Senility

It’s been a constant joke through out the years between friends that we have Alzheimer, as seemingly basic information is being forgotten within short periods of time. One could argue that is is a byproduct of our current environment: the internet.

We’re being bombarded by a non-stop stream of information, both useful and useless that blitz through our minds without ever leaving a deep impression. The word “consumer” has never been as fitting as it is now, only it’s method and literal contents have changed.

So many complain about spending too much time on social media and video sharing platforms, where they just endlessly scroll downwards with seemingly no end, reading or watching things they generally have absolutely no interest in. The brain just cannot keep up with the amount of data it’s being fed, pretty much most of what’s coming in is going into the garbage bin almost instantly. Our memory is limited, and was already being selective enough before the “digital information age”. I personally think we just tire ourselves out a lot faster with absolutely pointless things and have no leftover energy to deal with anything else.

But is that all?

Somehow there’s more and more things that my friends group have talked about, yet there’s always someone, sometimes even multiple parties who absolutely do not remember having conversation topics, or having talked to one another. I can’t just chalk this up to the internet.

Maybe it’s some underlying illness?

As much as we joke about having mental defects, and mental issues being ever so more common nowadays, looking up what can cause what problem does not provide a positive outcome. Sure, self diagnosis has always been frowned upon (even I myself do not think highly of it), but when there’s some very specific signs that tie into a specific problem, you start thinking. After all, having 44 symptoms of an illness should warrant for some worry.

I’m fully aware that at my core I am very surface level with things that do not interest me, but even those which I have an affinity or passion towards to seem to be affected. Not necessarily in terms of Alzheimer, but a bit of ADHD sprinkled with some mild Autism could be lingering about. So what now?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I don’t have much interest in finding out whether or not I have any disease, if it’s there, it’s there. These aren’t things that can be “cured” in a sense, unless of course you believe the nonsense that “ADHD is a children’s illness that kids will grow out of”.

Not my words, it’s from a TV report.

And that’s not the only problem here. If let’s say you have mental issues that need to be treated, you not only have to deal with medication that isn’t covered by the very minimal tax break that you get for being a diagnosed person, you’ll also have to face the negative effects this comes with.

Namely being deemed unfit for most work.

Not officially that is, but the common work place will treat you as a liability who cannot be hired, even if you have everything under control, you will be labelled as someone who cannot hold any responsibility, let alone take care of themselves.

It’s a shit show.

Even if I have some sort of problem, I wish not to have it known as everything is fine as is, the “minor” inconveniences are honestly not that big of a deal as of this point. But just thinking of the possibility that if I were to legitimately have some hard hitting issues, I would be completely and utterly fucked in life. Coolbeans.