Thoughts and progress.

“Hes calling me home.”

This is what bothers me the most. As though wherever this thing is, is where I belong. As though it has a say in where I belong. I mean, it could just be a delusion, and I could be getting angry at my own brain being sick, which is pointless.

The USB stick. I tried "theresamaninthewoods" as a password, and that didn't work. If I was the one to password protect these, I'm not one for making overly complex passwords, since I have a habit of forgetting everything. 

But anyway. The numbers string. 20 8 5 20 9 13 5.

I've tried the number string from the picture as a password to the other files on the USB stick, since  I tried the order from top to bottom, and then backwards. No luck there, either. 

A commenter mentioned yesterday that the string, if substituted for letters in the alphabet, become "the time". I'm making a note of it here, and I'll try it as a password when I get a few minutes today. 

I'll update with any progress I've made later. 

 The weather's been terrible here, but if there's a nice day, I'm going to try to make it to the old house from the video of me on the stairs.

The USB stick

Well this is irritating. While there's a number of files on the drive, all of them are password protected, aside for a single image file.

It's. Okay, it's unnerving. I don't feel good about it. That's my missing research journal. That is my handwriting, but I only write like that right before [edit].

So this means whatever this is, was important enough for me to write about, even while my brain was starting to shut down.

Repetitive thinking right before [edit] is pretty common, but it takes a lot of effort to write concerted phrases. Especially something as long as “there's a man in the woods”, which is horrifying in and of itself. I can't remember writing this, or what frame of mind I was in while I was writing it.

And the symbol-- it's the symbol that was on my hand, from the video of me on the stairs. It's the symbol from that scrap of paper from the research box. It keeps following me.

And those numbers in the margin. I feel overwhelmed. Did I copy them? Did I pick them out? It looks like I was having delusions or paranoia right before I [edit], if I thought that by “thinking” of something, “it” can read my thoughts.

What was I trying to hide? Are the numbers a disguise, like a code?

If anybody's reading, can you make any sense of this? Do you have any ideas what these could mean?

My head is killing me, and seeing what I was like, it's just really really difficult. I don't forget things by choice when ]edit], that's just part of the condition. Right now I'm not sure I would want to remember what I felt then, and why I felt it.

I seemed so scared. I'm scared now.  

This isn't fun.

Going back through these entries, trying to pick up on something that might be helpful. In retrospect a lot of it seems entirely insane. 

I'm lucid right now, thanks to my meds, and I don't remember ¾ of what went on. It's that memory loss thing, which sounds like a cliché, but my condition prevents my brain from writing new memories while I'm having episodes. And even when the episode is over, my brain is messed up, so when I get back to normal, it's like it treats my episodes like a reality glitch. Like they never happened.

It's kind of terrifying.

The video with me on the stairs is particularly weird, to say the least. I was definitely out of it, and whatever the hell is on my hand I have no idea how it could have gotten there. Maybe I put it there.

Anyway, getting away from that, I'm actually a bit relieved. I think I recognize those stairs. They're in an old house, near my hometown. I spent a lot of time there, when I was young.

I honestly have no idea why I was there. But it's possible I left something behind. I guess it's time to go pick up after myself.

Stay in touch, guys. I think I'll have an update about that USB drive pretty soon.

The backpack.

Still not okay.

Going from last night's post, I'm still pretty bothered.

I had been doing pretty well with my sleep schedule. I'd been getting a good 8-9 hours every night. But this whole thing had been eating at me all night, I think I got 5 hour max. Not good for my health; less sleep, more episodes.

You know, thinking about this objectively, it would be helpful to know where I was and what I was doing during the month I don't remember. Which would be mostly from late December to late January. I wasn't in contact with my doctors then, but if anything happened that could have made me worse, I should be aware of it. I say “don't remember”, but it's more accurate to say I have a very dim recall of the events. I have vague, general impressions of place, but not detail.

Months ago, before I got incredibly sick, I was having smaller chunks of memory loss. Emma suggested I record where I go so I don't forget. So I had a record of what I was doing.

I should look into the things that I brought back with me to school, like my travel backpack. And go back through these entries; maybe I mention where I am, where I'm going. If nothing else, I should make it explicit from here on out.  

Speaking of which, I'm headed to my hometown for a few days. If anyone's reading, any suggestions on what I should look for while I'm there? You probably have a better sense of continuity about that than I do. 

(Final note: still having problems with language. I apologize if this has made limited sense.)

Well

It's been a while.

I'd like to say that I had a good reason for disappearing on this project.

The problem is I just can't remember.

I wish I could say that it makes me excited, or makes me nervous, or makes me sick with fear. Or rather, I wish I could remember why looking at these past entries makes me feel this way.

Memory problems are pretty much par per course, if my doctors and the medication warning are to be believed.

But most of all, I wish I could remember between the last time stamp and this one.

Logically, I know what happened. I must have gone back to my hometown. Visited my family.

Then I came back to the city. Gone back to school. But all of my projects this semester aren't even remotely related to … whatever I was doing last semester.

I don't even know where to begin to look. I don't know if I want to try. I don't know if it's worth the effort; it would essentially be reconstructing a month or more of my life. Was all of this so important?

I think the medicine is helping. I'm having fewer problems remembering.

It's just the month before is kind of a hole. I'm missing my research notebook. I'm missing my camera. I still have my wallet, keys, and bag, though.

Things are getting better, and things are getting worse. I remember this month. But language and communicating is harder, and my coordination is shot. I'm sleeping better, I have fewer headaches. I'm not having nearly as many seizures.

I need some time. Maybe I can figure out why this seemed so important. Maybe I'll find my last work notes.

If any one is there, if anyone is reading … please, say something. Anything. Did I drag you into anything? Is everyone okay?