I was JUST talking about the fringe genetic benefits of ADHD with a friend. That 30% rate in tribes is very interesting! Also, I’ve noticed that a lot of friends and people I’ve dated seem to have had it, too. We tend to congregate.
My long-term memory is pretty good, I remember a lot of what happened as a child, but I also have the same problems with names and faces, and that seems to run in my family. My short term memory is absolute garbage, roommates and partners have learned they have to remind me that I left something on the stove or I haven’t yet put all the groceries away or that my keys are actually in my hand.
@David As soon as I started reading this article I began to wonder. What you've described fits a spectrum condition called Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM)[1]. I have it too. I can remember exactly two brief moments prior to starting school, have only the vaguest recollection of events before high school and have the same problems recognising faces and recalling events. I've met people I was (apparently!) close friends with at University that I have absolutely no memory of at all.
I'm curious - are your memories in the third person? All of mine are. Apparently this isn't typical[2].
Now, this is where I we take a leap. I have ADHD, and anecdotally many people with ADHD also experience SDAM.[3] "...people with a genetic predisposition for busy minds and an attraction to novelty..." describes people with ADHD. That whole paragraph describes ADHD. "When I am “on” I am really on" is called hyperfocus. "When a project doesn’t interest me, or ceases to interest me anymore because it’s dragged on for so long, I’ll procrastinate endlessly to avoid it" describes my entire career. I've actually done a talk about how the coping skills I developed for living with undiagnosed ADHD may well have helped me be good at my job.[5]
There's a widely accepted screening test for ADHD called the Adult ADHD Self Report Scale.[4] If anyone's curious it might be a thing to try.
Amazing article, life changing to re think non typical memory as a genetic advantage in some way (even though it doesn’t feel like it most of the time!). Thanks for writing this David, I have never understood how people manage to write their autobiography, mine would be done in about 2 sentences.
I have always been interested in the manifestation of ADHD in adults, as I feel like it's not really talked about much, I just knew it wasn't the same as the way children dealt with it!
I've always thought of ADHD (and other brain discrepancies like Autism) as more of a super power, as brain disorder sounds so negative and is not necessarily the case.
I am technically disabled due to leg issues, and I can't stand the 'dis' words! I am perfectly 'able' to live my life and go about my day without being 'dissed' 😂
Random side note that popped into my head while reading your article; my little brother was diagnosed as hyperactive when he was little, he had to stay away from sugar and artificial colours and flavours (no mean feat for my parents doing grocery shopping in the 80s!) - but looking back now, I really feel that he was just the only boy amid 4 sisters (we're a big family), and was probably just acting more full on and differently to the rest of, because of this! He may have just needed another brother, or for one of his sisters to be more of a tom boy, so he could play more rough and tumble games, and be able to work out the wiggles!!
I have the memory of an elephant, which annoys my husband no end - he forgets everything, but I feel that's more because he has me there to fill the calendar and remind him of everything, like a lot of husbands/dads/brothers out there...
One of my aunties (one of dad's sisters from another big family of 13 children!) thinks all the men in that family were born with a 'Bumbling English Professor Gene' and need women around them to organise their lives - it's probably because they've grown up in a house full of strong capable women around to organise everything for them and got used to it, but it makes me laugh!!
But never fear, if you ended up on the Generation Game, I have no doubt you would remember the "Cuddly Toy" - that was always my favourite thing in the line up!!!
Very interesting article, David. I have no memories of my life at all before starting school. Only about 4 memories of events between the ages of 5 and 10. Maybe 15 memories of events between 10 and 15. Progressively more from16 onwards. I never thought it was unusual to remember so little from early years. Now I wonder.
I have a terrible memory for names - 2 seconds after I am introduced to someone I forget their name. Many times I bump into someone whose face I know but I can't remember their name. I can only remember about 4-6 addresses (including my own and my old one in Auckland). I can remember how to get to the houses of most people I know or particular shops or locations after just 1 or 2 visits but I have no idea what any of the addresses actually are.
This was really great! It’s nice to know that other people feel this way. Anytime I watch a crime investigation show I get anxiety thinking about how if someone asked me where I was on a certain date and time I’d have no clue. I’m sure I’d go to jail.
Having grown up in an incredibly abusive and traumatizing environment I consider myself lucky for the things I have “forgotten.” Of course the pain and memories lie deep down but for the most part I feel I’ve been able to overcome them and live a good life. Because the trauma occurred between the ages of 7-18 and I’m now 40, that time seems to have almost happened to a different person altogether. I’ve also read that each time a memory is visited your brain has a way of rewriting certain details, so perhaps each time I’ve gone back to those times, with the distance of time and therapy, I’ve been able to rewrite my experience and level of hurt. The mind is such a complicated and magnificent thing .. because if you ask me all of my grandma’s phone numbers from the time I was a small child until her passing, I could recall all of them immediately. But don’t dare ask what I ate for breakfast today or what I said out-loud just a few moments ago.
This has me wondering if I've met Rob Schneider. I don't think I would remember.
