Need help playing a character with memory problems

13 years ago I had next door neighbour, schizofrenic, 

one day on my way home around 2:30 pm I saw him standing in the middle of the Old Stein/North Street crossing, cars passing by, and he was staring up on clouds, completely oblivious

most of the time he sounded cognizant, but had crazy stories, and very poor hygiene, e.g. hole in a shoe and biggest toe sticking out through, with gigantic nail on it, we started calling him William la Toenail

you can usually recognise them when they talk, depending how bad they are... i met one really bad whod talk to you for at least 2 hours if they saw you, and it would be all crazy stuff without a break flipping from one wild story to the next, all sorts from the tv talking to them to the queen living next door to claiming they was on the titanic, so it becomes very clear with a schizophrenic as soon as they speak if they are bad on that. i think the person i knew was one of the very worst cases though, and that was her still on drugs, off drugs they have to lock her up i think as she ends up going crazy running round screaming thinking someones chasing her with a knife and so on.

NAS80699 said:

but other players haven’t been engaging with it

why is it a surprise?

in RL when you see someone schisofenic on a street what is your reaction? can you even rocognise it?

I think wise GM would interfere now, and help the wisest/cleverest among you to roll dices so he 'realises what is going on' (on a successful roll)

some RPG players are only about exp, and senseless slaughter, and lack imagination, it's possible they hope you'll do all the legwork

for rpg mechanics though.... this forgetting and cycling back to a older point can be done in a game mechanic way in that if your char is a level 20, when they slip into dementia they perhaps cycle back to being a level 4 or something.

well for one, depending on how long they known the other chars they would likely forget who they are, and not know them. possibly mistake them for potential enemies? view them with suspicion. 

unless they are childhood friends or long term friends. my nan had alzheimers and dementia, she seemed to forget all memories up to a certain point but yet had her youth memories which her brain seemed to back on and cycle back to.... kinda like when you have a pc issue, and you have to restore you pc back to its last restore point, but its last restore point was like ....50 years ago... you think you are that person 50 years ago in that time and still have those people you knew around back then, then you realise your old, your not that young person, this confuses you, you wonder were all the people you know have gone, and see a new set of people that are alien to you but claim to know you and be related, you perhaps may see familial similarity in them which confuses you more, then they tell you all your freinds you think are still current and in your time, are long dead, which then gives you back your grief as if you only just lost your closest friends all at once all over again like new.

she also had hallucinations for some reason, probably brain breakdown due to the dementia? but she used to hallucinate and start screaming in bed thinking there was snakes in her bed.

you forget every basic thing like how to go to the toilet and detecting whether you need the toilet, you pretty much sit slumped in a chair which is also commode vacant most of the time, drooling. every now and then laughing or screaming for no reason. you cant walk, perhaps you forgot how to walk or perhaps because you stayed bed ridden too long that your muscles dont work but maybe it could be a forgetting of how to walk or to use your muscles.

it doesnt matter if someone just brought you up to date with all the current things and the fact everyone you know has died, you forget, then have to be told again, and again, and again, you will be on a repeat of wondering were your mum is, when your mum has died 50 years ago, and being told that she has died long ago, getting upset and grief stricken about it, then losing the memory and then asking again, a constant cycle of forgetting, asking where someone is, remembering they are dead, getting upset, then forgetting, over and over again.