I was diagnosed with adhd as a young child, and still very often forget stuff. My short term memory can be terrible and I often immediately lose a thought or forget an idea after just a couple of seconds.
However, I’m often able to recall an idea by going back to what I was doing, which is something I never hear other people with adhd talk about. Sometimes all it takes is going back to the visual that triggered the thought or reading back a couple of sentences. This usually doesn’t take longer than ~10 seconds. Other times I have to retrace my thought process, which can occasionally take up to a minute… If it takes any longer, then the thought is likely to be lost forever and I always feel terrible when it happens. At times I randomly remember something days later, even though it had felt like the thought was truly lost forever.
Is this common among folks with adhd? I only ever hear people talking about forgetting, and never about remembering.
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My memory is great.
It’s my recall that is actually shit.
So I remember shit that happened when I was three. But I will only ever be able to recall any given memory when it does not fucking matter. If I witnessed a crime, I won’t be able to recall anything during the trial; but 3 years later in the shower it’ll all come back to me.
This is why I use a list and I judiciously refuse to let people force things onto the list. It’s my list and if it becomes cluttered with crap I will not look at it and just make a new one (i.e. your boss telling you “X is your top priority but you’re going to need to do Y first because of a client deadline but the X ticket should be at the top of the column” fucking end me - I’ve had conversations like this and it makes me want to check my wall for studs so I can safely drive my head through the drywall).
My memory is absolutely rubbish, I have good friends I never think about until I’m with them and then I love every moment. When I’m with my family I have to deal with constant guilt over someone says “Do you remember Sandra who played flute in the band with you?” … and I smile and nod with no clue who Sandra is. I assume these are pretty common experiences since it seems to be quite a frequent expression of ADHD.
The second paragraph is especially relatable for me… All the friendships I have lost and would’ve lost if some friends hadn’t put so much effort into keeping in touch with me :(
I tend to put all my epic plans and wise ideas together, and just watch them fade from my mind in real-time as I go back to confusion. Then people wonder why I don’t get anything done. Like, how. Physical work is extremely easy compared to this.
I’m literally experiencing this while replying to these comments. I can come up with the greatest reply, and then watch it slowly fade away. Rereading comments does often help with remembering most of it, though.
Absolutely. I often find that re-tracing my steps makes the thought come back. It makes me wonder if the same set of stimuli would make me have the same thought even eg. a month later
I can’t remember the specific examples (surprising nobody), but I have had at least a couple occasions where I found traces of something I’d done that showed me I did actually react that exact same way some while previously and forgot about it entirely. In one case, a friend stopped mid conversation to say, “Wait. Haven’t we had this exact conversation before?,” and I while it wasn’t as concrete as finding my own evidence, I was pretty sure he was right.
It’s almost like a coping mechanism, even if I don’t do it intentionally. My life is a book, but at any given moment I might not know what happened on the last page or three. So I have to just figure it out and act how I would act even when I’m clueless.
Haha yes. It’s sad how predictable this implies we are.
Glad to hear I’m not the only one! I feel like what you’re describing has kind of happened to me before under certain circumstances. I can’t seem to recall a specific example, though :(
So say im scrolling through my gallery, and a specific sequence of pictures makes me have a thought, which I try to remember, but soon forget. If I go back and look at those pictures again soon enough, they usually re-trigger the forgotten thought.
That’s exactly how it goes for me! You’ve made me wonder if I’m actually remembering a thought or if my brain somehow just reconstructs a thought that has a similar vibe. I guess there really is no way to find out. I don’t even know what I’m talking about at this point lol.
I’d say the thought is still there but my brain has just lost its ‘connection’ to it. And the stimuli somehow start building that connection again
Oh that’s totally me.
Best way I can describe it is that my mind is the Google homepage. Give it input, and it will spit out everything it knows about that, but by default, it’s just a blank page waiting for a question.
I need triggers to jog my memory. Sticky notes are a lifesaver.
I love your analogy! I may start using it to explain my symptoms to people in the future.
Yup, it is for me. Visual cues are huge for remembering stuff. I also set constant reminders in multiple places, and make copious use of timers.
I always like to leave my devices in really unusual spots, so I don’t forget to charge them. It works surprisingly well.
Yes… I realised member everything in the shower… Even the things I remembered in the shower yesterday…
And have zero ability to get it into my digital journal…
Same! Showers are magical, although I feel like that’s true for most people. What I don’t understand, is that I am sometimes able to vividly recall the most useless information that my brain really should’ve just gotten rid of already.