One of my concerns, as an older person, has been that my life-long struggles with major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, gender identity disorder, OCD type behaviors, self-harm, & suicidality / suicide attempts may have led me to a point where I am beginning to develop some form of senior dementia. Then recently I noted, in the PC Newsletter, where it said that if you are concerned that you might be developing dementia, you may in fact be doing so. However, whenever I bring this concern up to anyone, they just laugh.

It's not so much that I forget things. Although allot of my long-term memory is gone. And my short-term memory is marginal. But the biggest thing is that I find myself doing things, or wanting to do things, that are more associated with teenagers than 60+ year old men. For example: I've always been a small-time hair puller. But recently I became a full-blown professional. I've also been thinking recently about cutting. I never did that before. I feel the urge to let my hair grow longer & longer. I feel like I'm turning into this weird little old man who thinks he's a teenage girl! What's happening to me? Sometimes I imagine that, at some point, I'm going to start hobbling around town in pink bedroom slippers and an old wash dress! OMG!!! Does anyone have any experiences with dementia or thoughts about this? Thanks!

[roads]

You write well & seem to have a sense of humor. Just from your post, I wouldn't think there's any dimensia issue. I understand your concern, though, since dimensia and Alzheimer's run in both sides of my family.

Are you taking meds for for anything? I do, so I checked with my pharmacist for drugs that interact or exaggerate the effects of another one I'm taking and took that back to by MD and pdoc. They made some changes and I improved a good 35-40%.

Long term memory, by the way, typically isn't affected by dimensia.

Roads

[Frankbtl]

Hi Skeezyks, you're off the hook!! Usually parts of the longer term memory will be much later in going than the shorter term memory in dementia!! But now no excuses for your "bad" behavior!!!
No but seriously, some of them may be coming from depression. You know cutting really isn't confined to teenagers, there are a lot of "older" people who do it and it can start at any age as a result of depression, same with the hair pulling being more extreme. And I know things really haven't been easy for you recently. And forgetting things........well.......depression??
Hold on am I making this better or worse for you??!!! SORRY!!
But you know there is help out there for depression and you know I'm/we're here for you too, don't you??
Now growing your hair longer (we've ruled out dementia!!) could it be.......you're not as bothered about how you look with the way you're feeling?.......you're getting a little less concerned about hiding/denying the other side of you (which would be fine!!)? or maybe you're just "loosening up" and going with the flow more. Lots of older guys have longer hair nowadays, and as far as I'm concerned looks fine whatever age!! So unless it's a "you can't be bothered" then nothing to worry about there.
So put your pink bedroom slippers back under the bed just for the evenings for now, sounds like you're just going to have to wait, however tempting it might be, no excuses!!



Alison

Thank you Roads! I'm on 120 mg. / day of Cymbalta. That's all. Oh, long-term memory isn't affected by Dementia? Shucks... there are some old memories I was hoping to get rid of! Oh well, sounds like I don't have it anyway...

Thanks for your reply Alison! Yes, I suppose you're correct. Somehow I have this idea stuck in my head that all of this stuff happens with teenagers & young adults; & that old codgers like me should be sedate & serene. I guess that's because all of the old folks I grew up with were or at least seemed to be.

It's funny, part of the reason I got into growing my hair out was because I have this disturbing bald spot toward the back. So my plan was to grow my hair long enough so I could do kind-of a "comb-over", except that instead of it going from side-to-side, it would go from front-to-back. And, actually, that has worked reasonably well. But now that I've let it grow, I can't bring myself to stop!

Oh well, so no senior dementia! Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to wear pink bedroom slippers & an old wash dress... I'll keep looking... where's my DSM?