#the mysterious fainting waif disease

[pigeonfancier]

Started to write and then drafted a post on this yesterday, because I always forget - any form of inebriation/fogginess makes me so anxious, and I was overanalysing every way I wrote this, haha. But the loop monitor surgery is done and over with now, tests are done, and I am now finally free to ignore medical shit for at least a week.

There were two mildly funny bits of this all. 1) I am very bad at noting symptoms, and actually paying attention to them. I told Reba a few weeks ago that, oh yes, I know about the valsava manuever - I use it if I need to stop crying immediately! This was not entirely true, because tests made me realise that I actually just do it habitually whenever the fuck my heart starts being shitty.

This was not, as it turns out, conductive to testing. Thankfully, I realised about.. five minutes in, haha. Partial heart block confirmed again: they keep waffling on if it' a thing or not, which is very stressful, but the doctor who spoke to my sister was very certain. Not really sure what you do with that, but "mildly confused and irritated" is just the vibe for medical shit, I suppose.

The other funny bit of this all is 2) they jut numb you for the implant surgery, and stick a fucking glorified towel over your head. Then they keep asking you questions during it on how you feel, and if you can feel this, and how are you doing? great! are you fine, because I'm about to feel a lot of pressure --

First few questions: I was chatty, friendly, thank them reflexively while counting to ten! This proved increasingly difficult to maintain! I got snippy on an answer, then realised my tone.. and so apologised for being terse, while explaining that I was just a little distracted, sorry about my tone there, it's just a little hard to concentrate between all the questions -

The resident laughed at me, but then people told me I did great!!! at this afterwards, so you know, regardless of whatever else, I got what truly mattered: a good job in surgery! Now time to sleep for a week.

[activatingaggro]

❤❥♚♛➳!

❤ ; A trait you admire in your closest friends?

The wide ranges of perspectives and interests among the people I like the best, haha. Which is probably part of why I like them so much, apart from their stunning personalities. uvu There’s a lot of things that I flat-out just cannot emphasize with and don’t really get, but if I don’t understand something, I know that at least one of my friends is probably going to, and usually, they’ll be willing to spell it out for me.

So instead of floundering, or starting a conversation where all of us are like “IT IS A MYSTERY”, the fact there’s a lot of variance in opinions means that.. like, if one of us throws something in the air and goes “HEY WHAT’S UP WITH THIS,” chances are that it’ll actually gets answered, different perspectives will get analysed, and it’ll end up fostering a greater understanding of why people might do the things they do, which is always good!

For work, for life, for writing a wide variety of stupid fantroll children. :p

❥ ; A trait you admire in your enemies?

OKAY, SO, enemies for me is a category of people that I do not like, but I am willing to engage with socially for whatever reason. Like, their opinions may be irritating, or they may be morally incompatible with mine, or maybe they just really suck at articulation, but I’m still willing to talk to them, hear their reasons, and then see if there isn’t a middle ground where we can both exist tolerably.

I guess the main thing that decides if I’m willing to engage with people that I dislike is their confidence? If someone has a horrible opinion, but they’re not willing to actually defend it, then it’s not worth my time to deal with them, and I.. probs am not going to want anything to do with them, tbh! So less “enemy” and more “politely disengage ASAP when social situations require engagement, and/or climb in a closet and lose the key”. I have done that, btw, as a joke that immediately fucking backfired. It was only slightly inadvisable, because did we have to pick the lock? Yes! But did I avoid having to make polite small-talk with a mortal foe? YES. WORTH IT.

If someone has a horrible opinion, and they’re willing to actively defend it, then that means they’ve at least thought about and assessed why they hold it, and they’re worth having a conversation with. Arguably. Depending on how horrible it is.

♚ ; What’s a personality trait you have that you’re proud of?

ahahaha my boundless aggression?

no, joking. UM. I’m very social and friendly! I am easily distracted as fuck and I’ve been falling down on keeping up with all of my people lately, but, like.. aside from a year where the ever-exciting Fainting Waif Disease gave me an uncharacteristic spike of anxiety, I really enjoy being in constant communication with someone, I really like people, and I like helping people out where I can, or trying to get people to.. like, interact with more people?

IDK. x) I’m a massive fucking extrovert, and while it can be tedious - like, abrupt spikes of “I AM ALONEEE IN THE WORLD QnQ” if I somehow end up going a day without talking to anyone - it’s also something that benefits me a lot, and I’m pleased to be one, haha. I don’t know if I’m proud to be one, though? That seems weird.

[selfhelpqa-blog]

The Trained Memory

New Post has been published on https://selfhelpqa.com/the-trained-memory/

The Trained Memory

THE TRAINED MEMORY

by

Warren Hilton

Chapter I

The Elements of Memory

You have learned of the sense-perceptive and judicial processes by which your mind acquires its knowledge of the outside world. You come now to a study of the phenomenon of memory, the instrument by which your mind retains and makes use of its knowledge, the agency that has power to resurrect the buried past or power to enfold us in a Paradise of dreams more perfect than reality.

In the broadest sense, memory is the faculty of the mind by which we (1) _retain_, (2) _recall_, (3) _picture to the mind’s eye_, and (4) _recognize_ past experiences.

Memory involves, therefore, four elements, _Retention_, _Recall_, _Imagination_ and _Recognition_.

Chapter II

The Mental Treasure Vault and Its Lost Combination

Almost everyone seems to think that we retain in the mind _only_ those things that we can voluntarily recall; that memory, in other words, is limited to the power of voluntary reproduction.

This is a profound error. It is an inexcusable error. The daily papers are constantly reporting cases of the lapse and restoration of memory that contain all the elements of underlying truth on this subject.

It is plain enough that the memory _seems_ decidedly limited in its scope. This is because our power of voluntary recall is decidedly limited.

But it does not follow simply because we are without the power to deliberately recall certain experiences that all mental trace of those experiences is lost to us.

_Those experiences that we are unable to recall are those that we disregarded when they occurred because they possessed no special interest for us. They are there, but no mental associations or connections with power to awaken them have arisen in consciousness._

Things are continually happening all around us that we see with but “half an eye.” They are in the “fringe” of consciousness, and we deliberately ignore them. Many more things come to us in the form of sense-impressions that clamorously assail our sense-organs, but no effort of the will is needed to ignore them. We are absolutely impervious to them and unconscious of them because by the selection of our life interests we have closed the doors against them.

In either case, whether in the “fringe” of consciousness or entirely outside of consciousness, these unperceived sensations will be found to be sensory images that have no connection with the present subject of thought. They therefore attract, and we spare them, no part of our attention.

Just as each of our individual sense-organs selects from the multitude of ether vibrations constantly beating upon the surface of the body only those waves to the velocity of which it is attuned, so each one of us as an integral personality selects from the stream of sensory experiences only those particular objects of attention that are in some way related to the present or habitual trend of thought.

Just consider for a moment the countless number and variety of impressions that assail the eye and ear of the New Yorker who walks down Broadway in a busy hour of the day. Yet to how few of these does he pay the slightest attention. He is in the midst of a cataclysm of sound almost equal to the roar of Niagara and he does not know it.

Observe how many objects are right now in the corner of your mind’s eye as being within the scope of your vision while your entire attention is apparently absorbed in these lines. You see these other things, and you can look back and realize that you have seen them, but you were not aware of them at the time.

Let two individuals of contrary tastes take a day’s outing together. Both may have during the day practically identical sensory images; but each one will come back with an entirely different tale to tell of the day’s adventures.

_All sensory impressions, somehow or other, leave their faint impress on the waxen tablets of the mind. Few are or can be voluntarily recalled._

Just where and how memories are retained is a mystery. There are theories that represent sensory experiences as actual physiological “impressions” on the cells of the brain. They are, however, nothing but theories, and the manner in which the brain, as the organ of the mind, keeps its record of sensory experiences has never been discovered. Microscopic anatomy has never reached the point where it could identify a particular “idea” with any one “cell” or other part of the brain.

For us, the important question is not _how_, but _how much_; _not the manner in which, but the extent to which_, sensory impressions are preserved. Now, all the evidences indicate that _absolutely every impression received upon the sensorium is indelibly recorded in the mind’s substance_. A few instances will serve to illustrate the remarkable power of retention of the human mind.

Sir William Hamilton quotes the following from Coleridge’s “Literaria Biographia”: “A young woman of four- or five-and-twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized with a nervous fever, during which, according to the asseverations of all the priests and monks of the neighborhood, she became ‘possessed,’ and, as it appeared, by a very learned devil. She continued incessantly talking Latin, Greek and Hebrew in very pompous tones, and with most distinct enunciation. Sheets full of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and were found to consist of sentences coherent and intelligible each for itself but with little or no connection with each other. Of the Hebrew, a small portion only could be traced to the Bible; the remainder seemed to be in the Rabbinical dialect.”

