The collapsing of time--does anyone else have this?

[agate]

I've always heard that times goes faster and faster as we get older, and for me that has certainly been true.

But recently I realized that my sense of the amount of time that has passed is weird.

Back in mid-October I woke up in the middle of the night with a pain in one finger that was so bad it kept me awake the rest of the night. It didn't ever go away. I've been trying a couple of types of improvised splints, and aspirin helps the pain. Very gradually there's been an improvement in the way it looks and acts. It's still red and bent out of shape but not as bad as it was.

I know from other fractures that if something was broken, it will take about 6-8 weeks to heal. So the other day I wondered just how long ago this happened. I'd have guessed 2 or 3 weeks at most.. Since I'd made a note of it, I went back and looked it up. It was 6 weeks ago. I was astounded.

So a person's sense of past time can collapse too? You think something happened just yesterday when it might have happened weeks or months ago?

At this point I'm very glad I've tried to keep records. They're a valuable corrective to my faulty memory.

And by the way if I've been saying less than usual lately, that splinted finger has been slowing me down. I've learned to type the letter a with a different finger but in general I'm slower than usual about anything involving hands.

[Virginia]

Being slower is understandable with a hurt finger Agate. I have that same loss of past time. I have tried to figure out when was the last time I joined the meditation group. I haven't a clue, but part of mine is because of COVID. As I have realized they were not having it during that time anyway. For awhile they tried Zoom, but my friend who's husband died was putting that together. I didn't even attempt that. I do not have a camera on my computer for one thing. But I have no idea when they stopped trying and how long before that I had talked to her or had contact with her.

Other similar things keep popping up regarding time past. Neither my brother nor I could figure out exactly when we had seen each other last. It could have been 4 years or it could have been 5. Different things like that where time is concerned.

I have thought of things like this a lot. I use to have a sharp sense of time, but not anymore.

[agate]

Yes, it's unsettling to have lost a good sense of time. It's a bit like having the rug pulled out from under you. Or being stuck in quicksand.

[Virginia]

Well put Agate. What causes this? Is it really age or living alone and not being on a schedule anymore?

I was finally able to get in touch with a lady from the meditation group I was in tonight. She is only 71, but in talking she mentioned that she had a hard time keeping up with when what happened. Strange that she mentioned it and then you did also.

[agate]

It might be an MS thing because just about anything can be an MS thing (although nobody knows for sure about most of those things that seem related to MS).

This means that someone like me would be a perfectly terrible witness in a legal case. There's one consolation there, and that is that all human memory is notoriously bad. But I guess I never realized before just how bad mine was getting to be.

[Lazarus]

Interesting. I have lost time and often think things that happened a year ago happened 10 years ago or 6 years ago or 3 years ago. I just can not be trusted on time unless, like Agate, I have written it down somewhere! Feels like time is collapsing in on me!

[agate]

This is embarrassing to admit but sometimes I even mix up the generations in my own family. Sometimes in my head I confuse my nephew with his son and then have to remember that I've got the timing wrong. The son was a lot like the nephew as a kid but when my memory plays tricks like this, I have to wonder if I'm turning into one of those old people who get laughed at because they always get everything wrong.

Laughing at older people is really unkind but I notice how common it is.

[Virginia]

Agate, so true about people laughing at older people. In the family, if I make a mistake about when something happened they laugh at me, but when they forget they just slough it off as in Oh, I forgot that.

[agate]

Nobody likes to be ridiculed. I don't understand why people who make fun of older people about their mistakes and memory lapses aren't ashamed of themselves but we seem to be fair game.

There's a lot of loss of dignity involved in aging, and being ridiculed doesn't help that situation.

[Snuggles]

I seem to lost track of time a lot. I blame it on being older and not having a structured day since I am no longer working.

How is our finger feeling? Any better?

[agate]

Thank you for asking, Snuggles. I think it's very very slowly getting better. There's less pain and less swelling and redness, and the bruising has pretty much gone away. But when I squeeze my left finger slightly, I can feel little bones moving around in there in ways they don't do on the right finger. Something may have been dislocated and will just have to relocate. Odd that this must have happened while I was asleep though....

[Snuggles]

Maybe you should see a doctor and get x-rays?

I don't like that you can feel little bones moving around when you squeeze your finger. Which finger is it? Is it a finger on your dominant hand?

[agate]

Snuggles, it's just the little finger of my left hand, my nondominant hand. One problem though is that many years ago I broke my right wrist and that hand has had its problems ever since. I must have made up for it by using the left hand more because I'm realizing how much grasping and lifting I do that involves that left little finger. Also all of my finger joints are somewhat bent out of shape by arthritis, and that little finger has been useful in compensating for the others. So I miss it but if something is dislocated or broken, I don't think much could be done about it other than what I've been doing. I'm still using a splint.

[Howie]

For me, time seems to be slowing down. That must mean I'm getting younger!!!

[Virginia]

Oh great Howie! Wish I could say that.