Fear of forgetting things i've learnt

I've had this fear of forgetting things i've learnt since my final school exams (gcse's) in 1997. At that time when it came to revising things for the final exams i became obsessed with going over things which i deem important to me over and over almost constantly, like for example in an English exam i beame obsessed with reciting a poem we had to learn in my mind until it became an almost constant loop, which continued even long after the exams finished.

Anyway after school i started to get the habit of going over pre planned conversation in case the need arose, for the fear of my mind going blank and being in one of those dreaded uncomfortable silence situations(not helped by comments that i was boring). The crazy thing was that when it came to the siuation the pre planned convo's never took place because my mind would get blank and they would be unsuitable to the situation. Still i could not get out of the habit.

During the past few years up to present i have had the same problem as i had during my school exams. For example i took up learning guitar in 2004, and recently i have taken up Karate. I find that i have the same fear of forgetting what i have learnt and having to re learn. I find that i can never relax my mind because i am constantly thinking of the stuff i've learnt. My brain tells me that if i stop thinking i will totally forget and will have to start fom scratch.

As you can imagine life is not fun for me because i constantly feel mental stress from obsessing. My mind aches from the obsessing...The looping thoughts drive me crazy. I try to block out my thoughts but i begin to feel panicky....Kind of like i am going through withdrawl from not thinking. This is one reason i don't drink, because of the fear of forgetting.

Another thing i do is obsess over events which made me happy which i re live to the smallest detail in my mind..Kind of because i am not happy about my present life and feel the need to be somewhere else. Again also for the fear of forgetting who i am and the things which have made me happy.

Hey recluse, I can relate to this so much. I played guitar and had so much trouble remembering the tunes. I had to keep charts with me all the time ... I could get away with this at Jazz gigs but its pretty uncool to do this a rock gigs :: I think the charts always gave me something to think about other than the crowd.

I had a blank mind incident a week ago. I was in my car taking a girl I had just met somewhere. It was for a project Im working on... not dating or anything like that. Anyway, I freaked out and couldn't remember how to get where I was going even though I had been there plenty of times before. I tried to compose myself and kept telling myself to calm down & relax but i just couldn't! Anyway, after a few minutes (seemed like hours) I eventually just drove and somehow ended up finding our destination.

I hope santa brings me a SatNav this Christmas

The aching head from looping thoughts is something I get too. Its weird cause at times I really fear the "cloudy head" dreaming/numb/lifeless feeling I get but then at other times I crave it as I want to just to stop all the thoughts that bounce around and go back to being numb. At times it feels like all I want is to be is by myself but I hate being with myself at the same time.

I'm a bit like that myself. I never drink because I heard somewhere that alcohol kills brain cells and I have a heard enough time remembering things as it is.

Predacon said:

I'm a bit like that myself. I never drink because I heard somewhere that alcohol kills brain cells and I have a heard enough time remembering things as it is.

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haha maybe thats my problem I used/abused alcohol a lot when I was younger to avoid social difficulties... maybe I fried too many brain cells back then ?

I defiantely can relate to this fear. I graduated high school in 2006 and am in college now but i still keep old reviews,homework,tests around in my room. I get the craziest thought that if i get rid of it all i will completely forget everything that i've learned about it and have to start from scratch. Even though I know its not going to just automatically slip my mind i really can not bring myself to throw it all away. My hope is that one day i will be able to just gather it all and throw it in the trash and be done with this habit of keeping old papers that i know i don't need anymore....

shredman said:

I really fear the "cloudy head" dreaming/numb/lifeless feeling I get

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This happens to me too. I obsess over it, and fear it so much. It has actually kept me from job interviews and pursuing things that are important for me because it is devastating when it happens and I'm left feeling soo stupid and worthless.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and reply everybody

When i used to have cbt i mentioned this problem to my therapist and she was baffled by it. She didn't seem to understand what i am going through, and she just told me to write my thoughts down and put them in a drawer, it does not work for me because my brain will just find something new to obsess over. I wish i could have a switch to simply turn off my thoughts.

I actually thought that I had a brain tumor my memory was getting so bad! Not sure what it was. At least it wasn't a tumor.