Sort of scary

[cjsmith]

I am beginning to wonder if I am losing my mind.

1. I’ve always had times when I couldn’t think of the word I wanted. Am I more aware of it now, simply because I’m hanging with folk for whom the right word really is required, or is it actually HAPPENING more?

2. I used to be smart, able to learn new things rapidly and able to come up with solutions to problems. I don’t see that now. Is this a normal situation for a 50-year-old coming back to a profession ditched more than a decade ago, or is there more going on?

My mind has always been pretty much my only ally and my only asset. I don’t know what I’m going to do if it too is abandoning me.

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

This kind of thing hits me almost every day. I find myself using a definition rather than the word, after which the word often pops up. I am older than you are, and try to remind myself that some things happen with aging, without being too much of a worry.

[cjsmith]

I’ve had to “talk around” missing words since childhood. So some of it isn’t aging. And I know this is all in sharper focus at the moment due to the landscape of my current life - it’s more important to get the word right than it has been in my past. AND, as you say, aging is probably also a factor.

I guess I just hope I hang on long enough. Whatever long enough might mean.

[jenett]

New jobs are an incredible learning process - I've found pretty reliably that a bunch of my other mental processing goes a bit wonky in the midst until I stop being in learning mode all the time.

(Above and beyond new content, there's a bunch of easy-to-overlook stuff like learning where the bathroom is, and which light switch does what, and which coworker has a cat and which one has a dog, that is all information you're processing, but not directly related to your work.)

[cjsmith]

Mmm, yes, this too is a factor. I remember it from vet school, where the quote about processing the information firehose is "you may have to ask your spouse to wear a name tag". Since this wasn't expected to be vet school, I had forgotten to imagine that there would still be some effect.

Sigh. Maybe I just need a bit of a rest. The last time I was healthy (except for two chronic pain conditions), had friends, and had any confidence whatsoever that I was a somewhat worthwhile inhabitant of planet Earth was 2008. I'd like to be that person again, please.

[jenett]

When I started my current job (where I came in with strong librarian skills, but almost nil content knowledge) it was about 6 months before I had much spare brain space, and about 2 years before I reliably had it after work.

(I was also coming in after 6 months of daily migraine aura issues from previous job, which did not help at all, but the ramp up was still major and significant, and I'd moved apartments and states at the same time, so six months in I was still going "Which of these four switches in the bathroom does the thing I want?" a few times a week.)

[cjsmith]

Wow. :/

(Yeah, I too am coming in with significant mental and probably physical health debt from previous job.)

I'm glad you're more settled now and feeling like you have enough brain!

[wcg]

I don't know many 50 year olds who've come back to a profession they left over a decade ago, so I can't answer your question specifically. But I will say that it's normal for people over 50 to notice that they've forgotten things, or be unable to come up with a word they want.

The upside is that you do have more structural knowledge of the world overall now, and that's tremendously useful.

[cjsmith]

Yeah, I've been unable to come up with words since childhood. I am really good at the game "Taboo"; it's my whole life. But I sure am noticing my inability to find the perfect word more now than I have in the past. Either it's increasing or my sensitivity to it is increasing. ("Both" is also a valid possibility. I have good reasons to be more sensitive to it lately, and yes, I'm also fifty.)

[noelfigart]

As a teacher of adults who is also fifty and does make a habit of tacking on new skills as you seem to like to do, too.

1. I, too, have problems with the missing word thing. It is worse with stress and seems to be getting worse as I age.

2. You are probably remembering your learning process by the joy of the lightbulb moments and are forgetting the "I HATE THIS AND WANT ROCKS TO KILL ALL OF IT" moments in learning. The worst thing about getting older is forgetting or getting impatient with the pain of being incompetent. It feels worse when you are afraid of losing your superpower. It is the worst among highly intelligent professionals who are good at what they do (doctors, lawyers, ect.)

3. This is colored by re-learning things you used to do well.

[cjsmith]

#3 is probably an enormous factor.

The specific word thing is currently in strong focus. I'm going to start flipping tables if it actually gets worse.

That said, I'm not 100% sure it's the same thing I'm used to from childhood. As a kid, I'd say stuff like "I got home and I had to open the, uh, open the, that big rectangular thing you open to go into your house". There WAS a word and I KNEW the word and I couldn't bring it up. Now, it's more like "I want a word that means sort of like reminiscing-with-rose-colored-glasses and there may very well be such a word but I'm not sure and it might take me a while with a thesaurus to choose the right one." A thing poets can do. A thing I suspect I will never be able to do. I am mad at this last fact.

[zahraa]

This is common in menopause. If we are lucky, it will go away when it is all over. It has been driving me crazy, too.

[cjsmith]

I will not make it through even one more year of this much less the five or so that seems to be common for menopause. (I'm not at all sure I've even hit the first fringes of that particular hell.) This will give me setbacks in both personal and professional life, and neither of those is going to wait around for me to become functional again. Grr. I am mad at life. Grr.

[zahraa]

This has been a massive irritation my whole life. I know we're supposed to say, as feminists, that we can do anything that men can do, that being a woman isn't that debilitating, but for me it always has been. The working world was never going to let you spend a week or a week and a half of every month in bed; you just had to get up, go to work, and take whatever drugs you had to take to be as functional as you could be. And that's what I'm still doing. I'm hoping to have that victory party sometime soon, but let's just say it's going to be at least another year from last Saturday. Every time I see a woman in her 60's fanning herself when it's not really hot, I feel more and more discouraged.

[cjsmith]

It’s always been crippling for me as well. Knowing what I know now, I am constantly amazed that most young women choose to stay alive into adulthood.

[mrdreamjeans]

I worked to reinvent myself in terms of work throughout my 50's ... In each new job, I had to learn a new database without ever having had any basic training on computers. I never felt I completely mastered any of the jobs, but kept plugging away. I would love to get back to performing in musicals again (my life long career), but I've developed a worry I won't remember lyrics under pressure. I will not let it stop me ... I'll work through the fear, but at 65 it's just a reality. Use it or lose it.

[cjsmith]

That's a definite bummer. Neither my personal nor my professional life will be forgiving of this. I'm not looking forward to losing both of those.