The case was investigated by a physician, who learned that the girl had been a waif and had been taken in charge by a Protestant clergyman when she was nine years old and brought up as his servant. This clergyman had for years been in the habit of walking up and down a passage of his house into which the kitchen door opened and at the same time reading to himself in a loud voice from his favorite book. A considerable number of these books were still in the possession of his niece, who told the physician that her uncle had been a very learned man and an accomplished student of Hebrew. Among the books were found a collection of Rabbinical writings, together with several of the Greek and Latin fathers; and the physician succeeded in identifying so many passages in these books with those taken down at the bed-side of the young woman that there could be no doubt as to the true origin of her learned ravings. Now, the striking feature of all this, it will be observed, is the fact that the subject was an illiterate servant-girl to whom the Greek, Latin and Hebrew quotations were _utterly unintelligible,_ that _normally she had no recollection of them, that she had no idea of their meaning_, and finally that they had been impressed upon her mind _without her knowledge_ while she was engaged in her duties in her master’s kitchen.

Several cases are reported by Dr. Abercrombie, and quoted by Professor Hyslop, in which mental impressions long since forgotten beyond the power of voluntary recall have been revived by the shock of accident or disease. “A man,” he says, “mentioned by Mr. Abernethy, had been born in France, but had spent the greater part of his life in England, and, for many years, had entirely lost the habit of speaking French. But when under the care of Mr. Abernethy, on account of the effects of an injury to the head, he always spoke French.”

“A similar case occurred in St. Thomas Hospital, of a man who was in a state of stupor in consequence of an injury to the head. On his partial recovery he spoke a language which nobody in the hospital understood but which was soon ascertained to be Welsh. It was then discovered that he had been thirty years absent from Wales, and, before the accident, had entirely forgotten his native language.

“A lady mentioned by Dr. Pritchard, when in a state of delirium, spoke a language which nobody about her understood, but which was afterward discovered to be Welsh. None of her friends could form any conception of the manner in which she had become acquainted with that language; but, after much inquiry, it was discovered that in her childhood she had a nurse, a native of a district on the coast of Brittany, the dialect of which is closely analogous to Welsh. The lady at that time learned a good deal of this dialect but had entirely forgotten it for many years before this attack of fever.”

Dr. Carpenter relates the following incident in his “Mental Physiology”: “Several years ago, the Rev. S. Mansard, now rector of Bethnal Green, was doing clerical duty for a time at Hurstmonceaux, in Sussex; and while there he one day went over with a party of friends to Pevensey Castle, which he did not remember to have ever previously visited. As he approached the gateway he became conscious of a very vivid impression of having seen it before; and he ‘seemed to himself to see’ not only the gateway itself, but donkeys beneath the arch and people on top of it. His conviction that he must have visited the castle on some former occasion–although he had neither the slightest remembrance of such a visit nor any knowledge of having ever been in the neighborhood previously to his residence at Hurstmonceaux–made him inquire from his mother if she could throw any light on the matter. She at once informed him that being in that part of the country, when he was but _eighteen months old_, she had gone over with a large party and had taken him in the pannier of a donkey; that the elders of the party, having brought lunch with them, had eaten it on the roof of the gateway, where they would have been seen from below, whilst he had been left on the ground with the attendants and donkeys.”

“An Italian gentleman,” says Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, “who died of yellow fever in New York, in the beginning of his illness spoke English, in the middle of it French, but on the day of his death only Italian.”

Striking as these instances are, they are not unusual. Everyone on reflection can supply similar instances. Who among us has not at one time or another been impressed with a mysterious feeling of having at some time in the past gone through the identical experience which he is living now?

On such occasions the sense of familiarity is sometimes so persistent as to fill one with a strange feeling of the supernatural and to incline our minds to the belief in a reincarnation.

The “flash of inspiration” which, for the lawyer, solves a novel legal issue arising in the trial of a case, or, for the surgeon, sees him successfully through the emergencies of a delicate operation, has its origin in the forgotten learning of past experience and study.

Succeeding books in this _Course_ will bring to light numerous other facts less commonly observed, drawn indeed from the study of abnormal mental states, indicating that we retain a great volume of sense-impressions of whose very recording we are at the time unaware. In other words, all the evidences point to the absolute totality of our retention of all sensory experiences. They indicate that every sense-impression you ever received, whether you actually perceived and were conscious of it or not, has been retained and preserved in your memory, and can be “brought to mind” when you understand the proper method of calling it into service.

A vast wealth of facts is stored in the treasure vaults of your mind, but there are certain inner compartments to which you have lost the combination.

The author of “Thoughts on Business” says: “It is a great day in a man’s life when he truly begins to discover himself. The latent capacities of every man are greater than he realizes, and he may find them if he diligently seeks for them. A man may own a tract of land for many years without knowing its value. He may think of it as merely a pasture. But one day he discovers evidences of coal and finds a rich vein beneath his land. While mining and prospecting for coal he discovers deposits of granite. In boring for water he strikes oil. Later he discovers a vein of copper ore, and after that silver and gold. These things were there all the time–even when he thought of his land merely as a pasture. But they have a value only when they are discovered and utilized.”

“Not every pasture contains deposits of silver and gold, neither oil nor granite, nor even coal. But beneath the surface of every man there must be, in the nature of things, a latent capacity greater than has yet been discovered. And one discovery must lead to another until the man finds the deep wealth of his own possibilities. History is full of the acts of men who discovered somewhat of their own capacity; but history has yet to record the man who fully discovered all that he might have been.”

You who are a bit vain of your visits to other lands, your wide reading, your experience of men and things; you who secretly lament that so little of what you have seen and read remains with you, behold, your “acres of diamonds” are within you, needing but the mystic formula that shall reveal the treasure!

Chapter III

The Mechanism of Recall

Somehow, somewhere, all experiences, whether subject to voluntary recall or not, are preserved, and are capable of reproduction when the right stimulus comes along.

And it is a law that _those experiences which are associated with each other, whether ideas, emotions or voluntary or involuntary muscular movements, tend to become bound together into groups, and these groups tend to become bound together into systems_.

Such a system of associated groups of experiences is technically known as a “complex.”

Pay particular attention to these definitions, as “groups” of ideas and “complexes” of ideas, emotions and muscular movements are terms that we shall constantly employ.

You learned in a former lesson that mental experiences may consist not only of sense-perceptions based on excitements arising in the memory nerves, but also of bodily emotions, the “feeling tones” of ideas, and of muscular movements based on stimuli arising in the motor nerves.

_Groups consist, therefore, not only of associated ideas, but of associated ideas coupled with their emotional qualities and impulses to muscular movements._

All groups bound together by a mutually related idea constitute a single “complex.” Every memory you have is an illustration of such “complexes.”

Suppose, for example, you once gained success in a business deal. Your recollection of the other persons concerned in that transaction, of any one detail in the transaction itself, will be accompanied by the faster heartbeat, the quickened circulation of the blood, the feeling of triumph and elation that attended the original experience.

Complexes formed out of harrowing earthquakes, robberies, murders or other dreadful spectacles, which were originally accompanied on the part of the onlooker by trembling, perspiration and palpitation of the heart, when lived over again in memory, are again accompanied by all these bodily activities. Your memory of a hairbreadth escape will bring to your cheek the pallor that marked it when the incident occurred.

The formation and existence of “complexes” explains the origin of many functional diseases of the body–that is to say, diseases involving no loss or destruction of tissue, but consisting simply in a failure on the part of some bodily organ to perform its allotted function naturally and effectively.

Thus, in hay fever or “rose cold” the tears, the inflammation of the membranes of the nose, the cough, the other trying symptoms, all are linked with the sight of a rose, or dust, or sunlight, or some other outside fact to which attention has been called as the cause of hay fever, into a complex, “an automatically working mechanism.” And the validity of this explanation of the regular recurrence of attacks of this disease is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that a paper rose is likely to prove just as effective in producing all the symptoms of the disease as a rose out of Nature’s garden.

Another striking illustration of the working of this principle is afforded by two gentlemen of my acquaintance, brothers, each of whom since boyhood has had unfailing attacks of sneezing upon first arising in the morning. No sooner is one of these men awake and seated upon the edge of his bed for dressing than he begins to sneeze, and he continues to sneeze for fifteen or twenty minutes thereafter, although he has no “cold” and never sneezes at any other time.

