Is anyone just like... very terrified of losing your memories?

Mate, I look at it this way: if you've forgotten your memory, how would you know that you've lost it? You'ld just carry on.

There are people who exist with a syndrome where they have nearly perfect memory recall of their lived life and can remember nearly every moment of their lives very clearly.

Most of the people who live with it do not enjoy the experience.

Surprisingly, forgetting is a necessary and healthy thing, especially when it comes to things like traumatic experiences.

There's actually been several social scientists who claim that the permanent memory of the internet is extremely damaging to young people because they literally cannot escape every deeply embarrassing mistake they made in their youth. It follows them, haunts them, colors every aspect of their life, especially if the embarrassing moment causes bullying against the young person, leaving them constantly afraid of someone noticing them lest that person bully them for their past embarrassments. They advocate the idea that society and humans need to be able to forget to have healthy lives.

Not really. Just because you can't actively remember something doesn't mean it's lost. Just the pathways to that memory are not being stimulated at the time. There will be random times you remember something you thought you lost but the brain is resilient.

Start journaling now.

alzheimer's on both sides of family so its real possibility for me. that's a better fate than being sane and stuck to a chair with nothing to do like my great grandpa. There are worst fates. Control what you can like treating your body right. Its all you can do.

Having medical first hand experience with this: your long term memory is safe. Don't be scared.

Yeah, I remember vividly waking up one day at the end of my teenage years and realizing that I almost completely forgot my childhood, now I just see flashes when I try to remember it.

It's why I don't believe in biographies, no way you remember your entire childhood.

As someone with shitty memory: I forget a lot. Whole holidays, people, what I ate yesterday... I have always been that way, and so far I've been doing quite ok in life.

But while I forgot how it felt in a past, shitty job, I don't forget how I promised myself to never work for such a boss again. Or how 16-year old me decided to stay in school aftet trying out metalworking over a summer. I may forget how it was, but I rarely forget what conclusion I drew from it. And that is what defines me as a person, not that I remember the face of my condescending, stupid boss.

Also, while it sucks, my life is my present. My past might be entirely hallucinated, and I might be hit by a bus tomorrow. But now, here, I am alive.

Was in an abusive long term relationship. I remember as I was breaking out of it suddenly remembering things I was legitimately repressing. I hated that.

I will say though on the idea of the death of the current self, that is sort of inevitable and absolutely neccery for the future you to exist. Kind of like how us now are different people then when we are 5 years old, and that's a good thing, even if our existence at 5 was also a good thing.

If you are referring to Alzheimer's then yes. Few things I find more terrifying than forgetting who I am. You gotta keep your brain in shape. Reading books, doing puzzles, and learning languages help with that.

Well if you forget them, you wouldn't remember them to forget them.

Though seriously, I find interviews, photos, videos even of people telling stories helps. It's the same idea that documentaries use to tell stories.

The self is an illusion. If you want to be happy, forget.

I've found that you retain the important stuff, and unfortunately the embarrassing stuff.

Memory aids are a thing. So if a picture, song, smell, or object helps trigger a fond memory, then keep that thing around. Failing that, writing things down can help unlock the rest of a memory.

Music, and scent are the two main memory triggers though. If you can link a memory to one of those things then you're golden.

I'm not terrified, but I am a bit of a data hoarder and that includes my memories. So what I did was buy one of these things and now whenever I take my dog for a walk I record an audio log. I've got over ten years of them at this point. For most of that time it was just sitting stored in a folder as a bunch of audio files in subfolders by date, but in the past year or two thanks to the sudden advances in AI I've written up a Python script that transcribed them all and lets me search the transcripts. I'm expecting in another year or two I'll be able to feed all this into a local AI and be able to talk to it about this stuff.

So maybe start making logs like this, knowing that someday you'll be able to do some neat stuff with them.

Memories fade.

Take tons of pictures and videos now. Make sure you have storage and backups.

When I was younger I didn't like taking pictures.

When I got older and had kids I didn't want to spend all my times taking pictures. We were "building memories" was my excuse.

Now all I have are memories, but those will disappear when I cease to exist. I don't like that one bit.

