When my brain shut down

Do you struggle to remember names and numbers? The writer shares her story.

August 16, 2014 04:12 pm | Updated 04:12 pm IST

Illustration: Satwik Gade

Illustration: Satwik Gade

For as long as I can remember — for much of my adult professional/married life — I have had a problem with dates and years. The problem was simple. I just couldn’t remember them. Be it the year I finished school or graduated or got married, the year my mother died, or even the year of my son’s birth.

Of course it caused much public and private embarrassment. Family gatherings retold stories of how I overshot by two years when the gynaecologist asked me for the year of marriage. “Who forgets things like this?” was the usual popular refrain. This has been the case for around a decade now.

But it wasn’t always like this. I wasn’t brilliant at number crunching, but my memory was as good as any one else’s. So, what then happened in the past decade that caused my brain to auto short-circuit of sorts? I found the answer one hot June morning in Delhi.

“It’s what we call selective shielding/forgetting,” said a senior oncologist at a leading government hospital. I had mentioned the increasing confusion caused by not remembering dates. The humiliation of yet another episode was still fresh. I had stumbled while filling my son’s swimming form. For his year of birth, I wrote 2010 instead of 2008.

When I mentioned this to the doctor, I was hoping that he would say something about reduced brain function due to advancing age. “Too early,” he said, brushing aside my concern and then went straight for the jugular. “Did you lose a parent recently?”

I almost did not hear him complete the sentence. It has been a natural on-off reaction for many years now. The minute parent and death are mentioned together, I tune out; blank out, even. Of course, the social smile remains intact but my brain shuts out every feeling, every memory associated with this event.

“It is a common symptom among young adults who witness the death of a parent,” explained the doctor, not even waiting for my reply. He had obviously experienced the blank smile before! “The brain simply forgets,” he continued. “Often major events in life are associated with reactions and feelings embedded with the person who matters most to a child. And it is almost always one of the parents. So when a young person witnesses a parent’s death… they begin to shut out these experiences because the emotions associated with it are bewilderingly painful. Some children even complain of chest pain, breathlessness and panic when asked to recall important events in life including marriage, childbirth, marriage of siblings etc. (often deeply associated with parents and home). Unconsciously, you have simply chosen to forget. But the brain may not be able to shutdown completely. So, while you recall these events and celebrations, there are also huge gaps in the memory. Hence the confusion.”

Through his straight talk, I sat petrified. Pain, panic and embarrassment overwhelmed me so I rushed out of the room. “Was my secret so visible?” I wondered.

How I reached my workplace is a mystery. And I did exactly what I have been doing whenever my mother is mentioned. I ran into the nearest washroom, doubled over with pain in the stomach and chest and burst out crying. No sound, no drama, just huge waves of sadness that fill up your inside and rips you apart one layer at a time. The grief lay open raw and the pain supremely unbearable.

What would I have not given at that minute to see her again? It took me back to the year immediately after my mother’s death. I remember driving my Maruti 800 (I had learned to drive around the same time as my parent was dying) and often having to stop at roadsides because I had this unexplainable desire to ram into something. “My mother will see me on the other side,” was my only thought. Then again I remember this gorgeous trip to the Andaman Islands where I went snorkelling. The vastness and stillness of the waters made me want to drift away. The feeling was so strong and overwhelming that had the coach not pulled me up, I would have met my creator or my mother that morning. The desire to end things faded only after my son came home.

And the doctor finally figured out my ‘confusion’ as nothing more than grief… 11 years after my mother died.

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