brain isn’t as developed, or has some sort of birth defect or something, that would make a ton of sense to me.

I have no proof for that, just sayin’, it’s curious because the left side of the brain interprets names and holds the memories of the meaning of words.

Which is what I feel like I’ve been trying to explain all this time and haven’t been able to till just now, with this.

I don’t understand words.

I know how to use them, and I even know conversational level French, but I don’t understand the individual words.

I know what they represent, but not what they mean, if that makes sense?

This is exactly what I’ve been struggling with explaining since gaining some clarity with antipsychotics.

It’s like things have a physical meaning and the dictionary meaning.

I struggle with the dictionary part, especially with spelling too.

It’s all rather curious to me.

– Keren