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Topic: Bitcoiners with Alzheimer's. How do you work it out? - page 2. (Read 346 times)

hero member
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sr. member
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Pizza Maker 2023 | Bitcoinbeer.events
I'm sorry to hear about the challenges you're facing with your mental health and the diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's disease. It takes a lot of courage to share your story and I understand that you may not feel comfortable responding to questions about your personal life.

It's important to have a plan in place to manage your cryptocurrency assets in case your mental health deteriorates further. Keeping a detailed notepad is a good idea as it will allow you to have a record of all your passwords, backups, hardware wallets, and transactions. By doing this, you can ensure that your relatives will have the information they need to manage your assets if you're unable to.

It's also important to make sure that your family members understand the basics of cryptocurrencies and how they work so they are able to handle your assets in the future if necessary. It may be a good idea to consult a financial advisor or someone with expertise in cryptocurrencies who can guide you and your family through the process.

Take care of yourself and don't hesitate to reach out for support from loved ones, or seek help from a medical professional if you need it.
legendary
Activity: 2268
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Damn, that really sucks to hear. Wishing you and your family the best for the road ahead.

The saddest part of all of this is that I think I remember either LoyceV or o_e_l_e_o once said on Bitcoin Talk that the human brain should not be trusted because brain damages can occur and you never know when and how it can happen.
I've definitely spoken about that on a number of occasions before. It can affect anyone, at any time, with zero warning, and many people simply think "Well, it won't happen to me."

In terms of your bitcoin, it sounds like you've already realized you can no longer rely on your memory. Not just for complex things like remembering a complex passphrase or remembering the configuration of a multi-sig wallet, but also for simple things like where you wrote down the instructions to recover your back ups. Because of this, your significant other (or other trusted relative) have to become your failsafe. If they don't already know how to access all your wallets, now is the time to inform them.

Alternatively, this might also be a good place to use a timelocked transaction. Have your trusted relative set up their own wallet and give you an address. Create a timelocked transaction sending everything from your cold storage to them, locked to a date one year (for example) in the future. If, in 11 months, you are still in a good place, then spend an input to invalidate that timelocked transaction and create a new one, again locked to some time in the future. If you are not in a good place, let the timelock pass and let the relative take control of your coins.
legendary
Activity: 4214
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if things get real bad
a small voice recorder device clipped to a necklace/lanyard.. where you record messages to yourself
Eg sat down but wanting to kitchen to make a sandwich. you tell yourself out loud that you want to make a sandwich and if when you stand up and walk over to the kitchen but forget what you were going to do in the kitchen you can play the last message to yourself.

because without such. you may (in mind) think you want to make a sandwich but not say it out loud where when in the kitchen having a foggy brain moment, not even your family know what you planned because you didnt say it out loud. which will frustrate you that you and no one else knows why you are in the kitchen.

so say things out loud(so family can remind you) or record it(saves you asking family endlessly about what you had planned or feeling like you shouldnt dare ask them as you dont want them to think your getting worse)
legendary
Activity: 1988
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CLEAN non GPL infringing code made in Rust lang
I read or watch somewhere that post it notes helps a lot. Start writing down everything. And you need to trust your family, and try to explain basic security practices as well.

A password manager is probably helpful, then you only need one password to open it. Don't leave any info only in your brain, write it down.

I think you can also use online search anywhere from a phone/tablet; anything you forget just search it again and write it down (or notes app), the device won't complain Smiley

IIRC this affects short term memory so get into the habit of writing everything down.

Apparently good nutrition, exercise and social life helps. consult your medic for advise.
legendary
Activity: 4214
Merit: 4458
The most interesting part of all of this is I can remember most of my past with an incredible lucidity.  Sincerely, I can close my eyes and think about my past and I can almost live it again through my own brain.  But the more recent past seems more and more blurry the closer I get to the year 2023.  You would think memory loss is going to affect your entire life's timeline.  The brain is such an interesting and intriguing thing.
best analogy
your hard drive is fine. but your ram is erroring, slowing down your computer


So the purpose of this thread was actually to ask other Bitcoiners facing the same issue.  How do you work your brain out?  What kind of behavior are you using to make sure you overcome the difficulties of your mental health declining?  Do you have any tips for me?

