Memory

Dear Lakshmi,

I just shudder to think about memory loss as I have dementia patients in our extended family. They are unable to recognize even their near and dear ones. They are unable even to attend to their daily personal care on their own.
The most sad thing is that their close relatives can't bear to see their condition.

PS

 

Lakshmi,

You are right about negative memories but I am learning that by reminding ourselves of positive memories we can teach ourselves to be happy, just like the picture memory you have shared. I have been staring at this picture for the last three days trying to digest it well... Simply love it!



As for media, well the less said the better - never know what can become news, I have an inherent need to hide.

 

Dear Smt. Lakshmi:

Thank you for this wonderful thread about memory. The concept of time exists only because of the memory. It is our memory that arranges our experiences in a linear sequence. Even future events are remembered only because of our memory.

If we can let go unpleasant memories and etch good memories in our mind, the quality of life will be a lot better. The concept of everything is happening for a reason is a good thought. Good and bad are qualitative measurements limited by our mental capacity. Sometimes, what we believe as bad may turn out to be good in the long run for us. The mind is something that measures everything based on past experiences. If our past emotions are bad, it declares a comparable experience as bad as well.

Viswa

 

Dear Lakshmi,
Memory of media has a very short span.. if something else comes up this fades away and catch hold of the new incident until something else comes up.
Our memories.....do we have a choice what to remember and what not to remember! Everything crops up without our knowledge....postive, negative, sad and happy moments, scary etc etc. Theoritically it may be right that we should not remember sad events and move on. We do move on but memories never fade. Because of this God has an agreement with Kalachakram that human beings tend to forget some things.
Dementia or Alziemer's is a very sad disease. My friend's mother is suffering from Alziemer's. She cannot even recognize her own daughter with whom she is staying. Sad.
Syamala

 

We will be able to understand the value of memory better when we move with people who lost memory.In 1988 when my husband had cerebral haemorrage after an accident, he forgot everything without a trace of memory.Those days were horrible and I don't want to bring it back in my memory.Yet I can write pages and pages how he suffered and how with the relentless cooperation of my dear MIL we were able to bring back all his memories with rigorous training of the mind with charts, maps, books from LKG to higher classes, numbers, numerical tables, alphabets of English, tamil and Devanagari,slowly building up diary of important events that happened for the 49 years inclusing procedural banking-- a marathon job indeed!We felt encouraged and discouraged on certain days, since he was not able to relate anything, could not identify any one in the family,and could not even tell his name, wife' s name and children.But by God's grace he recovered fully and joined duty after nine months.
sometimes while buying the ticket he would ask for a ticket to a place where he gets into the bus instead of asking for a ticket for destination and became a stock of ridicule,because he used to get confused between the two.

My mother lost her memory when my father died and she could not understand anything that happened.For nearly 6 months she was under the impression that father was alive.One sudden morning she realised and started abusing everyone for having concealed such an important fact.
with all this, forgetting certain things is a bliss.Our mind is gifted with a software for continuously sieving unnecessary things.Otherwise we would be brooding over deaths that happened long back.This sieving process is called'forgetting;in common man's language.
One of our relatives , who is just 65 suffers from dementia and he does not know anything.It is very difficult to keep him secured.Once he goes out to an unknown area ,we may not be able to trace him since he does not even know his own name.Keeping a badge with self identity does not work since he removes and throws it away.
Jayasala 42

 

Dear Lakshmi,
that was a good one on 'Memory'. I personally have gone through the tough times of seeing my elder sister who lost her memory after a bout of enchephalitis when she was around 20 years of age. The struggle of more than 6 to 7 years before she regained her memory to some extent is still always in my mind. It brought the realisation of how fortunate we are to have all our faculties intact. For that itself we should be thankful to God.
However much we strive to remember the postives, there is no doubt that bad memories also refuse to go away. I suppose those who are able to meditate and control the mind, will be able to do so, where i have not succeeded.
It is therefore very sad to see patients of dementia and their care takers also suffering in the bargain.