Obviously, if absolutely all mental experiences are preserved, they consist altogether of two broad classes of complexes: first, those that are momentarily _active in consciousness_, forming part of the present mental picture, and, second, all the others–that is to say, all past experiences that are _not at the present moment before the mind’s eye_.

There are, then, _conscious_ complexes and _subconscious_ complexes, complexes of _consciousness_ and complexes of _subconsciousness_.

And of the complexes of subconsciousness, some are far more readily recalled than others. Some are forever popping into one’s thoughts, while others can be brought to the light of consciousness only by some unusual and deep-probing stimulus. And _the human mind is a vast storehouse of complexes, far the greater part buried in subconsciousness_, yet somehow, like impressions on the wax cylinder of a phonograph, preserved with life-like truth and clearness.

Turn back for a moment to our definition of memory. You will observe that its second essential element is Recall.

Recall is the process by which the experiences of the past are summoned from the reservoir of the subconscious into the light of present consciousness. We necessarily touched upon this process in a previous book, in considering the Laws of Association, but here, in relation to memory, we shall go into the matter somewhat more analytically.

Chapter IV

The Laws of Recall

Law I. The primary law of recall is this: _The recurrence or stimulation of one element in a complex tends to recall all the others._

In our explanation of “complex” formation we necessarily cited instances that illustrate this principle as well, since _recall is merely a reverse operation from that involved in “complex” formation_.

For example, in running through a book I come upon a flower pressed between its pages. At once the memory of the friend who gave it to me springs into consciousness and becomes the subject of reminiscence. This recalls the mountain village where we last met. This recalls the fact that a railroad was at the time under process of construction, which should transform the village into a popular resort. This in turn suggests my coming trip to the seashore, and I am reminded of a business appointment on which my ability to leave town on the appointed day depends. And so on indefinitely.

Far the greater part of your successive states of consciousness, or even of your ordinary “thinking,” commonly so-called, consists of trains of mental pictures “suggested” one by another. If the associated pictures are of the everyday type, common to everyone, you have a prosaic mind; if, on the other hand, the associations are unusual or unique, you are happily possessed of wit and fancy.

These instances of the action of the Law of Recall illustrate but one phase of its activity. They show simply that groups of ideas are so strung together on the string of some common element that _the activity of one “group” in consciousness is apt to be automatically followed by the others. But the law of association goes deeper than this. It enters into the activity of every individual group, and causes all the elements of every group, ideas, emotions and impulses to muscular movements, to be simultaneously manifested._

There is no principle to which we shall more continually refer than this one. Our explanation of hay fever a moment ago illustrates our meaning. Get the principle clearly in your mind, and see how many instances of its operation you can yourself supply from your own daily experience.

So far as the mere linking together of groups of ideas is concerned, this classifying quality is developed in some persons to a greater degree than in others. It finds its extreme exemplar in the type of man who can never relate an incident without reciting all the prolix and minute details and at the same time wandering far from the original subject in pursuit of every suggested idea.

Law II. _Similarity and nearness in time or space between two experiential facts causes the thought of one to tend to recall the thought of the other._

This is the Associative Law of Contiguity considered from the standpoint of recall. The points of contiguity are different for different individuals. Similarities and nearnesses will awaken all sorts of associated groups of ideas in one person that are not at all excitable in the same way in another whose experiences have been different.

Law III. _The greater the frequency and intensity of any given experience, the greater the ease and likelihood of its reproduction and recall._

This explains why certain groups in any complex are more readily recalled than others–why some leap forth unbidden, why some come next and before others, why some arrive but tardily or not at all.

This is how the associative Laws of Habit and Intensity affect the power of recall.

* * * * *

There is no department of business to which the application of these Laws of Recall is so apparent as the department of advertising. The most carefully worded and best-illustrated advertisement may fail to pay its cost unless the underlying principles of choice of position, selection of medium and size of space are understood. The advertisers in metropolitan newspapers and magazines of large circulation are the ones who have most at stake. But whatever the field to be reached, it is well to bear in mind certain facts based on the Laws of Recall that have been established by psychological experiment.

Most advertisers have a general idea that certain relative positions on the newspaper or magazine page are to be preferred over others, but they have no conception of the real differences in relative recall value. When the great cost of space in large publications is considered the financial value of such knowledge is evident.

By a great number of tests the relative recall value of every part of the newspaper page has been approximately determined. It has been found, for example, that a given space at the upper right-hand corner of the page has more than twice the value of the same amount of space in the lower left-hand corner.

Many advertisers adopt the policy of repeating full-page advertisements at long intervals instead of advertising in a small way continually. Laboratory tests have shown, on the contrary, that a quarter-page advertisement appearing in four successive issues of a newspaper is fifty per cent more effective than a full-page advertisement appearing only once. It does not follow, however, that an eighth-page advertisement repeated eight times is correspondingly more effective; for below a certain relative size the value of an advertisement decreases much more rapidly than the cost. There are, of course, modifying conditions, such as special sales of department stores, where occasional displays and announcements make it desirable to use either full pages, or even double pages, but the great bulk of advertising is not of this character.

Every year in the United States alone six hundred millions of dollars are expended in advertising the sale of commodities, and for the most part expended in a haphazard, experimental and unscientific way. The investment of this vast sum with risk of perhaps total loss, or even possible injury, through the faulty construction or improper placing of advertisements should stimulate the interest of every advertiser in the work that psychologists have done and are doing toward the accumulation of a body of exact knowledge on this subject.

Chapter V

The Science of Forgetting

Attention is the instrumentality through which the Laws of Recall operate. Wittingly or unwittingly, consciously or unconsciously, every man’s attention swings in automatic obedience to the Laws of Recall.

Attention is the artisan that, bit by bit, and with lightning quickness, constructs the mosaic of consciousness.

Having the whole vast store of all present and past experiences to draw upon, he selects only those groups and those isolated instances that are related to our general interests and aims. He disregards others.

The attention operates in a manner complementary to the general Laws of Recall. It is an active principle not of association, but of _dissociation_.

You choose, for example, a certain aim in life. You decide to become the inventor of an aeroplane of automatic stability. This choice henceforth determines two things. First, it determines just which of the sensory experiences of any given moment are most likely to be selected for your conscious perception. Secondly, it determines just which of your past experiences will be most likely to be recalled.

Such a choice, in other words, determines to some extent the sort of elements that will most probably be selected to make up at any moment the contents of your consciousness.

From the instant that you make such a choice you are on the alert for facts relevant to the subject of your ambition. Upon them you concentrate your attention. They are presented to your consciousness with greater precision and clearness than other facts. All facts that pertain to the art of flying henceforth cluster and cling to your conscious memory like iron filings to a magnet. All that are impertinent to this main pursuit are dissociated from these intensely active complexes, and in time fade into subconscious forgetfulness.

By subconscious forgetfulness we mean a _compartment_, as it were, of that reservoir in which all past experiences are stored.

_Consciousness is a momentary thing._ It is a passing state. It is ephemeral and flitting. It is made up _in part of present sense-impressions_ and in part of past experiences. These past experiences are brought forth from subconsciousness. Some are voluntarily brought forth. Some present themselves without our conscious volition, but by the operation of the laws of association and dissociation. Some we seem unable voluntarily to recall, yet they may appear when least we are expecting them. It is these last to which we have referred as lost in subconscious forgetfulness. As a matter of fact, _none_ are ever actually _lost_.

All the wealth of your past experience is still yours–a concrete part of your personality. All that is required to make it available for your present use is a sufficient concentration of your attention, _a concentration of attention that shall dwell persistently and exclusively upon those associations that bear upon the fact desired_.

The tendency of the mind toward dissociation, a function limiting the indiscriminate recall of associated “groups,” is also manifested in all of us in the transfer to unconsciousness of many _muscular activities_.

As infants we learn to walk only by giving to every movement of the limbs the most deliberate conscious attention. Yet, in time, the complicated co-operation of muscular movements involved in walking becomes involuntary and unconscious, so that we are no longer even aware of them.

It is the same with reading, writing, playing upon musical instruments, the manipulation of all sorts of mechanical devices, the thousand and one other muscular activities that become what we call _habitual_.

The moment one tries to make these habitual activities again dependent on the conscious will he encounters difficulties.

“The centipede was happy quite, Until the toad, for fun, Said, ‘Pray which leg goes after which?’ This stirred his mind to such a pitch, He lay distracted in a ditch, Considering _how_ to run.”

_All these habitual activities are started as acts of painstaking care and conscious attention. All ultimately become unconscious._ They may, however, be started or stopped at will. They are, therefore, still related to the conscious mind. They occupy a semi-automatic middle ground between conscious and subconscious activities.