I'm 51 and I have an astonishingly complete long term memory, I can remember parts of being 2 years old, and pretty much everything from age 4 onward. I mean not every single day in kindergarten or anything like that, but I have a pretty good grasp on what my daily life was like most of the time. I kept a friends only online blog for years, and when I've reread it, there's only bits and pieces I don't immediately remember, nothing significant, but when I read it I have good recall of what happened, it's just not immediately on the surface of my mind.

My short term memory is sometimes iffy, it's largely due to stress though from my violent ex, but it improves when I am feeling safer.

I think this is because I read so much.

You can get genetic testing for Alzheimers done; I lived with the Fear for many years until I got the testing done and found I didn't have the gene... such a relief. I'm still a forgetful fuck though

Meh, you won't know what you forgot. And when you die you won't know how it's all gone. Best bet is to have kids - tell them your stories when they're young (and can't runaway). They'll remember for a bit and tell their kids. In a way your memories will last forever.

No, but I had a coworker once who very much was. She coped by taking lots of pictures/videos and making sure they were stored in a well-organized fashion. Maybe consider doing something similar? If you want to hang onto internal mindstates, write a journal/diary.

The amount of stuff I have forgotten over the years is huge. The only way to I've found to remember stuff for events is to have a few photos that you look back on. Like the 3/5/whatever years ago that you get on photo apps.

I read an article about how we don't remember events correctly and that's why I started writing a dairy. I've been writing almost every day now since 2016, sometimes just half a page, sometimes more.

Write down your favorite ones, take pictures and get them PRINTED videos future you will thank you

Having this “backstory” (for lack of a better term), is what drives me forward, without those memories, like if I get a concussion and forgot everything, I wouldn’t really be… well… “me” anymore

Emotional memories is how we develop a sense of self. So if you are really attached to who you are then it will be terryfing to loose who you are.

But we can do really wacky stuff with our memories. We can delude ourselfs into makeing new false memories or misremembering them.

Also you constantly get new memories and change who you are, so you aren't the same person as you were years ago.

I have grown up without that sense of self and I had to sculpt one from the ground up. So I am not really terrified of loosing the sens of self as I can make one once again. It will be different but it will still be ME.

I used to be worried about this.

Once when I was very young, I wondered if I could fix a moment in my memory and keep it for life - so I tried it.

Stupid result: I still remember that moment quite well, many decades later. It was a dumb boring moment. I'm sure I would have long forgotten, if I hadn't tried to keep it.

Now it is a precious memory of how I have always bent toward scientific method.

All that to say: memory works better and longer than I expected.

Sounds quite simple - if you are healthy, nothing to do. If you fear losing memories - write them down. Like, a diary or journal, but you now write down what happened in the past, how you saw it, how you experience it. That way you have memories written down. You can also over time re-read them and update and double check do you still remember them the same way you used to, or do your memories get "watered down" over time.

You, me, and everyone else are the amalgamations and culminations of our individual life experiences. You don’t have to remember the details for those details to have happened and influenced you at the time.

I understand your concerns after having my first concussion almost two years ago now and unvaccinated covid three years before that. Both affected my cognitive state and speed of thinking/remembering, and I’ve wondered/worried how much weaker my mind may be than it could have been. But ultimately what I tell myself is that I can’t change those things, they’re just another thing that led me to now. All I can do is the best with what I have and trust that it will be enough.

But that’s just living with the doom and gloom. I think you may be surprised at what you do remember but can’t recall unprompted. One time I lost the game (I lost the game, sorry) around a friend of a friend who paused for a moment then exclaimed that it had been 15 or 20 years since he last thought about the game. So for all that time one could think he had forgotten, but as soon as something triggered his memory, it was there. Based on that, I advise that you trust that if you have a relevant memory, it will surface at the time it is relevant. Some level of self-reflection is good, but don’t let the reinforcement of old brain connections in memory stand in the way of forming new ones.

I have very similar feelings towards my memories. I'd like to tell you why and offer a solution that's been very transformative for me -- and even for those closest to me.

Writing them down is one of the best things you can do here. Maybe for yourself in general, but that's a different rabbit hole.

I'm approaching 30 and it's only for the past couple of years that I've been journalling things consistently. I started after stumbling upon a very old notebook that I used for all sorts of stuff: writing short bits of fiction, making small notes, processing my feelings, doodling, etc. Between that moment and the oldest entry passed maybe 5-6 years at the time -- and I was shocked to find out how much of that I had forgotten to a point that I felt a jolt reading about them; like a memory injected into my brain, suddenly and all at once.

