Worried about forgetfulness

Alwaysworrying

Hello lovely grans (and grandads)
Just looking for a bit of support please. I am 67 years old and l’ve done (according to my friend in London) a really worrying thing. At the beginning of June l bought her a birthday card, her birthday was on the 25th June. I usually send a ‘Moonpig’ card (online cards) so this was a departure from normal but as Moonpig cards are quite expensive l thought l’d do something differently this time.On the 10th June l was flicking through the latest Moonpig cards as l’d been sent a link to new cards and decided to send her one of those instead. Fast forward to the 20th June and l came across the original card l’d bought for her and completely forgetting l’d already sent a Moonpig card 10days earlier l sent it so she got 2 birthday cards. My friend has said this is really worrying and l should speak to my GP so l’ve been worrying all night about this. I can be forgetful but not usually so it affects my every day life and causes me to worry. I’m a chronic worrier by nature-hence my user name and have a great deal of stress in my life, so now l feel like l have something else to add to my list of worries. Has anyone else ever done anything silly that’s concerned them like this?

Please don't worry, you mention that you have a lot of stress and other things on your mind and there is your answer.Your brain will just have overlooked the card thing because it's dealing with more important matters. It's also very easily done.I can't tell you how many times I've had an online shopping order and they don't deliver an item,they notify me of course, but I forget and spend quite a while looking for it because my brain remembers 'Buying it'.
Obviously if you started to do more and more forgetting or more people began telling you, then yes, time for a check up, but you sound ok to me. !

I booked my car in for the M.O.T. for the Friday before it was due. I planned to take it up to the garage the evening before and walk home. I was mowing the lawn and musing on what to have for tea, thinking it’s Friday, I’ll have fish, when it suddenly dawned that I hadn’t taken the car up the day before! Fortunately when I rang, although it was too late to take it then, they could fit it in on the Monday. I just completely forgot about it on the Thursday.

I’ve done things like this and much more frequently during a period of high stress and poor sleep. You need to slow your thoughts down and do fewer things but in a more deliberate manner. Make lists of what you need to do or have already done. Keep as calm as you can and lower your expectations of yourself. No need to try to be a superhuman!

I once went up to vote in a bye-election and the candidate I wanted to vote for wasn’t on the list. I was so convinced he should be that I had the officials at the polling station worried and discussing what to do as I left. When I got home and took out the sheaf of election leaflets I’d saved to prove that I was right, DH pointed out that the one I was brandishing was an old one from the previous election. I don’t think I’d even retired at that time!

Please try not to worry about one incident like this. When I was only in my 40s (so long ago) I sent 2 birthday cards to an aunt - I only knew because she mentioned to my mother ‘poor Witzend’ having sent two!

And very recently (as posted about on here) I found some valuable earrings I really thought I’d lost through my own stupid carelessness several years ago - and had tormented myself about it - whereas in fact I had put them away in a tiny box that wasn’t the one they came in. How on earth could I have forgotten where I’d put them?

Both incidents well in the past, and 🤞I still don’t have dementia!

I almost did the same last month, buying two birthday cards for the same person🥴 realised in time that I had already sent one.

Nothing out of the ordinary for most of us, you are normal! You have a lot on your mind so it doesn't surprise me! At least you remembered the birthday (twice!).
If only it was easy to stop worrying! I hope the therapy helps a little.

Easily done, could have done that in my thirties, being undecided, forgot you did the usual thing as its routine and say something interesting that took away your thoughts, forget it ,your friend shouldn't have made anything of it especially as your a worrier anyway

It was unkind of your friend to make a fuss over it. As we age it makes sense that our memory isn't as sharp as it was.
I got myself in a state about forgetting names and words I wanted to use but couldn't for the life of me remember them, the more I tried to think of the person or the word, the more my brain seemed to freeze. I thought I was developing dementia.
I saw my GP and she put me in for a brain scan and the Memory clinic. The brain scan was normal for my age and I got 93% from the Memory clinic tests. I felt such a fraud but I was told it's perfectly normal to have these lapses as we age.
What puzzles me though is that I remember things from years ago like the registration number of my dad's first car and the names of all the children in my class in junior school but ask me what we need in the supermarket without my list and I'm clueless

Sent a birthday card to my friend on the right date but a month early. They were very puzzled , I was mortified. Don’t worry about it we all get brain overload sometimes life is stressful.

Don’t think much of your friend

TBH it occurs to me (after a lot of experience of dementia, in both DM and FiL) that if you really did have dementia, you wouldn’t be worrying about having forgotten something, because you’d have very soon forgotten that you’d forgotten it (if that makes sense).

I knew (with sinking heart) that my DM did have dementia, and not just the ‘old age forgetfulness’ I’d been trying to kid myself about, on the day she phoned her bank about something (she’d always been very clued up about finances) and could not remember, literally the instant she’d put the phone down, what they’d said.
Talk about the penny dropping! 🙁

But instead of being in a tizz about it, as she would have normally, she’d forgotten the whole thing within a minute or two.

Try not to stress too much - more easily said than done, I know.
Since I retired, I frequently get the days of the week wrong. Today I had a dental appointment which I was convinced was tomorrow. If DH hadn't reminded me of it this morning, I would have missed it.

My 44-year-old son has given me the same train book for three birthdays running, but I won't be telling him. 😃 I expect you're fine, sounds pretty normal to me so try not to worry.