Chapter VI

The Fallacy of Most Memory Systems

It is evident that if what we have been describing as the process of recall is true, then the commonly accepted idea that _practice_ in memorizing makes memorizing _easier_ is false, and that there is no truth in the popular figure of speech that likens the memory to a muscle that grows stronger with use.

So far as the memory is concerned, however, practice may result in a more or less unconscious improvement in the _methods_ of memorizing.

_By practice we come to unconsciously discover and employ new associative methods in our recording of facts, making them easier to recall, but we can certainly add nothing to the actual scope and power of retention._

Yet many books on memory-training have wide circulation whose authors, showing no conception of the processes involved, seek to develop the general ability to remember by incessant practice in memorizing particular facts, just as one would develop a muscle by exercise.

The following is quoted from a well-known work of this character:

“I am now treating a case of loss of memory in a person advanced in years, who did not know that his memory had failed most remarkably until I told him of it. He is making vigorous efforts to bring it back again, and with partial success. The method pursued is to spend two hours daily, one in the morning and one in the evening, in exercising this faculty. The patient is instructed to give the closest attention to all that he learns, so that it shall be impressed on his mind clearly. He is asked to recall every evening all the facts and experiences of the day, and again the next morning. Every name heard is written down and impressed on his mind clearly and an effort made to recall it at intervals. Ten names from among public men are ordered to be committed to memory every week. A verse of poetry is to be learned, also a verse from the Bible, daily. He is asked to remember the number of the page of any book where any interesting fact is recorded. These and _other_ methods are slowly resuscitating a failing memory.”

As remarked by Professor James, “It is hard to believe that the memory of the poor old gentleman is a bit the better for all this torture except in respect to the particular facts thus wrought into it, the occurrences attended to and repeated on those days, the names of those politicians, those Bible verses, etc., etc.”

The error in the book first quoted from lies in the fact that its author looks upon a failing memory as indicating a loss of retentiveness. The _real_ cause is the loss of an intensity of interest. _It is the failure to form sufficiently large groups and complexes of related ideas, emotions and muscular movements associated with the particular fact to be remembered. There is no reason to believe that the retention of sensory experiences is not at all times perfectly mechanical and mechanically perfect._

Interest is a mental yearning. It is the offspring of desire and the mother of memory.

It goes out spontaneously to anything that can add to the sum of one’s knowledge about the thing desired.

A manufactured interest is counterfeit. When a thing is done because it has to be done, desire dies and “duty” is born. In proportion as a subject is associated with “duty,” it is divorced from interest.

If you want to impress anything on another man’s mind so that he will remember it, harness it up with the lure of a desire.

Diffused interest is the cause of all unprofitable forgetfulness. Do not allow your attention to grope vaguely among a number of things. Whatever you do, make a business of doing it with your whole soul. Turn the spotlight of your mind upon it, and you will not forget it.

Chapter VII

A Scientific Memory System for Business Success

We recall things by their associates. _When you set your mind to remember any particular fact, your conscious effort should be not vaguely to will that it shall be impressed and retained, but analytically and deliberately to connect it with one or more other facts already in your mind._

The student who “crams” for an examination makes no permanent addition to his knowledge. There can be no recall without association, and “cramming” allows no time to form associations.

If you find it difficult to remember a fact or a name, do not waste your energies in “willing” it to return. Try to recall some other fact or name associated with the first in time or place or otherwise, and lo! when you least expect it, it will pop into your thoughts.

If your memory is good in most respects, but poor in a particular line, it is because you do not interest yourself in that line, and therefore have no material for association. Blind Tom’s memory was a blank on most subjects, but he was a walking encyclopedia on music.

_To improve your memory you must increase the number and variety of your mental associations._

Many ingenious methods, scientifically correct, have been devised to aid in the remembering of particular facts. These methods are based wholly on the principle that _that is most easily recalled which is associated in our minds with the most complex and elaborate groupings of related ideas_.

Thus, Pick, in “Memory and Its Doctors,” among other devices, presents a well-known “figure-alphabet” as of aid in remembering numbers. Each figure of the Arabic notation is represented by one or more letters, and the number to be recalled is translated into such letters as can best be arranged into a catch word or phrase. To quote: “The most common figure-alphabet is this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 t n m r l sh g f b s d j k v p o ch c g qu z

“To briefly show its use, suppose it is desired to fix 1,142 feet in a second as the velocity of sound, t, t, r, n, are the letters and order required. Fill up with vowels forming a phrase like ‘tight run’ and connect it by some such flight of the imagination as that if a man tried to keep up with the velocity of sound, he would have a ‘tight run.'”

The same principle is at the basis of all efficient pedagogy. The competent teacher endeavors by some association of ideas to link every new fact with those facts which the pupil already has acquired.

In the pursuit of this method the teacher will “compare all that is far off and foreign to something that is near home, making the unknown plain by the example of the known, and connecting all the instruction with the personal experience of the pupil–if the teacher is to explain the distance of the sun from the earth, let him ask, ‘If anyone there in the sun fired off a cannon straight at you, what should you do?’ ‘Get out of the way,’ would be the answer. ‘No need of that,’ the teacher might reply; ‘you may quietly go to sleep in your room and get up again; you may wait till your confirmation day, you may learn a trade, and grow as old as I am–_then only_ will the cannon-ball be getting near, _then_ you may jump to one side! See, so great as that is the sun’s distance!'”

We shall now show you how to apply this principle in improving your memory and in making a more complete use of your really vast store of knowledge.

Rule I. _Make systematic use of your sense-organs._

Do you find it difficult to remember names? It is because you do not link them in your mind with enough associations. Every time a man is introduced to you, look about you. Who is present? Take note of as many and as great a variety of surrounding facts and circumstances as possible. Think of the man’s name, and take another look at his face, his dress, his physique. Think of his name, and at the same time his voice and manner. Think of his name, and mark the place where you are now for the first time meeting him. Think of his name in conjunction with the name and personality of the friend who presented him.

Memory is not a distinct faculty of mind in the sense that one man is generously endowed in that respect while another is deficient. Memory, as meaning the power of voluntary recall, is wholly a question of trained habits of mental operation. Your memory is just as good as mine or any other man’s. It is your indifference to what you would call “irrelevant facts” that is at fault. Therefore, cultivate habits of observation. Fortify the observed facts you wish to recall with a multitude of outside associations. Never rest with a mere halfway knowledge of things.

To assist you in training yourself in those habits of observation that make a good memory of outside facts, we append the following exercises:

_a._ Walk slowly through a room with which you are not familiar. Then make a list of all the contents of the room you can recall. Do this every day for a week, using a different room each time. Do it not half-heartedly, but as if your life depended on your ability to remember. At the end of the week you will be surprised at the improvement you have made.

_b._ As you walk along the street, observe all that occurs in a space of one block, things heard as well as things seen. Two hours later make a list of all you can recall. Do this twice a day for ten days. Then compare results.

_c._ Make a practice of recounting each night the incidents of the day. The prospect of having this to do will cause you unconsciously to observe more attentively.

This is the method by which Thurlow Weed acquired his phenomenal memory. As a young man with political ambitions he had been much troubled by his inability to recall names and faces. So he began the practice each night of telling his wife the most minute details of incidents that had occurred during the day. He kept this up for fifty years, and it so trained his powers of observation that he became as well known for his unfailing memory as for his political adroitness.

_d._ Glance once at an outline map of some State. Put it out of sight and draw one as nearly like it as you can. Then compare it with the original. Do this frequently.

_e._ Have some one read you a sentence out of a book and you then repeat it. Do this daily, gradually increasing the length of the quotation from short sentences to whole paragraphs. Try to find out what is the extreme limit of your ability in this respect compared with that of other members of your family.

Rule II. _Fix ideas by their associates._

There are other things to be remembered besides facts of outside observation. You are not one whose life is passed entirely in a physical world. You live also within. Your mind is unceasingly at work with the materials of the past painting the pictures of the future. You are called upon to scheme, to plan, to devise, to invent, to compose and to foresee.

If all this mental work is not wasted energy, you must be able to recall its conclusions when occasion requires. A happy thought comes to you–will you remember it tomorrow when the hour for action arrives? There is but one way to be sure, and that is by making a study of the whole associative mental process.

Review the train of ideas by which you reached your conclusion. Carry the thought on in mind to its legitimate conclusion. See yourself acting upon it. Mark its relations to other persons. Note all the details of the mental picture. In other words, to remember thoughts, cultivate thought-observation just as you cultivate sense-observation to remember outside matters.