me personally no, but relatives yes
they dont want to seek diagnoses but the signs are there

repeating themselves about recent conversations(few hours-days apart) but able to talk at length and detail about their good old days
(sometimes annoying when you lived with them all your younger life and know all their stories but they are talking to you now as if you are new to them (new friend, new neighbour) who has never heard that story before about when they were young

this is the time where you think about your family too. you may be going through things but they too will be supporting you more. thank them for the little things they help with. dont be so fast to say 'i can do it and you dont need their help'

pride needs to be put aside and accept help where its needed. or atleast dont go full frank, bluntly telling people how things are/should be in the future.. (how i act in personal life is different to how i act on this forum)

if you cant trust 1 relative but trust yourself and 2 others. make a 2-of-3 multisig
where each of you has a key. where by you+one other or them without you can move the value
maybe even have it with 1 key in a Will. (3 of 4) so lawyers cant do anything alone. but neither can family alone

split the funds up into amount in case of:
loss of independence/death(majority). (such as the Will 3-of-4 multisig)
amount for long term use for medical care(medium) (such as family 2-of-3)
obviously (small) amounts for current lifestyle costs, daily living (1 key backed up in a few locations within home)

oh and get used to a journal where you have one reference place to write all thoughts down (memory book)

as for brain training.
dont stick to one game. exercise the brain with MANY different puzzles. try new things (dont just play sudoku all day long)

find creativity aswell, new hobby per month. think of a random subject and try to learn about it. EG the american civil war one month,
frequencies of atom ions and speed of an xray vs light  the next

dont get stuck in the minutiae of repeating the same things each day. for your and your families benefit

you may find you might loose desire/confidence to go new places, or just be out of your comfort zone. but while you can, allow yourself to go out and make new experiences out of the house. give yourself new things to talk about and be different and vary the day
treat your family to a vacation as they will get fewer and far between later. so make the most you can out of life

for benefit of monotony, for you and others.. join different chat groups. chat with different people so that your conversations are not limited to the same dozen people repeating things in an echo chamber.
its annoying for all those involved and causes stress. especially when they hear your story and some of your stories they know are BS but you are unaware(forgot) that they know the true versions. and get annoyed hearing them and having to correct you
hero member
Activity: 784
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Crypto Swap Exchange
This is the first and only time I will likely ever talk about my personal life.  If you want to get to the Bitcoin part, please scroll down to the second part of my thread.  Anyway.  I will try to write the story as briefly as I can.

Because I never posted anything like this before, please keep in mind I may not feel comfortable for now replying to questions about this issue I am facing.  Feel free to ask any thing but remember I may not reply to some of your questions.  I do not even know why and how I am posting this.  I never felt comfortable doing it since it involves personal life but now I feel like I should write this thread so here we go.

In the three most recent years of my life, I started realizing something was going on with my mental health.  Initially, I ignored the issues but as the decline continued and became more apparent, it slowly started affecting my life and so I could not simply ignore it any more.

It started with me noticing I could not concentrate on my daily routine any more.  If some of the tasks took a few minutes many years before, they take me up to half an hour now.  If you ask me why, I just do not know.  I just realized common tasks are becoming harder and harder to complete.

Then I realized it was not only about tasks.  I actually had little signs of a mental decline in the past approximately five years, but I did not think it was this serious.  But I found out it was much worse than I expected.  I could not communicate as efficiently any more.  I found myself taking up to a minute to find a word.  I started forgetting where I put my keys and wallet every single day, or I started placing them in uncommon places.  I started missing appointments due to this, because sometimes it takes me up to a few hours to find them.  So I went to a local store and duplicated my keys and made sure I split my money in multiple wallets.  Guess what.  I lost two sets of keys for over a month AND one of my wallets.  One set of keys were attached to my entrance door all this time, the wallet was on my desk.  How in the hell did I never see them, I do not know.  Initially, I thought it was my significant other playing games on me.  Until they started getting mad and irritated on me because every day something was missing.  Either the keys, or the wallet.

