A Post In Which I Find Out That I Have An Organic Brain Condition

On Tuesday nights, I have a neurological testing class. Tonight, we were learning about a particulary memory test. For a while I have been aware that I don't have a memory that works like everyone else's. For example, I cannot remember what I talked about a few minutes ago, but I can remember the website from a text book that I used one year ago (www.ablongman.com/carlson8e if you were wondering). I sometimes find it difficult to recall what I did over the weekend. In short, I seem to have a poor working memory + some other difficulties, but I remember really weird and useless information with zero effort. People generally do not believe me or think I am being dramatic about this, but it is the truth.


Tonight I got my proof, which was actually nice to have. The professor asked for volunteers to take and administer (give) the memory test. I volunteered to take it, and my friend B. administered it to me in front of the class. Initially, people thought I was faking how poorly I was doing or that I was trying to be funny. This turned into concern. Some comments were "Have you had a head injury?" and "Tessa, we need to do some exercises to improve your memory." Basically, to do as poorly as I did, there must be something wrong with part of my brain. I think the problem lies within my parietal lobe, as I also have difficulty with multiple visuospatial tasks. For example, when attempting to put leftover food away in a container, I inevitably will choose a container too large for the amount of food. I am simply unable to see the correct size. I have learned to compensate for this by locating the size I would normally choose and taking the next size smaller instead.


I have learned to compensate for this memory problem as well. I am fairly intelligent and I have good coping mechanisms, so you wouldn't know that I had this problem if I didn't tell you. I have learned to use lists for things that I need to remember for the short term. My long term memory doesn't seem affected. I didn't even become aware of this problem until I was in graduate school and learned what "normal" memory was, so obviously it has not held me back any.

I am going to try to get either a full neuropsychological test done or maybe just some memory tests to have "official" results, but this won't really affect my life one way or another. I just think the brain is fascinating and wonder how God came up with all of this stuff! And isn't it neat that I can still function well even with this seemingly important part not working 100%. If you were wondering about the cause of this problem, I believe it to be genetic as my mother seems to be similarly afflicted.


And let this be a lesson to you bloggy people: Don't doubt the Tessa when she tells you something, even if she is a little dramatic. ;)