To train yourself in thought-memory, use the following exercises:

_a._ Every morning at eight o’clock, sharp on the minute, fix upon a certain idea and determine to recall it at a certain hour during the day. Put your whole will into this resolution. Try to imagine what activities you will be engaged in at the appointed hour, and think of the chosen idea as identified with those activities. Associate it in your mind with some object that will be at hand when the set time comes. Having thus fixed the idea in your mind, forget it. Do not refer to it in your thoughts. With practice you will find yourself automatically carrying out your own orders. Persist in this exercise for at least three months.

_b._ Every night when you retire fix upon the hour at which you wish to get up in the morning. In connection with your waking at that hour, think of all the sounds that will be apt to be occurring at that particular time. Bar every other thought from your consciousness and fall asleep with the intense determination to arise at the time set. By all means, get up instantly when you awaken. Keep up this exercise and you will soon be able to awaken at any hour you may wish.

_c._ Every morning outline the general plan of your activities for the day. Select only the important things. Do not bother with the details. Determine upon the logical order for your day’s work. Think not so much of _how_ you are to do things as of the _things_ you are to do. Keep your mind on results. And having made your plan, stick to it. Be your own boss. Let nothing tempt you from your set purpose. Make this daily planning a habit and hold to it through life. It will give you a great lift toward whatever prize you seek. Rule III. _Search systematically and persistently._

When once you have started upon an effort at recollection, persevere. The date or face or event that you wish to recall _is bound up with a multitude of other facts of observation and of your mind life_ of the past. Success in recalling it depends simply upon your ability _to hit upon some idea so indissolubly associated with the object of search that the recall of one automatically recalls the other_. Consequently the thing to do is to hold your attention to one definite line of thought until you have exhausted its possibilities. You must pass in review all the associated matters and suppress or ignore them until the right one comes to mind. This may be a short-cut process or a roundabout process, but it will bring results nine times out of ten, and if habitually persisted in will greatly improve your power of voluntary recall.

Rule IV. _The instant you recollect a thing to be done, do it._

Every idea that memory thrusts into your consciousness carries with it the impulse to act upon it. If you fail to do so, the matter may not again occur to you, or when it does it may be too late.

_Your mental mechanism will serve you faithfully only as long as you act upon its suggestions._

This is as true of bodily habits as of business affairs. The time to act upon an important matter that just now comes to mind is not “tomorrow” or a “little later,” but _NOW_.

What you do from moment to moment tells the story of your career. Ideas that come to you should be compared as to their relative importance. But do this honestly. Do not be swayed by distracting impulses that inadvertently slip in. And having gauged their importance give free rein at once to the impulse to do everything that should not make way for something more important.

If, for any reason, action must be deferred, fix the matter in your mind to be called up at the proper time. Drive all other thoughts from your consciousness. Give your whole attention to this one matter. Determine the exact moment at which you wish it to be recalled. Then put your whole self into the determination to remember it at precisely the right moment. And finally, and perhaps most important of all,–

Rule V. _Have some sign or token._ This memory signal may be anything you choose, but it must somehow be directly connected with the hour at which the main event is to be recalled.

Make a business of observing the memory signs or tokens you have been habitually using. Practice tagging those matters you wish to recall with the labels that form a part of your mental machinery.

Make it a habit to do things when they ought to be done and in the order in which you ought to do them. Habits like this are “paths” along which the mind “moves,” paths of least resistance to those qualities of promptness, energy, persistence, accuracy, self-control, and so on, that create success.

Success in business, success in life, can come only through the formation of right habits. A right habit can be deliberately acquired only by _doing a thing consciously until it comes to be done unconsciously and automatically_.

Every man, consciously or unconsciously, forms his own memory habits, good or bad. Form your memory habits consciously according to the laws of the mind, and in good time they will act unconsciously and with masterful precision.

“‘Amid the shadows of the pyramids,’ Bonaparte said to his soldiers, ‘twenty centuries look down upon you,’ and animated them to action and victory. But all the centuries,” says W.H. Grove, “and the eternities, and God, and the universe, look down upon us–and demand the highest culture of body, mind and spirit.”

A good memory is yours for the making. But _you_ must make it. We can point the way. _You_ must act.

The laws of Association and Recall are the combination that will unlock the treasure-vaults of memory. Apply these laws, and the riches of experience will be available to you in every need.

* * * * *

The purpose of this book has been to make clear certain mental principles and processes, namely, those of Retention, Association and Recall. Incidentally, as with every book in this _Course_, it contains some facts and instructions of immediate practical utility. But primarily it is intended only to help prepare your mind to understand a scientific system for success-achievement that will be unfolded in subsequent volumes.

[pigeonfancier]

Heart updates! Finally got the heart monitor off a week or so ago, which was great, because first set of adhesives were melting my fucking skin. The company were sweethearts and sent me new adhesives, which.. were fine for the first week, and then started doing the same, because adhesives are just fucking hell. Thankfully, it’s all healed over well, haha, and it was kind of worth it.

I am perpetually in a state of mild suspicion towards my own experiences, because - am I genuinely uncomfortable, or am I just easily bothered? Am I in pain, or am I just wallowing? But now I have ~*official results*~, and validation that my heart does not like filling up properly, that does hurt like hell, and the wiring is kind of fucked for reasons that I’m going to have to do more tests for. And the wiring is fucked in a way that does not, remarkably~!, resolve itself by “growing out of it” (at 30, somehow). Validation of the issue.. and validation that a lot of doctors are fucking assholesss.

Also, confirmation that I probably do nooot have any of the “you will drop dead” issues from this gene, so woo (knock on wood). It’s progressive, so I have to keep coming in for fucking ever, I guess, but like a lot of things, it’s just a case of monitoring, and slapping on some duct tape as soon as problems present. So that’s nice.

But: more tests! Once my insurance approves them, anyway, because they’re generally fairly great, but they’ve got a bee up their ass over wanting the tests done in a specific order. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, if it weren’t for the fact my cardio wants it all done at a specific hospital, and the waitlist for that.. already has the most accessible test scheduled for the end of April. And it wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t decide they only wanted tests in a specific order twenty four hours before I went in for a test.

I was kind of banking on the idea I’d have all of these tests done by July, and either have a pacemaker or medication to knock out this issue, whichever fucking one, but. I refuse to be stressed over this, haha. It’ll get resolved, they’ll fix this up, and then I guess.. they’ll test me for POTS, because my view of that remains “this is irrelevant to the greater issue and idgaf”, but they really want to. So at this point, I will roll with what-the-fuck-ever they want if they can fix the overall issue, tbhhh.

In related news:  my mother remains batshit, which I generally expect, but I am still a little mystified by. Cutting this section, because She Is A Lot.

She’s spent my entire life arguing that I do not have any cardiac problems! Several family members and myself remember that I went to a cardiologist as a kid, but it’s about 25/75 on if she’ll actually admit that, and her stories do not stay consistent. When I got the genetic test saying, hey, heart issue!, she was dismissive of it, and the past year or so has been her consistently trying to pick fights with people who mentioned it, arguing that everyone has heart issues and I should get over mine because it was getting very inconvenient, and occasionally inpromptu informing me that, actually, this is all caused by a lack of exercise, or some other spontaneous decision she pulled out of her ass. Or from not eating enough, because I have chronic pancreatitis.. but perhaps I don’t actually have that, and I’m just food-averse?

Ignore the hundreds of dollars of cooking supplies and huge chunks of time just fucking around and experimenting with recipes, I suppose.

It’s been whatever! I am long, long past the point where her opinions hold weight for me, beyond occasional fits of outrage. But once my sister got confirmed as having the same heart issue on a different scale, and once tests started coming in for me, she has switched tracks.. to saying that she has a heart issue, too, and it’s like mine, but with higher spikes! And she just never noticed it, because it just happens, and it’s really quite easy to ignore, but she guesses she’ll go to a cardiologist, just to see --

We inherited the problem gene from her, and her entire family does have severe heart issues - and she herself has aneurysm issues - but I’m unimpressed. Between that and her flipflopping from “you don’t have allergies!” to “well, if you have allergies, then I probably have allergies, so I should ALSO start telling people I should avoid your allergens (of the food that I do not like, do not eat, and do not have any desire to eat)” this year, I’m just lifting my hands from that entire topic. When she brings it up, I’ve been just telling her to go talk to her doctor, get tests, and then disengaging from the topic, because.. man, haha. There’s a lot going on there, and I do not have the psychiatric degree nor the inclination to really dig into this beyond the side-long “huh, these problems really are only relevant when they can impact her, huh?”.

My dad is a little better, at least! He had a panic attack when I told him about all of this, haha, which was.. something, but now he’s taken up just consistently texting me reminders on everything. Have I eaten recently? Have I gotten electrolytes? I should go drink some Gatoraid. Have I taken my meds? GO TAKE MY MEDS. Remember if I’m going out to drink some electrolytes!