I started forgetting the most important events.  Forgetting about dates and time.  I thought money was missing from my wallet, but then I found a bill from the day before which explained the missing money.  And most recently, I started to repeat questions over and over about simple things.  It is like you tell me something and the next second I forget.  So I ask you to repeat, then I forget again.  And so on.

In fact.  This started happening on Bitcoin Talk as well.  I read an information and soon I forget it.  But sometimes it is not like the entire piece is missing from my brain.  It is like someone fragmented it into many pieces and I know something about it, but I do not know enough to remember what it actually was.  Out of my time spent on this forum, I believe over half of it is spent re reading my recent posts and earlier replies of mine in threads because I do not remember what my argument was on a particular subject or whether I even posted in the thread at all.

Of course it becomes increasingly more irritating every time I realize this is going on.  And I try to calm myself down and focus on what is most important, but then I realize it is exactly the most important that I seem to now forget.  My family is very supportive now that they realize what is going on too.  So thanks to all of them.

-----

Anyway.  Recently, I took multiple exams and an MRI which led to the diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's Disease.  I could say this is life changing, but I am really trying not to.  By the way it looks, many disorders are progressing so much faster when the affected individual knows they have it so my plan is to try to slow it down while not caring much about its existence.  Sort of living with it while finding a way to make it work.

I recently started forgetting about my Cryptocurrency things.  Some passwords and where their backups were, where I put my Hardware Wallet, which disk was my Wallet on and more.  I do not remember what many of my recent transactions were for.  They are even labeled, believe it or not.  So I thought if there was a way to pretty much store everything in a place I can go search in every time I forget something, this may help.  My solution is therefore taking a notepad and writing everything down.  Word by word, with long explanation for every thing written.  Which is really heartbreaking for someone like me who would have never done this before for .. you guessed it, Privacy reasons.  I love this idea of having everything hidden and knowing there is no way some body else can put the pieces of the puzzle together.  But now I have to go against my passion, because this is the situation and I have to accept it and to find a way that works.  And then comes another issue I have to be really realistic about.  If my mental decline will progress significantly within a short time span, I have to make sure my relatives will pick up the pieces of my puzzles and work them out by themselves, without needing me.

So, here I am.  I just started teaching my closest relatives about Cryptocurrencies more than they ever knew before.  Kind of giving them a more in detail course so they know what to know, what to do and what to avoid doing.  I am still thinking about who to give the sensitive information about where my Seed Phrases are stored.  I have a pretty complicated setup, which I now have to unfortunately simplify.

To make sure my Alzheimer's is slowed down as much as possible, I am training my brain every single day.  I chose an exaggeratedly long password for my computer that I want to remember character by character.  I wrote it down somewhere safe too, so in case my brain goes nuts someone else can enter my computer too.  I plan to change this password every month, so I always have something to learn.  I bought myself all sorts of puzzles and brain training games, I started playing some sports and learning new languages and poems.  It is me having fun while trying to prevent or at least slow down the worst.

The saddest part of all of this is that I think I remember either LoyceV or o_e_l_e_o once said on Bitcoin Talk that the human brain should not be trusted because brain damages can occur and you never know when and how it can happen.  Well.  You were very right, and I am unfortunately witnessing it now by myself.  Never trust your brain.  It can play games on you and it is not fun at all.

The most interesting part of all of this is I can remember most of my past with an incredible lucidity.  Sincerely, I can close my eyes and think about my past and I can almost live it again through my own brain.  But the more recent past seems more and more blurry the closer I get to the year 2023.  You would think memory loss is going to affect your entire life's timeline.  The brain is such an interesting and intriguing thing.

But I am convinced I am not the only person with a declining mental health over here who is using Bitcoin.  I definitely do not want to leave Bitcoin, it is part of my fun.  It is part of who I am now.  Privacy as well.  So I will of course continue to be me, but I have to be conscious about the serious decline that I am facing.

So the purpose of this thread was actually to ask other Bitcoiners facing the same issue.  How do you work your brain out?  What kind of behavior are you using to make sure you overcome the difficulties of your mental health declining?  Do you have any tips for me?

-
Regards,
PrivacyG
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