Visualizing something even though I know that it isn't really happening

(Chapter 23 Living with a Memory Impairment and being a Nana in my book)

I'm going to try my best to explain something that has been happening off and on to me for a few weeks. One day, I was visualizing something that I was doing. Yet, it was only happening in my brain and I knew that. These thoughts in my head were not pleasant at all, but rather disturbing to me!

What was happening was I could see myself holding one my infant granddaughters and it looked like I was throwing her on the floor. I love my granddaughters and I would never do that to anyone let alone a family member. I didn't journal to keep track of how many times and how often it was happening because I tried to not think about it. I just wanted to somehow get it out of head! When it happened a second and third time, in my brain I tried to replace the baby with a piece of paper. Obviously, this is not something that I wanted to actually happen, so it was very upsetting for me to deal with. I was so afraid to tell anyone about this because I didn't want anyone to think that I was crazy. I dealt with it on my own and I told no one.

Last weekend, I spent some time at my daughter's home with her, her husband and my granddaughters. Everything was fine when I changed, burped and played with the twins. I was very present, in the moment, and always aware of when I was holding one of them.

Last Thursday I was going to attend an online weekly video dementia support group that I have done before. Minutes before the meeting was going to take place, I thought about what I had been seeing in my brain and I wrote down some quick notes. After the meeting started, I decided to share with them what had been happening to me. One of the people told me that if it continues that I probably should call my doctor. Another person said, “that is not your future.” I told them that I think after all these weeks that I have figured out why it is happening. I think that my anxiety and my daughter not feeling comfortable with me taking care of the babies alone, except for short periods of time is affecting my brain.

I'm wondering if this is my subconscious causing this to happen. Perhaps one of my fears is holding one of my granddaughters and because I have short term memory problems, afraid that I'll forget that I'm holding the baby and accidentally drop her. It makes sense to me that in my brain, I wasn't throwing my granddaughter, I was accidentally dropping her.

Since the babies were born in December, I have been spending one or more days a week with my daughter and the babies. At the beginning of March, my daughter returned to work, so I don't see them as often.

Update: Feb. 2021 In June 2020, I had another granddaughter and thankfully I have been able to babysit all three of them without any problems. Thankfully, I have not had any of these visions with the new baby.