He’s kind of a pain in a different sort of way about all of this health shit, but I do appreciate the fact I don’t have to really second-guess him much - when he’s being an asshole, it’s pretty on the nose. And he’s being genuinely helpful, because I do forget shit a lot on bad days, so. #okay!

[pigeonfancier]

Going to the cardiologists has paid off! Heart block showed up on the ECG, so I’ve got a heart monitor on for a month in addition to various testing to see what kind. I have no fucking idea if this is related to the AVRC/DGS2 shit or not! Appointment with the specialists for that is next week or so, so we’ll see then. I could go ahead and research now, but the more I am told about all of this, the less I give the slightest fuck about anything short of a solution.

But it is sort of funny, because one of the baby cousins has a complete heart block that her mother insisted was not genetic, and which I said:

I thought it was dumb to the point of flatly just banning discussion of it, so don’t I just have egg on my fucking face now?

Oh, well. Progress! And now I get to feel a little more ~*valid*~ in my general malaise. It can feel very silly to not manage the pancreatitis through horse-doses of tylenol and caffeinated beverages, when there are things that need to be done, but no amount of pop is going to wake me up if signals are just jumping fucking wires, haha.

Although high salinity can carry electrical currents, so maybe if I just waterboarded myself in very salty pop --

[pigeonfancier]

Also, I wanted to toss up life updates, so loose ones:

One of my friends has been gently nudging me, much in the same manner as a baby goat headbutting someone playfully can be deemed ‘gentle’, about opening up commissions or adoptables. So I’ll probably dip my feet into that particular pool again, haha. It’s less out of some dire need, and more that I want really weird baking supplies and incredibly silly shit, but I don’t like spending money on things that I will use once, potentially, before discovering I’m allergic to it.

Because man, that’s happened a lot. I would love to be bougie and fully embrace new flavour extracts, and powdered tropical fruit, and sugar replacements, and and and - but spending $10-20 dollars on a tiny bag that, as it turns out, gives me hives, is less than ideal for my budget. It can be slotted in! But I don’t want to slot it in, haha. The first time, it was funny! The sixth time, I am just irritably aware of exactly how much cash I’m functionally giving away to whatever non-allergic, culinary-adventurous souls I can find to take this shit.

Ergo: fuck around money, I suppose, for grains of paradise, fermented locust beans, and the Benadryl I’ll probably have to chug afterwards.

On medical shit: I’ve found out, aggravatingly, that most doctors simply do not want to deal with AVRC.But it turns out getting an appointment canceled 24 hours before, because the doctor didn’t read your chart, is the good end!

The bad end is going in to an appointment, having the doctor ask why you’re in, and then having him inform you that he would not have accepted you as a patient if he’d read your chart (because he did not) (AT ALL) is the bad end! Because did my insurance still get charged for this? Of course it did, lol, I guess that’s the fucking benefit of waiting until the patient is in to read their shit.

But other appointments, other doctors! I’ve decided arbitrarily I will get all of this done and neatly tied up by the end of the year, so I refuse to get frustrated over this. It is a momentarily irritating pothole in the road, but it will work out.

[pigeonfancier]

I've banned myself from complaining too much about health shit at this point, because it just spikes up my heart rate, but the biggest medical snafu I've experienced in a good fucking while, in a lifetime of fun medical snafus:

Opening up my pediatric MyChart and discovering that my shit pediatrician not only listed my 'hives, swelling and difficulty breathing' allergies wrt soy, penicillin and latex as 'multiple allergies' (with no description of what these allergies are, because ofc not).

.. only is her random-ass 'generalised anxiety disorder' diagnosis that she never mentioned to me still on there..

.. but she also merged part of my mother's file into mine, so now:

I do not have chronic kidney disease, for the record, and I sure as fuck don't have STAGE 4 GFR 15 TWO SECONDS FROM DIALYSIS chronic kidney disease. (ftr, my mother's gfr is now 28 and has maintained at that since around 2019, so she thankfully is no longer two seconds from dialysis! yay, aggressive lifestyle changes, meds and good fucking luck, lol)

So if I don't like this cardiologist, I think I'm going to call and throw a massive fucking shitfit to the medical network, because what the fuck is HIPAA? Apparently I just don't know! I'm hesitant to kick up a fuss with any networks that I'm still in, though, so.. we'll see.

I think this is also the medical network that really loved to change my race on paperwork every third visit, despite the fact they shouldn't be touching the patients' clearly stated race, so they're just something. I was so glad to be out of their network, but maybe I'll fix this shit up and find out they're infinitely better now? Maybe! MAYBE.

[pigeonfancier]

Medical shit:

Generally, I'm used to racism issues popping up with medicine! Welcome to America, etc etc. But - heart condition means that all of my immediate family gets free genetic testing to make sure they also don't have this. My father, sister and mother got tested around the same time.

My test took about a month to get back - sent it in mid-July, doctor signed off his read at the end of August, I got it back sometime during October.

My mother's took one fucking week. My father and sisters' are both still processing - at least, my sister's reads as "processing", I don't have my father's log in to check.

But SURREAL.

Also surreal, my mother:

I waver between being very angry at my parents, sometimes, over all of my medical issues that I'm having to deal with now, and sometimes just not really giving a shit! They had a ton of medical bills when I was a kid - my mother had an aneurysm and a stroke, I had several throat surgeries, the heart issues, and then dyslexic ball of issues on top of that, the economy was bad, it's all very whatever.

But it's very grating that all of my cardiology issues - despite going to a cardiologist repeatedly! - got largely dismissed as my being a huge hypochondriac, or a sign that I had gotten myself too wound up and overexcited, or as a sign I was on a growth spurt.

I was like 4'9" at 13 years old, I was not on a growth spurt, lmao

I figured out by the time I hit 19 or so that the best method of dealing with that was just not to mention health issues, except to my sister.

I still abide by this! My parents get information if it's relevant to them, or if it's going to impact me enough to be noticeable to others. It's whatever. So, they got informed about the heart shit, my mother got tested, her test is already back, and.. she has it! Terrible! Hate that for her! But semi-expected, because I got it from her side of the family, much like every. other. fucking. health problem. I have.

Yesterday, in the course of one two hour long, largely-her-monologuing conversation, I was reminded why I do not talk about medical shit with her, because:

Her: oh, poor [niece's son] probably has this heart problem, too! he was out playing soccer, and he got winded, and everyone said it was fine, but that's really quite alarming, so I told her that she needs to get him checked!

Her: well, just because you have the gene doesn't mean that you have any symptoms or issues from it! It could just be that you're having problems due to your diet. Or maybe your heart problems are just from your pancreatitis?

Her: everyone always said my heart issues were from rheumatic fever, but this would actually make a lot of sense if they were symptoms of this!

Her: And [niece] always had to go and take a long nap after she attended PE class, so I wonder if she has it? And [sister] has always gotten very tired, and very winded after doing things..

Her: well, you get very winded, but that's probably because deconditioning! we don't exercise enough, so if you exercised more, you'd probably stop getting winded after you exercise.

Her: oh, it also said that people shouldn't get stressed if they have this! I guess I'll have to watch my stress levels, haha!

Her: what cardiologist are you using? I'll ask [GP] for a referral to him! or, well.. you have to get a referral, but I can just walk in and get an appointment. So I guess I'll do that! But you need to get a referral. He hasn't sent you a referral yet, right?

I am the only one in this family that has had it confirmed I have this, have symptoms from this, and need to be assessed on the severity of this, but okay, lmao.

At least bluntly ignoring her whenever she tried to bring up "have you considered just trying to eat more meat to cure your pancreatitis? I know you say you can't really break down proteins well, but your brother suggested --" has lessened the diet talk on the whole, but guess it had to sneak back in eventually.

I am glad I'm dealing with this now that I'm older, though, instead of in my early to mid 20's, haha. I used to take her POV a lot more seriously, because she used to work in the medical field. But thank fucking god for ageing, and remembering that she largely views anyone else's health problems through the lense of how much of a bother they would be for her.

[pigeonfancier]

The male bias in my family is sometimes subtle, and sometimes not! Sort of grimly amused by the fact that - my cousin's young son has gotten diagnosed with the same fainting issues I have! Maybe caused by long covid, maybe caused by genetics, who knows. I told my father about this the other night. He was a little surprised!

Then he said: "- oh, right, I forgot! I decided to bring my fitness watch to work, since we're climbing the eight flights every day, and the guy I'm working with did too! And my heart rate was only 111BPM when we got to the top, and his was only 135BPM.. which means that your 170 shit really is super fucking high, huh?"

