Memory & Recovery

This is a follow up to an earlier blog that Donald wrote.  The negative symptoms that people with schizophrenia have make it hard for them to hold down a job that is what this article says.  They say after getting schizophrenia we lose 11/2 standard deviations of your IQ “if you start out with an IQ of 160 and you lose 11/2 standard deviations, you’re down to 145, and you might still be pretty well-off in certain areas.  As I spoke in an earlier blog I could have had my GED at the age of seventeen although I was too young.
I dropped out after finishing the ninth grade.  I started the tenth grade and was in algebra and told them it was too hard and wanted to go to another class.  It wasn’t although I was just trying to make things easier for me.  I went to the other math class for a day and that is when I dropped out of school.  It was dumb I know.  When I finally went back to college, math was the hardest for me.  My tutor would say he gets and after he walks out he does not remember anything.  Yet I am good at remembering numbers and words if I try.

In geography in college the class as a whole was not doing well.  The teacher had already talked to me after finding out I had a mental illness she was going to let me do a no credit and take the class over.  I said no I will do it.  She gave the class the test to study and I took it and memorized it all except the places in Colorado.  I studied that test at work and in my spare time.  I finally took the test and the classmates were just say geez when she was grading my test because I had so many right. I passed the class.
 All except the where the places were at in Colorado.  You have to remember I was locked up for almost a decade and I did not travel I had forgot where everything was.  It took me about five years to remember Denver again.  I have finally learned and can ride and know which bus to take to get anywhere.  I know I lost some of what I had and if I would of went to college before my mental illness I would have done a lot better.   I can memorize a lot but not math. On a lighter note do you know why we forget when we walk in to another room to do or get something? 
This article talks about why.  “The research provides strong evidence that entering a doorway serves as an “event boundary” that forces working memory to update itself as a result of moving into another room, Radvansky explains.  This location-based updating makes it more difficult to recall the activities or decisions made in a different room.”  I know I came into this room for something although I do not remember now.  We are not losing our minds.
I also work on brain training exercises.  One thing that I have is my memory and I do not want to lose that.  My mental illness is enough of a handicap.  I feel for other schizophrenics that lost a lot more than me and cannot work even when they try.