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jomiddlemarch · 11 months

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Where might I be, if I were not here?

“Grace. Listen to me—”

“Just leave me alone,” she interrupted. At least, that was what she had intended to say. She wasn’t 100% sure those were the words that had come out of her mouth or ones he’d be able to recognize as belonging to the English language. It was entirely possible she’d spoken in Cantonese and didn’t even realize it. If pressed, she would not have been able to reliably determine the day of the week or the last time she’d eaten, though she dimly remembered Joel talking about broth.

“No. Take it off. Or I will,” he said. She turned her head, very slowly, and looked up at him. He might have sounded brusque or even harsh, well beyond brooking no nonsense, but instead he’d used a very gentle tone, almost coaxing.

“I only need to take a nap,” she said. It was a lie or she was dead wrong or she was wandering somewhere between the two in a greyish netherworld that was nauseatingly wavy around the edges. Joel crouched down so he was nearly at eye-level.

“Grace, you’ve been in those sweats for three days,” he said. “You’ll feel better once you’re in clean PJs and we can put your stuff in the laundry. Or burn them.”

“I’m fine,” she protested. Weakly. She was exhausted and the sweats did have a certain lizard-skin-that-should-be-sloughed quality to them, though she didn’t particularly want to admit it. “It’s no big deal.”

“They weren’t lying about doctors making the worst patients, were they?” Joel said. Thank God it was rhetorical, because her head was killing her, not that she was planning to say anything about it. “Grace, you’ve had a fever for the past week and Ted said they were maybe going to bring you home from the clinic in a wheelbarrow on Tuesday, you probably don’t even know what day it is—”

“It’s just a cold,” she said and winced. She’d stumbled home on her own two feet, the prospect of the wheelbarrow making her vomit into the sink in the corner of the exam room, running the faucet with the excuse that she was only going to splash a little water on her face before heading out.

“It was walking pneumonia until you stopped walking,” he said. “You look like shit and—”

“That’s mean,” Grace muttered. “You’re not supposed to be mean to a sick woman.”

“Let me help you out of those sweats and get you into a clean nightgown, darlin,’” Joel said. She’d admitted she was sick, so he’d won and now the gentleness was mixed with relief. Grace made a superhuman effort and sat up enough for Joel to do the rest of the work, dragging the sweatshirt over her head, letting her rest her forehead against his chest before dealing with the ratty sweatpants she couldn’t remember putting on. He made a series of murmured reassuring comments, c’mon now, there you go, like that, let me, baby and then she was somehow in a fresh, loose flannel nightgown which was mercifully not plaid, nor patterned with anything egregiously twee, only some faded rosebuds scattered on the cream-colored material and no lace at the collar or cuffs. Her hair would have been more of a mess if it weren’t a lank bundle heavy against her neck, unwashed for several days. The flu outbreak had started in Jackson two weeks ago, maybe three, and she’d had moments when she wondered whether the remnants of mushroom-uninfested humanity were going to go the way of 1918 before the tide had turned and then she’d started coughing.

“I look like shit,” she said, echoing him and he shook his head.

“You’re beautiful. You’re fucking sick as a dog, but you’re still beautiful,” he said. “Where’s your water bottle?”

“Bedside table,” Grace said, sinking back onto her pillow. Joel poked around among the various items stacked and clustered beside the oil lamp without lighting it, cursing lightly under his breath.

“This is a pile of junk.”

“I have a system,” Grace said. She didn’t look over at the pile he was rooting through. Usually, books were stacked in order of her aspirational plan to read them, Buddenbrooks not budging from the base, a hair clip was perched on top, the dish that held her earrings sat to the right of the lamp’s base and whatever face cream she’d most recently traded for was carefully set to the back, against the wall. She couldn’t have told him where to begin to find the water bottle at this point, even if she’d opened her eyes to look.

“Maybe when you’re well. It would be a miracle to be able to find anything in this mess. I should’ve stayed home with you,” he replied, finally managing to unearth the half-filled water bottle, flipping the cap and holding it to Grace’s mouth for her to drink. He watched her, careful to pull the bottle away before she sputtered. She couldn’t think of anyone in her whole life who’d ever looked at her with such intimate scrutiny.

“I’m a big girl, I don’t need a babysitter,” she said.