Reminder, this has been going on since fucking April.

I do enjoy the rare bouts of acknowledgement of the fact my parents are somewhat aware the from-birth cardiac issues are still a thing! You'd think the extensive cardiology bills from my childhood would have stuck, but lol.

[pigeonfancier]

Health health health, probably going to be griping about shit until.. January or so, at the earliest. But hopefully not after!

Current state of the Mar:

Have to call my doctor and shriek at him. I love shrieking at medical practictioners! This is definitely my favorite thing! And I feel bad, because everyone's overworked, his practice is currently understaffed, everyone's tired and every doctor has endless kids coming in right now with RSV and the flu and fucking covid right now, but it takes five minutes.

I'm going to have to do an EKG and a fucking. Chest monitor that I wear for several days? Apparently, no one wants me to do a stress test, because everyone keeps reminding me of the "sudden heart failure" risk of anything that gets my heart amped up. Except the cardiologist may have me do a stress test! Except I'm not supposed to let the cardiologist have me do a stress test, because as it's been emphasized heavily to me, risk of sudden heart failure. Great! Love it. Definitely not stressful.

So, ofc, my mother has surgery in December! Minor surgery, on the 22nd, but it'll involve hanging out with her all day at the hospital. Which is fine, and it should be minor, and I'm not flipping out too much, except -

She is now stressed! Which she can and she should be, surgery sucks and is scary! But that means she keeps trying to make it my problem that she's stressed! Which is managable in just not letting her make it my problem, but I do not need her flip-flopping between that insurance may not cover this for her (it will - if it does not, we will pay for it - her not getting surgery is not on the table), and between to dismiss my cardiac issues (whatever, lifelong thing, I am great at ignoring!), and between trying to start fights with my father, my sister, random strangers, and probably her own fucking shadow (the solution to which is Just Fucking Ignoring It).

But even ignoring, the combo of her having to get surgery + more analysis, of me having to deal with all this medical shit on my end and this stupid fucking medical system, my general absolute dislike of Christmas/Thanksgiving as concepts, and Even More Fun And Feisty Facts - the combo of all of that has my heart kicking off like it is a four year old who's bee give a drum and a drumstick for the first time in their life, and they are determined to beat it until it fucking breaks.

And cardiac pain is pretty normal for me! I have it.. probably four or so days out of a week, on-and-off, and have since I was a kid. It does not really bother me or strike me as noteworthy. I have been informed all of my life that it's probably normal and fine, don't worry about it.

Except now medical practictioners keep telling me that it could be a sign of sudden cardiac failure.

And NOW IT'S KIND OF BOTHERING ME. FOR SOME REASON. Because I am young and bold and this is very normalised to me, so I'm not very worried about it in reality? But I do not appreciate looking at very severe chest pain days that I've had before, and having to go: huh, what, was that me getting lucky and just straining some bit, instead of fucking snapping it?

Getting some tea and redirecting this anxiety, because frothing like an overboiling pot over any of this is helping exactly no one, but MAN.

[pigeonfancier]

I keep complaining about medical shit, and I'm thoroughly tired of complaining about medical shit, but the latest "hey what the fuck":

Genetic counselor: you have this very alarming genetic disease! please have your family members call me to get tested, and go talk to a cardiologist yesterday.

Me, to my GP: hey, can you write me a cardiology referral?

GP: No, that's not my job. Ask the genetic counselor!

Me, to the GC: hey, my GP said you should write me the cardiology referral?

Genetic counselor: That's not my job! I'm going to write your GP a letter, explaining all of this, so he can write you a referral. :) I'll keep you updated!

Genetic counselor, two weeks later, after I call her: oh, I forgot to email you a copy, but I called him three times and faxed him, but he hasn't responded! You're going to have to ask him. By the way, has your brother said if he'll call to get tested? Your brother should also get tested!

Combined with A Certain Family Member repeatedly trying to derail me talking of about into obsessing over if my asympomatic brother has it or not, I am so over people right now.

[pigeonfancier]

First big snow! My greenhouse has been doing great, so now it's time to see how it'll hold up to, ah, ~20F temperatures, I fucking guess? It was in the 70's two days ago, and I was wearing sandals to the store, but.. you know, gotta love global warming. I'm going to head out shortly to go check the internal temperature and bubblewrap the shit out of things even more, but crossing my fingers that it's staying about ~50-60F in there. If not: more insulation! Always more insulation.

I'm both very pleased with life right now, and slightly exasperated. I mentioned last year, but Domino technically has zero fucking hips - when we first got the x-rays for her, our vet was very doom and gloom, because absolutely horrible case of hip dysplasia. We decided to try surgically making hip sockets anyway, with the expectation.. she's a 120lb house dog, lol, we'll just have to keep any wear and tear minimal. We started giving her glucosamine+MSM and salmon oil daily, in addition to general vitamins, and keeping her thin-but-muscular.

The surgery was about a year or two ago! Fall and winter usually gets her stiff, same as me, but she's recently had a light turn on in her big, empty head and decided: oh! I am a dog! Dogs.. do things! Dogs do things like hop on our hind legs and try to stare lovingly into people's eyes!

And I'm so pleased! I'm dissuading her heavily from that hat trick, because don't you put fucking strain on those, you're going to give me a fucking heart attack. Also, do not JUMP UP AND GET IN MY FACE, YOU'LL GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK. But the very fact she feels comfortable and confident enough to start trying to use her hips like that, with no discernible pain, is fucking great.

It's a nice turnaround from me trying to puzzle out the ethics and quality of life impacts of sticking her in a doggie fucking wheelchair when we first got the x-rays, lol. I'm very focused on her quality of life, because it's hard to tell in breeds with high pain tolerances.. but she seems very happy, she seems very healthy, and this is just a very nice reminder of the fact she has pushed well past the expectations that even the vet had for her post-surgery. My little trooperrr.

On the slightly exasperated side of things: heart shit has been batted around and at least partially addressed, finally, beyond "oh, AFAB get chest pain," or "oh, sometimes heart murmurs just hurt, you'll grow out of it!", or "have you considered anxiety?" for my entire damn life.

I have ~*diluted cardiomyopathy.*~ (If this was LJ, I would have added sparkle-text as a backdrop to that, but alas!) It was inherited from my mother's side, because as with the pancreatitis, no one there has any interest in admitting there's any kind of even possibility of health problems unless you directly confront them over it with a diagnosis from your doctor. :) The next steps in this, I fucking guess, is finding out exactly how damaged it is..?

I kind of wanted everything sorted and puzzled out immediately, but there's some kind of weird snafu happening between the offices, and of course, long covid means everyone is booked as fuck. So I'm just stuck stewing and fussing while that gets sorted.

The office's got back to my family very promptly on how they can get tested for this, though, which: great, but ha ha wtf pehaps get back to me.. :[

Grumpiness aside, though, I'm choosing not to freak out over it.

Because, like, I already intentionally live a very sedate lifestyle! I know what largely triggers my heart rate to spike through the roof, and this has, irritatingly, spurred me into actually taking measures to prevent those spikes as best as I can. I love accommodations for other people! Pride tangles in with what I will admit is totally internalised ableism when it comes to my own shit, because.. I'm just not interested in doing that for myself, on average? It invites comments and discussion, and that's tedious at the best of times. It is rarely the best of times!

But apparently, this means that my heart rate spikes are not something I can just neatly dismiss as tedious - go sit down, drink some water, and box-breath for a bit until you don't feel like passing out - rather than, ah, potentially can just fucking snap ventricles.

(Fun aside here: my mother had a brain aneurysm and stroke at about 26 or so, so I was always very worried that I would have a stroke in my twenties! It is marvelous to hit 30, decide that heart risks are officially over, neatly package away that anxiety, and get told: oh, you're going to have to keep an eye out for sudden fucking cardiac failure if you do too much, xoxo.)

Thankfully, everyone has been shrieking at me to Not Do So Much for the past two years or so, lol, so I'm already set on that. In the meanwhile, I'm sucking it the fuck up and redoing/re-arranging All The Things in my house. I know my triggers for heart rate spikes, and while they'll give me medications or a fucking pacemaker to rein them in, I can fix my environment and my surroundings to the best of my ability to restrict the rest.

I'm sincerely not too worried about it, though. Having a stroke seems very concerning and very real! My mother having one scared the shit out of me, but everything else is just.. irritatingly abstract enough that I cannot be assed to dig up the emotional wherewithal to be anxious over it.

