Flaky or Helplessly Forgetful?

I have a problem that has been plaguing me for quite some time. I have a horrible memory. Though my memory has never been stellar, I think I started seeing a significant decrease in memory during my first pregnancy, what many people refer to as "pregnancy brain." I expected to make a full recovery and did not. I have since heard many people refer to it as simply, motherhood. While this may be true to an extent, I feel my symptoms are greatly exaggerated. Here are a few examples of very normal occurrences, all of which have happened in the last week:

-picking up the phone, dialing a number and when I hear a "hello," completely forgetting who I called in the first place

-picking up the phone, dialing the number and after identifying the person I've called, forgetting what I called about

-totally spacing my cub scout den meeting after it's consistently been every Wednesday for the last 4 months

-getting off the phone with an assignment to call another person right away and forgetting to do it

-while in the shower, not remembering whether I've shampooed my hair or not (I'm ashamed to admit this happens all the time and it's really starting to scare me)

-forgetting that I have to work the next day. I only work one day a week, but it shouldn't be something I forget. Last week as I was going to bed, Cameron made some reference to me going to work the next day right as I was planning in my head what I was going to do at home. If he hadn't reminded me, I wouldn't have set my alarm and who knows when I would have figured it out.

-And one of my favorites is when I started sweeping one day and before I finished, I got distracted by something and went upstairs. A few minutes later (five minutes max) I made my way back down, saw the broom out, and became irritated that someone had left it out. It wasn't until I walked into my swept pile of crumbs that I realized my stupidity.

There are countless other examples that I can't think of right now that happen daily and are kicking my butt. I seriously feel like Dory from Finding Nemo. I know these examples seem somewhat common, but things like this are happening so often that it is affecting everything in my life and making me seem completely unreliable.

As annoying as it is to me and the others around me, one of my biggest concerns is the image I am portraying. I've gotten over the fact that I'll never be the kind of person who remembers a name or even a face. The part that gets me is that it's making me look really flaky. Flakiness is a characteristic that I detest. I have detested it for a long long time. I have made it a point in my life to do whatever it takes to not flake out on others. And if others flake out on me, I'll be honest, it really bothers me. If Cameron is tempted to flake out on someone, I always say, "The Richins' aren't flakes!" Well, as it turns out, one of them is. But not by choice. I used to think that flaky people chose to be flaky. My definition of flaky was: you say you'll do something when you really have no intention in the first place or you make little effort to follow through. Now I realize that that isn't always the case. Someone could have just simply forgotten. I'm sure both cases still exist and the first one will continue to bug me, but I'm not so quick to make the judgement anymore. It also makes me look like a crappy friend. It appears like I haven't listened to a thing you've said, when really I just can't retain the information.

Because I am always full of excuses, I am often searching for something to blame it on. I consider myself a relatively intelligent person, so there has to be some kind of rational explanation. I can't use pregnancy or any other hormonal excuse anymore since it's been 2 years since I've been pregnant. The only other one I can think of is that I've perhaps sustained a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the past. Before you laugh, this isn't too far off base. Back in my gymnastics days, I did hit my head on several occasions. One of which was on the balance beam and I did indeed have a concussion (at least that's what I remember, and we all know how reliable that is...). I've studied the symptoms of TBI ( in school- not because I have truly considered this an accurate theory until recently), and some other TBI symptoms include emotional outbursts (check), lack of inhibition (check-sometimes) and word finding difficulties (check).

Trying to compensate for this shortcoming has not come without effort and I know that I still must take responsibility. But I am constantly apologizing for it. "I'm sorry, I forgot" comes from my mouth way too often. I use several strategies to compensate including: using a big giant white board calendar in my kitchen in which every little commitment and appointment is written, setting my little alarm clock in my cell phone and writing daily lists of things to do. These things definitely help, but are not fool-proof. Having a calendar requires one to remember to check it on a regular basis which I don't always do and to always be near it when scheduling things. When scheduling things away from home, I'll even call my home number and leave myself a message so that I can write it on the calendar. This is why I feel "helplessly" forgetful. What more can I do? Am I short on some kind of mineral or just short on brain cells? I so badly want to fix this.

I'm past being annoyed. I'm frustrated. I've seen a few ads for programs that claim to improve memory but I don't want to spend a lot of money unless it works. Does anyone know of something that can help? Any magic vitamin? Any other strategies to help compensate? Maybe I should invest in a little digital tape recorder that I carry around all day. Any suggestions would be so appreciated. Is this more normal than I think it is? In the meantime and until I find a solution, just remember that I'm really trying to remember to remember to do things.

I do have to say that it's not all bad. Having a poor memory has it's advantages. Unless it's a movie I absolutely love (and I'm a tough crowd), I will forget it in a few months. I can literally re-watch an entire movie a few months later and not remember a thing about it. The same goes for books. I'll remember if I liked or disliked a book, but not much else.