I can't say every single one of them was pleasant, but over the years, each and every one of them felt valuable. I can't imagine what it would feel like to be reading about your past self from 10, 20, 30 years ago -- that's gotta be like reading about someone else entirely, but much weirder, because you know you're the same person.

Write that down. Don't overthink it -- don't look for systems, don't optimize, don't make it pretty. Just write, and in time, you'll find the way that works for you the most.

And backup. You're one accident away from losing years or decades worth of your life's most dearest memories. If you write by hand, either take photos and back them up (multiple times, different mediums), or digitalize them and then do multiple backups as well. I am speaking from experience.

Not really. Every day I refill on new stuff I can remember.

Oh, that fear gets much worse when dealing with people with various forms of dementia.

I honestly hope that I die before I get really bad dementia.

You got it right; losing your memories is essentially death. However, all humans die, so it's an all roads lead to Rome kind of thing. You could get a concussion and forget everything, or you could get run over by a car and die. There's no reason to give memory loss special treatment over other terrible things that could also happen to you.

I take it from your username you are fan of Steins;Gate. I feel somehow the thought of "fear of lose of all the merry times" quite fitting the aesthetics of Stiens;Gate, and some inherent bluesness about these things all around that corner of culture, like literally every other anime featuring highschoolers.

Aesthetically, I classify this as milking, i.e. a concept works very well and is easy to pull, so they pulled it a lot. The had my tears in Gate and Angel Beats and probably that comic with 3 boy highschoolers hanging out, but not really after those because there really isn't much arguments in that department so you grow used to them.

Personally I don't really give a f to it, partly because I really just don't - not something I normally would be contemplating about if not brought up - partly probably I felt like I have already done this before.

So my opinion on this is:

• It is an idea, and some felt it. It proves its ability to cultivate strong emotional feelings, which has been milked over the years in the content industry. There is a certain net of aesthetics and culture, philosophical stuff around it. If you wish to experience that particular blues feeling for aesthtics reasons, you can pull it yourself by thinking these pretty effectively.
• there isn't really other realistic use thinking it, all it does is making you blues. If you forgets, you would be forgetting, journalling won't help because you be forgetting; if you don't, you don't have an issue then. Journalling is a good habit, this idea is pro that, so that's good; but there's not really anything you can do if you can't "re-live the moments reading the journal".

Memories are not permanent, it's not their nature.

Amnesia is my #1 fear

No, but a lot of people I've met and encountered have a similar fear. Usually there's no way of assuaging said fears as its very very innate and understandable.

I guess I'm not scared cuz I spent a lot of my early adulthood smoking a lot of weed, drinking a lot of alcohol, doing some psychedelics, and participating in various other behaviors in an attempt to forget my somewhat traumatic childhood, in which I was only partially successful at forgetting.

After going to therapy for some time, I realized that traumas cut deeper than memories, and that there wasn't much to do but move forward with all of it integrated and try and do the best I can. It's an imperfect answer, but it's the best I got.

Because of this when I think about the horror of losing my memories, I kind have made peace with that losing memories is likely simply a part of death. Sure there's the horror of still being alive when it happens, but even if you believe in an afterlife, you likely can't hold onto every memory of life and your infinite afterlife, right? Unless you become God or something I guess, but then you have every memory of everything and everyone...which is...well probably kind of boring...so you split your consciousness off into other beings and live as other entities to keep things interesting until the end of time when you, as God, die... unless God also transcends time...but I'm meandering a lot at that point.

And yeah...it goes on like that...a kaleidoscopic rubix cube of making memories and forgetting them and fearing loss and accepting impermanence... eventually you come to accept it...until existential dread hits you from time to time, but you eventually get used to that being part of the whole being alive and existing thing too.

Or at least that's how my insane mind deals with it anyway.

Honestly, going through and getting therapy and doing the work nowadays, I'm more afraid of the ones I'll find than the ones I'll eventually lose.

Ever since my 2nd open heart surgery, I feel as though my memories from before then are kinda mushy and since then I don't know whether my memory formation would be considered normal, so yeah I am worried, too.