I am largely just very exasperated, though, with all of this. I have spent literally my entire life complaining of cardiac pain - to my parents, to my pediatricians, to health clinics in college, to my gps. I was told that I would grow out of it! When I did not, and my college clinic got spooked and sent me to a cardiologist, I was informed that I was too skinny to have cardiac issues, and that I'd end up in a wheelchair by 25 if I didn't stop being so fucking hysterical about minor pain that women just go through.

And now it's like: oh, okay, I do have a reason for this constant chest pain, it's because my heart is evidently just stretching this poor venticle like it's a fucking taffy. It turns out that, no, it is not an inherent part of being female to get this near-constant, low-grade fucking ache whenever you get too tired. There was a problem, and I said there was a problem, and it was just disregarded, because.. shrug emoji!

Because racism, or sexism, or classism, or most likely, various blends of all three.

It is just very exasperating, and it is very silly, and it's just such an absurd fucking thing to realise.. you can just fucking drop dead from this. You can just have the ventricle fucking snap on you, if you push it too far. And I have a very high pain tolerance, but chest pain has always made me tired, and I do not have a great tolerance for exhaustion. I can and have napped through dental work and fillings with no issue, but I will get weepy if I am tired and I cannot sleep.

But if I had a better tolerance for pushing through exhaustion, then I wouldn't have probably even noticed the chest pain. I like being active! I like doing things! And when I was eighteen, I was in a year-long state of constant pancreatitis flareups, and I was constantly pushing through exhaustion, because I still wanted to be social and Get The College Experience(tm). I got sent to the cardiologist in the first place that year, because I went ice-skating for three hours, went home..

.. and then was in absolute, horrifying chest pain the next day to the point that the clinic came to my dorm, picked me up, and then I spent the next six fucking hours in there, with them mildly freaking out. I think I refused to go to the ER, because I couldn't afford it, but the clinic was covered by my school insurance..? And I always dismissed that as a mixture of my heart murmur, high stress, and high anxiety caused by CRIPPLING CHEST PAIN, but now it's like.. hm. Well! Sure glad I got hard spooked away from athletics after that! Because this is caused by genetics in my case, not by lifestyle - so what was all that? Who the fuck knows, lol, if you're clinicially underweight, you apparently just can't have health problems.

Never mind the fact being clinicially underweight was and is a fucking health problem.

Medicine, man! I'm just sick of it. And the proper response to poor news is not to decide to simply never go to the doctor again, but oh, the temptation. It's hard not to look at the price of Zenpep, and then the kind of medications they prescribe for this new shit, and then at the long history of dismissal, and say: okay, but are you sure there's something wrong now, after literally over a decade, or are you just trying to bleed my wallet dry?

Someone casually mentioned the cost of a pacemaker to me and it's like.. it really feels like you're just trying to bleed my wallet dry!

But that's the batty penny-pinching side, lol. If I'm willing to drop.. I think it was, like, a few thousands on trying to see if we could help my damn dogs' hips, then I do not have an excuse to balk on the cost of my own healthcare.

But it really does feel like they're just trying to bleed my fucking wallet dryyy.

[pigeonfancier]

Doctors! The medical industry! Every time I encounter the slightest hurdle, I just kind of side-eye and wonder if this is really necessary. We are all but gross fleshsuits, and perhaps it is simply fine if some fleshsuits are a little more gross and ill-behaved than others..?

Then my friends and family threatens to drown me and I get back on the fucking phone, lol. I just don't like having to chase down referrals or medical practitioners! Logically, I am fully aware that I am paying out the fucking ass for a service when it comes to the medical industry - the way this theoretically should work is "insert money, receive answers". But a very large part of my brain is perpetually disinclined towards taking up patient time that could be better put towards, I don't know, old fucks who need it for their day to day..? There's so many people with long covid and shit. There's so many old people, just fucking around, being old!

But nothing like medical results to make you realise: oh, I might actually have a heart attack from this, huh? Less of a theoretical and more of a distastefully looming possibility if I ignore it? That'd probably take up a hell of a lot more time from medical practictioners. And it probably wouldn't help the stress of the old fucks that I'm actually related to.

So today's back to phone tag, I fucking guessss. If we even have openings! Everyone I know who has to see a specialist has wailed about the long-ass wait times, and when I got surgery, it was a bit whack-a-mole with figuring out who could get me in without a full fucking years' wait. But my mother got a dermatology visit set-up actually within the same month, so perhaps the long-covid/pandemic patient crunch is finally wrapping up..? Maybe! Hopefully.

[pigeonfancier]

I keep wanting to write long chattery posts, and then I remember I've spent the last.. 72 hours, I think, mostly asleep, and perhaps I should return to it! Because man I am not the best conversationalist right now anyway, haha.

Anyway, bodies suck, but my greenhouse is staying 80F on the inside while it's 40F on the outside, so I'll take it.

[pigeonfancier]

The most irritating part of acknowledging this heart fuckery and tracking it is being forced to acknowledge: yes, I am highstrung, and yes, letting myself get worked up over anything less than life and death is not beneficial to my heart rate. It's determined to stay high regardless, but I can at least make sure I'm not fucking boosting it.

The most hilarious part is realising that while getting mad at shit over the internet spikes my heart-rate, apparently my outraged ten page essay on why EQ's fucking Final Quest is homophobic and racist even by EQ standards, a high score that I did not think the Pinis could ever best - that managed to drop my heart rate down to 63 for a solid eight minutes of outrage.

63 is ideally what my heart rate is in normal day-to-day life, 85 to 120 is what it's now decided is its new resting rate, including when I'm asleep. So that's mystifying, but.. good, I guess?

Perhaps the solution to all of my problems is to just include more ted talks on childhood faves that I love to hate in my life? But I don't actually have many others of those! Troubling.

[pigeonfancier]

It's spring! It's SPRING, and it is WARM, and I want to lie in the sunlight and bask like a particularly oversized, decadent lizard.

Alas, I have to, like, "work" or "something".

My sister has defeated me in gardening this year! She has enough plants growing and already prepared for hardening that they've overtaken her greenhouse and are colonising the rest of the house. That's traditionally my role, but I have.. very few plants set so far, lmfao. To be defeated so thoroughly is not the most tragic thing of the year by far, but it's pretty fucking up there.

I'm trying to figure out how to balance out my energy vs. garden maintainence this year, because last year was surgery hell, and the year before it was heart hell, and the result was my garden was just not very productive at all. There's pretty much nothing more distressing than failing to successfully take care of something the way it should be, even if it's just letting my lettuce all wither up and my cilantro go to seed, haha. So this year is trying out new routines and building in more automaton. As always: we'll see how it goes!

Also taking up walking again now that it's warm. I'm always a bit confused as to what, exactly, I'm supposed to do to help with my piece of shit heart? There's really nothing medication wise that can fix it, and the consensus largely is always just "be less stressed! exercise more, but don't exercise enough that you set it off! please don't fuck with your diet more. have you considered yoga?". This is all sound advice, but it's abstract enough to be a massive pain in the ass to figure out this weird balancing wheel.

I am supposed to go ahead and make an appointment to be checked up on by a cardiologist, which I think I mentioned on here, and which I have.. absolutely not done, lmao. I can admit that I am a terrible medical patient in some ways, due to my dislike of bothering with appointments at this point, but I am very tired of medical practictioner hearing my symptom sets, telling me to go to specialists, and then the specialists asking why I'm in their office, and have I considered, perhaps, that I simply worry too much?

Like: no, have not really considered that, because I'm not the one who wrote the fucking referral, my dude.

The implication that I'm just getting a strange thrill out of wasting my time and money in medical appointments is such a fucking deterrent to, uh, wasting my time and money in medical appointments. Especially when I get sent to a specialist, the specialist acts like I'm batshit, and then they look over my medical paperwork and get alarmed. Like: aren't you supposed to read that before I come into your office and have to deal with your shit..? I'm still very thrown that, when I went in to get my throat looked at for swelling, the throat specialists flipped on a coin from "well, some women just have throat swelling" to "yeah, you need surgery for this before it turns cancerous, we can get you in next month" in about ten minutes. Thrown, and aggravated, lol.

The plight of being sickly and skinny. It's gotten a lot better than it was when I was younger, in some ways, because now, at least, people are less prone to believe that I'm ~*hysterical*~. But I'm still very aggravated over the gastro who diagnosed me with pancreatitis asking me why I had it on my charts. IDK, girl, you're the one who told me I had it and started giving me a 700 dollar a month medication to treat it, why don't you tell me?

(The answer is that I have it on my charts, because "I have pancreatitis, confirmed by genetic testing, my fucking uncle having pancreatitis, and my maternal family all carrying genes for CP and cystic fibrosis", but what's a little genetic tests when you can act like I forged your signature on 7+ year old paperwork instead?)