I got a bill from a dermatologist a few years ago for a mole removed on my hip. I contested the bill vehemently, as I had no memory of having this done. They looked in the record and said that they may have gotten my records mixed with #1 son’s. I don’t recall his getting a mole removed, either, but it rang a more familiar bell than my supposed mole. I paid the bill (#1 son didn’t recall getting a mole removed, but he has a terrible memory. You’d think we’d both remember something like this, no?)
Fast forward to last fall and I’m trying on new jeans in the store. I look down and see a small scar and think to myself, oh, that’s where I got that mole removed.
:eek: It all came back to me then. But we still are not sure if #1 son has had a mole removed…
I know I’ll be in the “special neighborhood” for senile pts.
I taught my older brother to swim when he was an adult and I was a teenager also when I was heavily into karate I passed on a feet hardening technique that I’d invented myself to a mate who raved about its efficacy.
I only know about these things because they told me.
Oh, I know. It’s amazing, no? I can’t believe it myself. But then again, it’s a MOLE, not a major organ that requires an overnight stay etc…
And most of the time I don’t even roll my eyes in the hallway. It takes true inspired craziness for me to do so now. Like the woman today on the phone (my coworker made the calls for tomorrow’s surgeries).
Coworker: “Hello? Is this Ms SoandSo?”
Woman: “Who wants to know?”
C: “This is X hospital, calling for Ms SoandSo. Am I speaking to her?”
W: “This is NOT her.”
C:“Oh, well, is she there?”
W:“You can’t just up and ask people stuff like that! You came on too quick with your questions!” <click!>
Chase Ransom I don’t think you are weird at all, I’m the same way. My parents divorced when I was 6, and I don’t have much recollection about the next three years, spare for little details here and there. I went to 13 different schools growing up, always the new kid. Apparently I went to a counselor and was really distraught during that time, but all I can remember is watching Quantum Leap, reading tons of books about the paranormal, and making up choreographed dance sequences in front of this huge mirror I had at one townhouse.
I can remember tons of details about high school, but then the end of my junior year in college and for a year and a half after is a blur. Before each of these instances, I had concussions, so I just blame it on that and don’t dwell on it. It’s pretty creepy hearing things you have done, even having photographic evidence, and not remembering a damn thing. Oh well.
I will say that I am very social, and have a terrible time of remembering names, but I know the clothes that anyone wore anytime I saw them. In college, I drew this little character that was me with whatever I was wearing that day in my notes. Later when I studied, I would remember the stuff because that was the day I was wearing the cardigan with pleated skirt and ankle boots, etc. Who knows what that means! I think I like clothes way too much.
ETA: I was born in 1979. I remember lots about Kindergarten, my teacher was Mrs. Tolles, I would get chocolate milk at this corner store everyday walking home from school. I blame some college missing areas on drinking, but there are tons of sober moments I can’t remember no matter how hard I try!
I have a different issue. While I remember most of my life and pretty much all the major events, I also remember things that didn’t happen. Some of my dreams work like a television series. Same locale, different storyline. I don’t remember much of the dreams normally, but sometimes one comes up to bite me in the ass and I wonder, “Did that really happen?”. Many times after thinking about it, I realize that they didn’t.
I do that too, so apparently I am completely fucked unto the lord…
I don’t know which is more disturbing: waking up mad at someone you know in RL because something happened in a dream that angered you about that person or completely forgetting major arguments with the same person in RL. Toss up…
In my thirties, I learned that on the day I was brought home after being born, my two year old sister tried to pick me up and dropped me on my head. My mom couldn’t believe I hadn’t known about it until then.
My brother and I are pretty good at remembering pointless details from years gone by, so we like to screw with other family members to see how much made up bullshit we can convince them really happened.
I recently learned (at age 45) that my folks named me after a close friend of theirs, the first wife of JFK’s special counsel and speechwriter Ted Sorensen. College pals, apparently.
Of course I was all “DuuuWHAAA? You KNOW that guy???” Jeeze, parents, what other amazing brushes with fame are you withholding?
More memory-loss than recently-discovered, but here’s mine:
I had pneumonia in high school (junior year, maybe?) and there’s a pretty significant chunk of time that’s very, VERY fuzzy. I don’t even know how long I had it - mostly, I remember soaking my feet in hot water (which may or may not have been related) and the terrible sickly sweet smell while I did it. Not foot-smell, I always just think of it as warm-and-sick. Also, my feet were swollen, but I don’t remember why. I don’t even know how long I had pneumonia - at least a week, I think, and I remember going into school at one point to… get an assignment, maybe? I don’t even know if I was conscious enough to do homework then…
My other big one was when I had my wisdom teeth removed - all I recall is going under in the chair (right after saying something stupid that I predictably don’t recall) and waking up on our couch. Apparently I walked to the car and responded to questions, but I don’t remember it at all.
My mother reminded me that when I was about nine I ‘sensed’ a ghost in a place where someone else had ‘seen’ her, and she and the owner of the place and I all performed a little ceremony to send her on to the other side.
Louis B, a memory loss like that can scare the hell out of anybody. No one knows what it feels like unless it happens to them. Don’t let it get to you. I’m grateful that you posted.
When I was in college I had many rounds of electro-shock therapy. That wiped out a lot of my memory from the early 1960s. I remember some things and the rest is a mystery. I had lost touch with the people that I was friends with for over forty years until a chance encounter a couple of years ago. Then my old friends just seemed to come from everywhere! They shared memories and yearbooks. My old roommate and I have spent quite a bit of beach time together.
The most amazing thing is that I was selected for two different choral groups (other than the choir) in college – a sextet and a quartet. Our pictures were in the yearbooks as performing groups. I remember the choir, but not the other groups. There are also photographs in clubs that I don’t remember – and on the editorial staff of the newspaper. None of this is familiar to me.
But it’s much worse when the event is recent and you can’t remember. That has happened to me too and I just don’t want to talk about that one. It’s not your fault that what happened happened and you can’t remember. Then someone else trivializes it because they are ignorant.
Don’t feel embarrassed about that post. I doubt that anyone thinks differently of you. Those events could have happened to anyone who had suffered a head injury like that.
I’ll do you one better. I didn’t realize that I had been circumcised until my father mentioned it, not because I didn’t know what a circumcision was but because I seem to have grown it back.
I kid you not.
Ok, grown back may not be quite correct. All the same, it is there. I can only guess that I must have played with it a lot and somehow stretch the skin out to make a new one.