“You’re mine,” he said, taking off his wool work-shirt and then his jeans, leaving him in a tee-shirt and boxers. He was already in his sock-feet, having accepted her assertion that there should be no shoes worn in the home without her needing to bring up manure, though he didn’t always wear the slippers she left for him by the front door. He bent over and took off the socks, then walked around to the other side of the bed and got in. “Should’ve looked after you properly—"

“Joel, you don’t—you should keep on sleeping on the sofa,” Grace said. She couldn’t help the little sighing breath that came out when he brushed back the hair on the side of her face and settled himself next to her. It turned into a cough, but not a full-on hacking one, and he pulled her to rest against his chest when she was done.

“Where d’you think I’ve been sleeping, Gracie? I’ve been in that chair the past four nights,” he said, his voice lower now that he was so much closer. “C’mere, relax—”

“That chair will destroy your back,” Grace said. It usually sat in the corner of the room with a laundry basket on it, the slat back slicing the afternoon sun and shadow into cubes like grass jelly.

“It wasn’t the most comfortable, I’ll give you that. But there wasn’t a better choice,” he said. “Couldn’t keep an eye on you from the floor, tried it the first night.”

“You didn’t have to,” Grace said.

“Yes, I did. And I wanted to,” he said. He was quiet then and so was she, the comfort of the clean pajamas and even more, Joel strong and warm beside her easing the myalgia that had been competing with the headache and cough for first place in the Grace viral-misery Olympics. She felt sleepy instead of obliterated by fatigue and she’d run out of arguments.

“We’ve both lost people, before,” Joel said softly, like he wasn’t talking about the shrapnel they both carried. He wouldn’t say Kian or Tess or tell her the name of Sarah’s mother, but Grace understood him. Regret was its own creature, separate from grief. Sometimes it was like a poison eating you up, sometimes a vital tether between the past and the future, a rope strung between buildings in a Wyoming blizzard. “I wanted, I want to do better by you. They’d want that. You belong to me, belong with me. I don’t plan to let you go—”

He'd said everything except I love you. Except that he’d said that every other way he could, with the nightgown and the water and the chair, with his body and his heartbeat, his breath steady against her cheek, the way he said her name. It was enough and too much and she shivered. He held her tighter.

“You gonna tell me I’m your woman?” she said, trying to make a joke of it.

“If I thought you’d let me, yeah,” he said. “I expect, even at death’s door, you’d tell me to stop talking like a fucking caveman and respect your goddamn autonomy. But you are, even if I don’t say it so you can hear me.”

“You can say it,” she whispered. He made a sound like a laugh without it actually being one.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” he said. “You sleep now and you wake me up if you don’t feel good.”

Written for @pedrostories 1K celebration and because @tessa-quayle suggested it would be fun to play

#tlou au fanfic #joel/OFC #grace yang MD #hurt/comfort #tropes #second chance romance #only one bed #doctors making terrible patients ad infinitum #grief #romance #my ted lasso x tlou au universe #found family #pedrostories1k

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wulfsark · 4 years

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On Memory Loss and Amnesia

On Memory Loss and Amnesia.

Between three and five years ago I experienced an accident that caused me to forget my own name, where I was or who I was. The only thing I remembered for around six hours was my girlfriend and her name, and by the time I was seen in the emergency department I had recovered and had no physical symptoms and no psychological symptoms that a doctor who had never met me before could discern.

My unhappy girlfriend and I took a taxi back to where we had been staying at around four or five in the morning after being discharged as healthy. The taxi driver had no idea where we were going and extremely poor English, leading to my angrily stopping the car in response to my girlfriend’s increasing panic and stepping out into a random village in the English midlands. Eventually with police help we managed to get back to where we were meant to be, but looking back on it now my actions in the taxi were utterly out of character for me.

Before the accident I was a timid, unfit, socially needy boy of 18 who was missing teeth from being beaten half to death whilst throwing no punches back. Following the accident I managed to physically stop a car and sort out a situation that I would never have got through in my previous mindset. I’m unsure whether this view is a product of my being largely unable to remember my mindset before the accident, but I maintain that a drastic personality change occurred with the head injury. Shortly later my relationship of around 2 years broke down aggressively and I had to evacuate myself from possibly the hairiest situation I had ever been in. I know this because it is integral to my character. What I remember from that time is a flash of trying to get my laptop to work, downloading channel 4 programs and podcasts with my neighbour’s internet, a cigarette burn, and the first time we both were sure when we said we didn’t love eachother anymore.

Most people would say that this is fairly normal, but they misunderstand. I cannot remember anything else from that time. I remember feeling unhappy and scared and worthless but I remember no events or emotions or specifics beyond those overarching themes – which may even be products of my own rationalisations.

