Is it possible that CPTSD can be the source of early onset cognitive problems and beginning signs of dementia? I am having some scarey symptoms these last thee months. Now it is forgetting names and faces or what I went into another room to do.
I dunno if forgetting faces is a part of CPTSD or if it's a part of dementia, but I feel relieved that I'm not the only one that forgets faces.
Like, it happens a lot. I ride the bus for transportation, and sometimes people will sit and talk to me like they know me, and after a minute or so I'll remember who they are. Occasionally I really don't know them and they're just chatty people. I hate that I have to talk to them to know if I know them, So Very Much.
Another weird thing that happens is that I'll recognize a person and then they start talking and I realize I don't know them at all. It's never really bothered me before but the other day I walked past someone who looked just like an old abuser, and they spoke and I realized they weren't even the same race as the person I thought that they were.
I brought it up to my therapist, the forgetting faces thing. And they told me that it WAS a symptom of CPTSD, but that they needed to read up about it to refresh themselves on it before they could speak confidently about it. And I don't know why, but I automatically took that to mean that they were lying about having heard of it before, and that they were just reassuring me. That was a couple of months back, and we've only talked about it once since, when she said that it IS a trauma response.
I also did this weird thing once were I met a man, and he had green upper teeth. He was flirtatious with me (not in a weird way, but overly kind, and I took it as a red flag) and I quit speaking with him. When I met with him after some time had passed, he didn't even HAVE upper teeth, like, at all. No Teeth To See. He's my best friend, now, real cool chap, but the fact that I can see faces as different than they really are kind'a f*cks with me. His upper teeth have been gone for years.
Also, this friend of mine, the real cool chap, he has CPTSD, too. He doesn't have my very poor memory, but he does have some significant memory issues. I had told him a story, and he brought it up to me weeks later. Then, I dunno, maybe a month later I bring up the story I had told him, and he genuinely reacted as if he had never heard that story before. His memory is significantly better than mine, but I don't know that he knows that his memory has any lapses in it. He's functioning, whereas I can't keep a job. He's social, whereas I like to isolate for ridiculous amounts of time. I think that that probably plays a big role. You spend enough time just doing nothing there's really nothing noteworthy to remember, the days just kind of repeat themselves and I just go through the motions of maintaining my self, and why would I distinctly remember that this particular trip to the kitchen I meant to grab a glass of water when my muscle memory assumes I'm just throwing something away. Like I go into a state of living on auto-pilot, is what I'm saying, and some days I'm barely taking care of myself at all.
Yeah, I hope it's not dementia. Because if it is, I'm on that path. But I've somehow came out of an agoraphobic episode recently, and the memory thing can really gnaw at me, especially since I'm interacting with a lot more people than I'm use to, and it just feels bad to genuinely not remember things. It's kind of odd, too, because I speak well, I understand most abstract ideas people bring to me, and I empathize well with others, but I go blank on things that I assume are important to others that I remember. It's not a good feeling at all. I think when people meet me they don't understand that I AM disabled, I don't just live on disability, and when I don't remember something they told me (People like to tell me their secrets, a LOT, I open up about my own things and they'll tell me some burden they carry, and I'm sorry, but I brain dump it) I think they take it personally or like they don't matter to me.
Goodness. I just meant to say I'm glad I'm not the only one, and this turned into a novel. I wish you well!!!
