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!
Also, untreated hearing loss can increase cognitive decline and increase the probability of developing Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia. Please if you hear an “eeee” sound before sleep, don’t leave it un treated. It could be tinnitus. Go to your doctor, and talk about it. The earlier we treat hearing loss, the more chances we have at slowing down cognitive decline.