I'm in my mid-20s and wonder what's the issue with my brain. It's not such a big issue I need to be checked out, but I'm still curious. Not seeing whether my state health insurance would cover having my brain scanned and tested curious, but curious nonetheless.

I have foggy memories I would love to remember whether they're true or not, but I just don't know where to begin. I mean, I think I went on a road trip with my brother's friends family out of city, but I don't fully remember whether that actually happened or not. Just the feint potential memory of a slanted white basement ceiling with a while pillar holding it up, sunny day, and potentially walking on a TLC desperate road with my brother and his friend. I would ask the friends parents, but I'm not sure they'd remember and it would be kinda awkward to just ask out of the blue since I have zero contact with them.

I think memory works different for different people. I am nearly 30 and I don't really remember much from elementary school (I mean the general experience, not the knowledge of course), nor a big part of my early life up to like 13-14 years old (but it might be connected to childhood trauma).

I am pretty good at learning new words in foreign languages and other similar stuff though.

I've 0 recollection of my school years, where I was consistently bullied and harassed. If I can't remember something it's problably for the better.

if I get a concussion and forgot everything, I wouldn’t really be… well… “me” anymore

I get what you mean by this. It's been my theory for a while that your memories are "you", so it's no longer "you" if you lose even half of your memories. You're an entirely different person. Everything that we are, are contained in these memories. If you cloned a person then automatically, they will be a different person from the start. Simply because the memories they make will be different and are no longer identical. It's why I think if someone loses their memories through diseases like Alzheimer's or dementia, it's no longer "them".

Hell, every time you go to sleep, you will wake up an entirely different person. Ship of Theseus style. Your memories and even the cells in your body are slowly being replaced by new ones. So... in a way, every single second of our life, we are no longer the "me" that we were and we are now someone else.

Everytime you access a memory you change it. Create memoirs (journals, pictures, collages) to snapshot them at a point in time.

Yes, very much so. Everyone here talked at length about this already, but I remembered the book Flowers for Algernon, which, among several other more significant things in the book, talks about this.

I really recomend you read the book before this spoiler, since it kinda kills the moment.

::: spoiler the end of the book At the very end of the book the main character knows only that they bring flowers to a grave everyday, but don't remember who's burried. And it's one of the few moments media made me cry. because memory issues hit me really hard. :::

yes and no.

I remember everything. well, I guess it's better to say I remembered everything.

until 2020 I remembered everything and had a near 95% recall. after I got covid and stress/anxiety ate away at my sanity it's more like 80% now. My age is also a factor.

remembering everything, every detail, did me more harm than good honestly. all the embarrassing moments in my life from my first class recital in kindergarten where I fucked up my lines to the time a hooked up with a "dead fish".

I'm on the other side of my life now and most the crap I remember isn't worth it.

there are some good memories I'd like to keep, but when I do finally forget them (and I will forget them), I won't even know I forgot anything at all.

Only one way to save them. Write a diary or a mini biography. Just pick some stories you like and write them down and they become permanent.

Its not so bad. Just continue to be your best and continue to improve. Be nice. Be generous, kind, caring, charitable. Go out of your way sometimes to be good to people.

Ive had a few concussions, been knocked out a few times, and 1 traumatic brain injury. (Accident prone). I know im forgetting a bunch, but I cant remember what im forgetting, so it doesn't really affect me generally.

Ive had a fairly eventful life, at times exciting life. Ive been around the world. Done missionary work in Mexico and Peru, helping an orphanage building a well, visiting a youth jail in Mexico. Sailed thd Amazon river bringing medicine/water/supplies/bibles to different villages on the Amazon river. Er...

Thats all to say, if youre a good person and do good things, people will remember and can remind you again later if you forget!

Its dangerous to live shitty acting shitty treating people like shit AND have a bad memory. If you forget who you were shitty to and not watching your back thats trouble. Better to just be remembered as a good guy.

Nope, not at all. I never liked making anything 'permanent' and prefer to do temporary things instead, like building sandcastles. Maybe that has something to do with each other

You get used to it.

You have to accept that as a meat machine your memory is imperfect and will fail. I have been tested within the top 1% fir long term memory several times over the course of my youth. Im now 50 and while I could recall most of the first 30-35 years of my life Im beginning to get bad at remembering names of coworkers or when I worked at jobs I held within the last 15 years. Memory loss comes for everyone.