The more my head is in the past? The less able I am to remember the present. It's taken awhile to sort out that I'm fully aware/cognizant of what's going on in the moment (even if I don't remember the moment), it's just that my memories aren't coding correctly, for some reason. So one thing I've learned to do is journal a lot whenever I'm kicking into a lot of flashbacks, nightmares, etc. Not of the flashbacks, or not just about the flashbacks, but about everything else that's going on. For one thing, it helps to ground me in the present (which helps my short term memory, he more present I am, the more solid the memories of the present are), but for another it helps me to remember what is or was going on.
There are other times, where I flat out lose time / hardcore disassociation / zoning out. And those are different.
I also have some TBI stuff which affects a few different aspects of my memory. I'm working on rebuilding the neural pathways for numerical recall at the moment. There are some very specific neural / cognitive therapies designed to do this // that are outside of the scope of PTSD therapy. If you've got any kind of head injury I can't recommend strongly enough that you hook up with a neurologist (or speech pathologist, etc.) and work on those aspects, in addition to PTSD therapy. It very much depends which part of the brain was injured, what is affected, and how. Sometimes (like with my difficulty with numbers) it can be a very small very focused area. Sometimes it can be more global (like visual recall, or auditory recall). Once you know the areas affected? You not only will have specific exercises to practice to rebuild the ability, but a "cheat". Meaning if your visual recall is affected, but your auditory isn't? Saying things out loud will code the memory just as well as seeing used to... Until you've got your visual memory up and running again. It's a pain, but better than the gaping holes where the memory "should" be, and isn't! :wtf:
