Blanking – the forgotten symptom?

[wolfshades]

MerryMac – I love your “circus of the mind” comment! I’m going to use it often, from here on in. I usually tell people that there are all kinds of shiny balls in my brain, and I’m having a wonderful time with them. They laugh, but it happens to be true.

I like how Dr. J. put it too. It’s not a “black out” necessarily, but a variation on the loss of focus so familiar to all of us. I mean, how else do you explain leaving frozen food on the counter overnight and then suddenly realizing the next day that you never did put it away, as you thought you did? What you describe seems similar to that.

In conversation, there are have been so many times I’ve blanked out, and have had to embarrass myself to ask the other person to repeat what they just said. It wasn’t that what they said wasn’t loud enough – it was that my brain was way louder.

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[Anonymous]

Hi wolfshades!

Thanks for the compliment!

I think it accurately describes what’s going on…a split screen of inner and outer attention.

From the time I was a small child I can remember thinking that there was a whole wide world of adventure out there, just waiting!

I was brought up in the country and would look out at the fields dreaming of the day when I could begin my adventures!

The Circus! Travel! People! Color! Music! Animals! So many things out there!!!!!!

All these years later and I still feel like that.

So how can you expect us to pay attention to conversations about the weather, bad traffic, what to make for dinner, cleaning the house when…………….there’s all that Good Stuff Happening!!!!!

We are the modern day swashbuckling adventureres!

(damn, now where did I put my Pirate sword…must have been over by the..Oh look!..a casket of mead!..well, I’ll be!..Yo ho ho..!)

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[Anonymous]

I have been thinking.. I surely has identified myself in the past as a bard.. (kind of..) then i yesterday came to conclusion.. i am a mix…

Wanderer with wanderlust and bard with abilities to match (kind a) Jack of all trades, Master of none..

Excell in many things but never accomplishes in the fullest..

Then when one comes to the thought of being too of a jack.. then one has to go wander.. restless spirit.. or something…

Oh, well.. kind of so..

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[Anonymous]

i have the same problem, always have. its really quite a problem in school, trying to pay attention to a teacher talking about things you really dont care to learn about, your mind wanders, next thing you know your classmates are getting out books and pencils and working on something but you have no idea what. online courses are much easier for me, everything is written out and no teacher to listen to.

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[Anonymous]

Hi Jenee!

I found that if I concentrate on what the other person is saying and make it into pictures in my mind, then it`s easier to pay attention. (and remember!)

After awhile you won`t have to concentrate on doing it so much..it becomes more automatic.

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[Anonymous]

So I can lose focus easily enough and become distracted and forget where I put my keys. But I have actually blanked out. I was driving and making a left turn. It was raining, I was driving through a neighborhood I didn’t know, and I was late for a friend’s wedding so there was plenty of chaos and stress. I don’t know how it happened, but apparently I pulled out into the oncoming traffic and hit a car. Fortunately it was only a fender bender and no one was hurt, but it shook me up pretty badly. This was before my diagnosis. Now I know I need to be more there there on the road and I’ve been ok while driving. Um, parking, on the other hand, is still problematic…

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[Patte Rosebank]

I had my first really major blanking experience, just a few days ago.

I had taken my nighttime Seroquel at the usual time, intending to be home within the 90 minutes it takes for it to kick in and zonk me out. But I was out with friends, and we didn’t want to leave yet, so, 3 hours later, I was still out on the town, but 3/4-asleep.

Not wanting to risk falling asleep on the subway, I got into a cab and reached into my purse so I’d have my keys in my hand as soon as I got home. But the keys weren’t in my purse. And they weren’t in either of my coat pockets, because I shook my coat, and there was no jingling—which there should have been, since there was nothing in the pockets to muffle the sound. I started digging through my purse (a small one, since I’ve learned that stuff will always expand to fill the purse you have, no matter how big). Nothing. I began taking everything out of my purse, one by one, and putting them into my tote bag (which was empty except for a book and a folding umbrella). Then I dug through the tote bag again, and even checked the floor of the cab, before reaching deep into the seat (yes, I was that desperate). Still no keys.

You can imagine how panicky I was, by this point. Then, I jammed my hand deep into my left coat pocket. There were the keys.

How did they get there? All I can come up with is that I must have completely blanked during the moments when I took the keys out of my purse and put them into my pocket. The irony is that, when I got home, I was so wound up that I had to take another Seroquel to calm me down enough to go to sleep.

What did I learn from this waking nightmare? That, if I’m not already at home when I take my Seroquel, I need to head for home immediately after taking it—even if nobody else is ready to go, and even if they try to talk me into staying longer.

Now that I’ve experienced this and figured out why it happened, I can make relatively sure it doesn’t happen again. So at least it served a purpose.

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[BuxomDiva]

Larynxa, I hope you are not experiencing any of the nasty side effects of the Seroquel that my friends have; one man I know gained 100 pounds on that stuff!

I have set a new standard for getting distracted which I wanted to “share with the class” as it were.

On my way out of the local convenience store last night, I was distracted by the front page of one of the local papers announcing that they were supporting a racist homophobic misogynist for mayor. I got SO caught up that I actually forgot I had left the dog tied up outside the store, outside my line of sight as I left the store and came home.

It took me THREE HOURS to realize the dog wasn’t here. I ran back in bare feet and shirt sleeves. Thank GOD the poor puppy was still there waiting for me, and he must have been well behaved or I’m sure the neighbours would have called the cops/animal control.

Chinook got lots and lots and lots of attention when we got home. Poor puppy!

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[Anonymous]

I had a classic “blank” yesterday.

I got all my things together for work so that I wouldn’t forget anything. I put my phone, wallet, keys and laptop in. Paused to consider whether I’d forgotten anything, decided I hadn’t, left for work.

Got to work, realised that I’d forgotten my lunch. Which I’d placed next to my work bag. So I wouldn’t forget it.

*facepalm*

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[Patte Rosebank]

@BuxomDiva, I’m on a very small dose of Seroquel, just to calm my racing thoughts enough so I can fall asleep and stay asleep. I’m also taking medicines for my Type 2 Diabetes, and they (and the Concerta that I’m on for now) have weight loss as a side effect. They seem to be more than cancelling out the weight-gain effect of the Seroquel, because I can now fit into several costumes that I couldn’t before, and I can do up my belt one notch tighter.

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[Monika]

I was thinking today, yay! one symptom I don’t have, this doesn’t happen to me when the phone rang with a colleague asking after a report I KNOW she handed to me yesterday but which I didn’t remember proofing, signing and forwarding to the next. (Which I actually did.)

As @Nimthiriel so succinctly stated *facepalm*

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[Ivriniel]

I don’t tend to blank that much, though there was this one day I was walking into my apartment with my bank card in my hand, and the next moment, I had no idea where the card was. I searched everywhere in my entryway and couldn’t find it.

Finally went to the bank and got a new one.

Three days later, the old one turned up, under the hallway rug. Personally, I believe it fell into an eddy in the Space-Time Continuum and travelled forward 3 days in time.

What I’m most likely to do is be walking around with a paper in my hand, get distracted by something, put the paper down, forget about it, and then not be able to find it when I need it.

At my school we have to keep a log of when kids go out to the bathroom and when they return. Since I teach Grade 1 and they can’t read a clock, I’m the one who has to write this all down. I must ask the kids for help tracking down the bloody washroom log 3-4 times a day. And I almost never record when they returned.

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[Anonymous]

I agree with Dr. J simplicity is the key if I leave anything to chance my life goes “appitite in a tin cup.” I have ADHD I admit it to keep my life sane I tend to be a bit of a control freak at times and “tunnel visioned” at others… but hey! it works it took alot of work and self discipline over a long period of time but having predictability in some areas in my life makes it easier for me to deal with my own unpredictable nature and with coping with life in general

K

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[Anonymous]

to start with it sounded like you were describing petit mal seizures. but then i realised you weren’t. phew.

anyway yeah- i always assumed it was really quite normal to be working on autopilot sometimes and have no recorded memory of a very small space of time. i know loads of people who have experienced that sort of thing, and none of them have ADHD.

i mean- stuff like a 6 hour alcohol-induced blackout = not good at all.

but walking down the street and realising you can’t actively recall the past few seconds cos you spaced out a bit = not a huge deal.

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[Anonymous]

Sometimes I purposely zone out just to relax from the day to day hussel and bussel and YES! I do it without drugs!

K

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[Author]

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