Last week I had probably one of the greatest nights of my life with my brothers in manchester bars. Sure I drank a lot, but I remember so little that if someone told me it didn’t happen I’d assume it was a dream.

When I speak to my current girlfriend about past events, I’d say around 90% of the time she will listen patiently before informing me that it may be the tenth time I’ve told her and maybe the third time today.

I will say ‘I love you’ or ask her how she is eight times and never remember doing it.

And yet I doubt that I have memory loss. I don’t remember doing all these things so many times and so each time I’m recommended to get it checked out I get halfway before thinking ‘no, it’s just a dramatisation of an injury that was integral to my life, I’m being dramatic to make myself more interesting.’ And so I have never been checked out. The original hospital event doesn’t show up on my medical records and I have no physical evidence of the event except a plastic winner’s token which I keep in my wallet to this day as a reminder.

In 50 first dates or shutter island or the hundreds of other films depicting amnesia we see the amnesiac perpetually confused and scared about their situation, or blissfully unaware for the majority of the plot. I do not have this luxury and nor would I want it. I am often confused and I am often scared by my condition but the vague pointers I have around me (tokens, scribbles, social cues) help me recover myself to the point where most people have no idea I have a problem at all.

Last week I saw someone I’ve met more than five times in incredibly memorable experiences, and I had no idea who he was. It hurt him though he didn’t admit it and I felt terrible despite laughing it off. I apologised, explained I had amnesia – to which he said that I had told him before – and promptly left. When I saw him the next day he pretended not to know me, and so to save both our dignities I played along and it became far easier on both of us. I often wonder how many good friends I have forgotten who play along with my issues because it’s easier than explaining. I have even in the past had days or weeks spent under the impression that my partner was actually a live-in care worker or similar issues.

To dispel this I attempt to stick to rituals that I remember I have. I have photos of myself and my old dog, my friends, things I have done, and I have tokens from people that help me stay present. I have a carved totem, a dreadlock, a ring, a carved piece of antler, a leather band, a shaped piece of aluminium, a tag I stole from work, a key to something I can’t remember. These little tokens somehow keep my sense of self present, each of them mean something even if I can’t remember where they came from or why I have them. With this technique I stave off loss of self.

My fears of the future are in two halves equally possible. The first fear is that I shall be revealed for a fraud and that I am actually just a daydreaming loser who doesn’t care enough to remember people’s names. I will be shamed in myself as I see myself for what I am and my self understanding will be complete in line with my paranoia. The second fear is that my mind will continue to deteriorate, I will forget the names of my family and the pillars of my personality and eventually will descend into the formless nothing that I am caught in when I have a panic attack and lose my self. Of course it is possible that I shall merely continue as I am ad infinitum and nothing will change worth noting that I remember, but that is not nearly as interesting.

Whilst at a bar with friends several years ago I am told that whilst discussing sexual assault and the pervasive nature of unfriendly sexual experiences in my friends, I broke down, forgot who I am and who my friends were, and firmly believed it was 2014 and I was lost in Plymouth. Of course this was all false and after a short time I recovered myself, which I now have a good memory of the cold night and coming around with tears on my face. The episode itself I only know from my friends’ descriptions and is an object of both shame and curiosity, as clearly it indicates some link between memory issues and stress which I am not educated enough to understand.

I avoid doctors because if they cannot find evidence then it means that I am somehow faking this even to myself. Whether they are correct or not will not help me and will soon become vague impressions in the back of my mind regardless.

In Plato’s allegory of the cave we see the shadows of the objects cast on the wall, which I can equate to most people’s memory of events; vague but clear in their impression. I like to think of my memory as if those shadows were cast on a waterfall; ever shifting and unclear, but with sustained viewing perhaps details can be made out well enough to remember things worth remembering with help. Until then I am afloat in a black sea, windless and with no port to seek, merely picking up flotsam as it floats near.

I do not write this seeking pity or discussion or even understanding. I write this hopefully so that in future I can look at it and confirm whether I am maintaining the same mental clarity on the subject or if something has changed. I will publish it freely so that those curious enough to look can understand why I forget their face or why I don’t know what I’m doing a lot of the time. Anyone with knowledge on the subject or comparable experience is welcome to send me messages so that we can both gain from the interaction.

I rewrote the same paragraph three times at one point in drafting this.

Much love

Giggles

#Giggles #Amnesia #Retrograde Amnesia #retrograde #experience #mental health #memory #memory loss #help #aaaaa #funny #writing

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