Woods Reblog - Tumblr Posts

probably a lil deep to get into so if anyones gonna get like. triggered by topics like this i highly suggest scrolling onward <3

but yeah ive always been so scared of memory loss in any format. the thought that i could just lose treasured pieces of my past in moments was terrifying to me. the idea of having the people i love and all the times theyve loved me just be Gone still keeps me up at night (and frankly i dont even know if thats a realistic fear or not! it could be entirely improbable and irrational but most fears are!)

now imagine my surprise when i found out i have a dissociative disorder as well as a plethora of other disorders where memory loss is a Very Common Symptom (ptsd, for one!)

and dont get me wrong that stuff is still scary as hell to me. but also knowing ive had these issues forever and also knowing that i am who i am now with all of that in mind has made the idea a lot less scary to me, and im only barely turning 18 soon

all this to add to the point above, to repeat what's been said; memory loss is not the ending of a life. there's so much more living to be done even if some bits and pieces of the journey don't stick as well as others.

just because your wagon got some stuff knocked out of it in that bump on the road doesn't mean you dont have a journey to go on, and at least one destination along the way. <3

seeing people my age talk about how scared they are of memory loss, which they only associate with old age, is so surreal to see as a 24 year old who has actively experienced memory loss for a long time now

there are causes for memory loss besides dementia and alzheimer’s, i hope y’all know that. dissociative disorders, trauma, brain injuries, thyroid problems, even just stress and lack of sleep can fuck up your ability to store, process, and access memory. and that’s just a few of the many causes i can think of off the top of my head right now.

please stop treating disabled people like some scary “other” that you might become only in the distant, decades-away future. we are your age, too. you may become one of us sooner than you know. stop acting like memory loss marks the end of a life, when so many of us have so much living left to do!