Can CPTSD cause cognitive and early signs of dementia?

[Cancelled]

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.

 

[Flossy]

I thought that was part of PTSD in general. It is for me. Or at least I see it as a part of it. I don't let it bother me. I figure I only ever want to go through bad times once, so I don't worry about bad times in the future, because that would be going through it twice. I hope that makes sense.

I have huge memory loss. I dont care.

 

[arfie]

dementia never has been reserved for old folks. my dementia and memory problems started in my teen years, about 30 years before PTSD was a certified diagnosis.

the good news is that the symptoms responded well to psychotherapy. i believe i am the only senior citizen i know whose memory is improving with age. i'm wondering if dementia is inevitable with aging or the result of decades of memory repression. just wondering. . . i don't really care enough to do the research.

 

[Freddyt]

Cognition is one of my favorite markers to use to know how I am functioning. Frequently part of PTSD is something called Executive Dysfinction. It's the core problem in ADHD and associated problems. It often affects something called working memory - the I want milk from the fridge and than you stand there wondering why you went to the fridge.....or you tell yourself - don't forget your phone just before you walk out the door without it, or you spend 10 minutes looking for the phone in your hand...

Forgetting stuff, faces etc is part of that. It's called Aphasia. When I am really stressed I can walk past people I know and not recognize them or at its worst I couldn't understand people talking to me, it was a garbled mess.

 

[arobot]

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!!!

 

[Sideways]

When I’m dissociating, I can forget days at a time. Names and faces are just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s something that I have to monitor - partly so I can manage my mental health, but also because just because I dissociate, doesn’t make me immune to other more sinister conditions that can cause severe memory loss (dementia being only one).

 

[Friday]

CAUSE dementia? Nope.

MIMIC dementia? Yes. As can dozens of other things. Hence the whole “rule out” aspect of diagnosis.

Present COMORBIDLY with dementia? Yes.

 

[Cancelled]

Cognition is one of my favorite markers to use to know how I am functioning. Frequently part of PTSD is something called Executive Dysfinction. It's the core problem in ADHD and associated problems. It often affects something called working memory - the I want milk from the fridge and than you stand there wondering why you went to the fridge.....or you tell yourself - don't forget your phone just before you walk out the door without it, or you spend 10 minutes looking for the phone in your hand...

Forgetting stuff, faces etc is part of that. It's called Aphasia. When I am really stressed I can walk past people I know and not recognize them or at its worst I couldn't understand people talking to me, it was a garbled mess.

Thank you!

 

[Cancelled]

I did not even think about dissociative issues.. I do have difficulty at times with that. I have sleep issues and now I am thinking this is an issue. I have this come and go. I was thinking of the movie Gandhi today and thinking of who starred in and it has been 20 years since I last saw it and I remembered Ben Kingsley. It was a good day today. It comes and goes. Weird but I am glad to know it is part of my CPTSD! Issue. issue.. Issue!

 

[beaneeboo]

Not sure if this will help in any way... lots of discussion from a thread i started
.. I'm having alot of issues too...I have been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder... but I asked for a memory test... was supposed to have it this week but it got cancelled... don't have helpful words of advice but I thought sharing the below thread may be of interest...

How do your memory issues play out?

My memory of parts of my childhood, like so many here, isn't very good and never has been. My everyday memory has been getting worse over the past few years - specifically last 3 years. Even more specifically last few months. I'm in my early 40s. When I say memory I'm talking about my ability...

www.myptsd.com