He says he just goes "I no longer need this information," and somehow just lets go of it, pushes it away or aside to make room for new information.

If I could consciously get rid of things from my memory, like oh, commercial jingles from my childhood? YES, I WOULD LIKE THAT ABILITY.

Rats! I was afraid I got the RAM thing wrong!

Not really. RAM is fast storage that programs and data get loaded into so the CPU can process it quickly. Unlike much slower permanent storage, RAM has to be powered to operate so when you turn the power off it effectively gets wiped. So the analogy still holds for a brain. You lose everything when the power gets turned off.

Gud is, of course, correct on the higher-level definition. I'm too used to dealing with people who say "I've got 16 gigawhatizts of RAM, that's what Best Buy told me to get, how can my hard drive not have enough room to install the program?"

smonster, I hope you got a good solid night's sleep. Good luck with the business plan prep today. I am not even remotely an expert in these things, but I'll be happy to help if I can in any way.

Speaking of brain function I am trying to learn Spanish this summer. Up to a whopping 5 days in a row of doing the Rosetta lessons. My niece a half mile away is a Spanish teacher, and son's GF's mom is a Spanish teacher, so pro help is close at hand. So far my feeling is I could be pretty proficient and reading it, but understanding the spoken language is tough. We'll see how it goes. After a couple weeks or so more of lessons I'll try watching some Spanish language programs and see how much I can pick up.

I have to remind myself sometimes that the crappy memory holes are often due to ADHD.

This I did not know and yet, it makes sense as I'm learning more about ADHD. My memory is swiss cheese and I've always blamed it on being a high school stoner - which, I'm sure, didn't help. My brain holds on to some of the strangest details and then lets other things just go poof.

I have somehow hosed the muscles in my right hip. Kelly kindly came over last night to dig her elbow into my tush to get the muscles to chill out and it felt better for a while. This morning, thought, it is back to hurting like hell.

My therapist said it's like a spiral and with each time around you get more clarity.

So it's like reincarnation? each time you get closer to enlightenment? (assuming you're doing it right)

My therapist said it's like a spiral and with each time around you get more clarity.

I really like this imagery. For therapy and any other time I feel like I'm going in circles. With each loop, I know more than I did before. So even if I feel like I'm repeating something, it likely isn't the exact same thing. Hmmmm, will have to think on that one.

I had a therapist give me the spiral metaphor years ago, and have long found it comforting and pretty true. Plus I love spirals.

Re: memory - I know anxiety affects my short term memory terribly. When I was super stressed a few years ago, I worried I had lead poisoning my memory was so bad. But no, it was just that the anxiety voice drowned out any information coming in. One reason I try to write things down as much as possible.

Have dropped helper at shop with instructions, am across street at coffee shop preparing to knock this thing out.

The Boy continues to be somewhat inscrutable, except for the part where I know he's super attracted to me. But I'm taking tomorrow to try and buy a used car, and I think he may come with, so that could be interesting to see how we get along in a mundane context.

Starting Lexapro has been like getting that god-awful couch out of the living room, you had no clue the horrors that were hiding underneath it. The spiral metaphor is very comforting, because that voice that's whispering "at least the anxiety hid all this other stuff" is not my friend. I hate that I feel like my brain, the seat of my self, has betrayed me. But I had a revelation in the bathroom this morning (bathrooms should be renamed Revelation Rooms) that I've spent this century in a hard, protracted battle and I've forgotten how to live without being braced for the next catastrophe. That other voice, the one that likes me, finally got my attention and pointed out that sometimes things can be fixed.

You tell your brain that this is something you don't need or want to remember.

Wow, really? I think my brain would decide to remember extra-hard out of spite.

Not necessarily spite, but I think my brain would go, "What's this? Oh, there's a special note on this one! Better keep it right near the top!"

For those of you playing along at home, my mom was moved to rehab on Friday. She's still officially in isolation because of the c.dif, so for at least the next week or so, it sucks extra hard because she's confined to her room until she's officially cleared of the infection (and her roommate is less than charming). This one is in La Jolla, which I'd hoped would be an indicator of a higher level of care, but nope, even in a rich neighborhood, nursing facilities kinda suck. So, work all day, go hang with her for an hour or two in the evening, get home in time to go through the mail, grab a bite of dinner, watch a little TV, sleep. I'm pretty stressed, tired, feeling sorry for myself by the end of the day, but still plugging along.