Etch-A-Sketch Brain … It’s A Technical Term

Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you went in there??  Have you ever opened the refrigerator, reached in, only to forget what you wanted??  RSDers and non-RSDers alike have experienced this phenomenon, but this annoying malady is intensified in RSDers.  Proven fact, dude … Proven.  Fact.

So this is me … explaining it to you … in my own terms …

I named it “etch-a-sketch brain”.  There is a perfect picture in my mind and in less than a second <tch tch>  it’s gone.  Completely!!  No matter how hard I try to recreate it, it’s never the exact same picture … until something comes along to jog my memory or until I extinguish my pride and ask somebody if they know what I was doing or talking about (in the hopes of jogging my memory.  Never thought thinking could be cardio workout, huh??)  My short-term memory has become a whole series of “now you see it, now you don’t’s”.  But once I can get a thought transferred into my long-term memory vault, I’m golden!!

Etch-a-sketch brain happens most frequently while having conversations.  I know exactly what I’m talking about but there are times when I cannot remember a certain, simple, and important word … or I lose my train of thought all together … mid-sentence.  This is a tough pill to swallow for a semantics queen like myself.  The feelings of inadequacy and of being an uneducated moron creep into my soul every time.  And there is absolutely no way to stop it.  So … I have to accept it, but I don’t have to like it!!  I battle it with all of the humor I can muster.  If not just to put myself at ease, then to put my fellow conversers at ease.  They tend to think that my senility is at stake.  (no, I didn’t confuse that sentence!! haha)  But it’s the look of pity that is the most disconcerting for me … so if I make a joke of it, make everyone laugh, then the looks disappear just as quickly as they apparate.  (notice the HP reference??  Yep, just watched the last movie … again.  47 more times and I’ll have it memorized … just like the last 7!!)

Now, what was I saying??  <tch tch> ... OH YEAH …

Here’s what happens in the brains of RSDers … Our neurotransmitters are already working overtime and blowing everything out of proportion.  Our opiate pain killers block our receptors … and we grow more to replace the blocked ones … which allow for more openings for the next batch of opiates to sink into … which creates the need for more receptors.  (blech!! another vicious circle)  So now we have all of these crazy, misfiring, misinterpreting receptors in our skulls and we have the unmitigated gall to expect them to communicate our thoughts properly.  WTH are we thinking??  (there’s a joke in there somewhere)

Lemme sum up … PICK YOUR BATTLES, PEOPLE!!  We can’t prevent etch-a-sketch brain from happening so we need to make the best of a bad situation.  Don’t beat yourself up for something that is beyond your control.  Wallpaper in sticky-notes, carry a small notebook for things you absolutely don’t want to forget, carry a voice recorder, ask a reliable friend (or 4 … just in case) to help you remember something specific, get a tattoo (on an unaffected body part, of course), make up a song … do something!!  We don’t have to like it, but we do have to accept it!!  Why not have fun with it too??