I was "lucky" to get diagnosed with ADD as a child, so at least I kinda knew what I was dealing with, but not really sure it made much of a difference. When it comes up I like to joke with people "it's like learning to ride a bike, which I don't remember how to do". Picking up and putting down new skills, pretty easy though! (Unless it's riding a bike, I'm getting too old for that game, falling over is no longer an option for me).
How we remember things vary from person to person as well. Marilu Henner is an American actress who has an autobiographical memory wherein she remembers everything. Give her a date and she can tell what she did right down to what she ate for every meal, who she talked to and what they talked about as well as what she wore and the time she went to bed. She said that until dvds came out, she had difficulty explaining to people how she accessed these memories. When she the menu section on a dvd, she realized that's how her brain organized all of her memories and she now tells people her memories are one giant dvd menu. I suppose how good your overall life has been has a lot to do with how well you live with all of your memories intact, if the good outweighs the bad, it must be nice to be able to dip into those happy days and some kind of hell on Earth if you have too many horrible memories.
OMG you have described me and my memory almost exactly! I am always meeting people 'for the first time' who then tell me all about the really important conversation we had x years/months/weeks earlier and I have no recollection of them at all.
I have almost no memories of my childhood that aren't stories recreated around photographs. I put it down to being generally miserable but maybe it's just a thing. And, as you describe, I don't recall why I'm no longer friends with someone, or why we broke up several years ago.
Good to know I'm not the only one! :)
I now have, on top of a general memory malaise, the joys of perimenopause that just compounds all of this. It makes working quite challenging when you don't remember anything you just read!
I could have written this post almost word for word describing my experiences with memory! My roommate is the Dan in my life, and often says things like “do you remember in blah blah blah” and my response is always “you know that i don’t” haha.
i also have adhd and it absolutely affects my memory. I don’t remember most books, or movies, or tv shows, unless i’ve watched/read them over and over. I also have no memory of childhood.
One of my biggest concerns when it comes to my memory are people gaslighting me. I can never be sure if i really did say or do the thing i’m being told. I can never be certain someone isn’t trying to manipulate a situation to make me look or feel a certain way and i cannot defend myself. Or if I absolutely remember something (i think), having people tel me definitively “no it didn’t happen that way” instantly puts me on guard.
I have never met Rob Schneider, but i do have a similar story. In 2006 I went to see a band i really liked, who I had never seen before. They played on a show I went to in 2005, but we got there late and I missed their set. After the 2006 show, I spoke to the singer very briefly, and mentioned I would be going the next night, and he offered to put me on the guest list. I thought, wow, this man is so kind! He continued to be extremely kind at every show I attended and we became friends.
Fast forward 8 years later, I am at a show, and somehow it got brought up when we first met. I said we met in 2006, and he said no! we met in 2005. Thinking he just had the years mixed up, i mentioned what tour we met on. He said no again, told me the exact bands, state, city, and described in detail the weird state park that the show was at in 2005. The one I definitely was at, but completely missed their set. I had never even heard their music at that point. I still cannot remember meeting him, what we discussed, if i even knew he was in one of the bands that played that night.
I definitely empathize with this blog post. One thing I've noticed for myself is that if I don't write it down, most likely I will never remember it. For instance, just last week I rescheduled a weekly meeting on my digital calendar and totally forgot about it because I didn't write it down in my day planner.
Also, in regards to ADHD, I'm wondering if I have it although I don't want to self diagnose. I never really thought about it seriously until this past year when I started graduate school. My grad school experience so far has been a mix of liberation, confusion, and utter madness and I can't help but wonder if its my own chaotic brain at fault. From my understanding, the great thing about grad school is that your studies are pretty much self-directed, especially in an arts or fine arts program. The problem with this for me though is that I can't settle on one topic/area of study. I try to force my brain to do it which just results in a state of brain fog. And I try to find concrete commonalities in all of my interests but its overwhelming and ends the same way.
Because of this, I feel as though I'm either falling behind or a little lost compared to my colleagues. They all seem to have a clear direction where they want to their studies and practices to go. Meanwhile, I'm wayfaring in this massive sea of ideas, doubts, curiosities and sometimes just complete dead-ends. I think being curious is a good thing but I am worried that maybe, depending on your situation, it may not be a good thing in the end. Any thoughts? Perhaps the Webworm community has advice for a wayfaring sailor like me?
The best way it’s ever been explained to me is that memories are more like word documents than PDF files. When you open one up to recall something it’s malleable and can be edited.
I struggle with faces and names a lot too. I manage a bookshop and a good percentage of our regular customers have ongoing orders of magazines or newspapers. They come in and don’t say their names, just hello! I often find myself going out and looking in the drawers hoping one of the names listed jumps out at me. It’s an ongoing anxiety issue but I guess in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter too much.
Such an interesting topic. I am almost the exact opposite of what you describe. My brain is full of vivid memories. At Xmas time I decided to try to remember every Xmas over the past 25 years and was able to recollect where i was, who was there and what happened for all. I can even remember the presents and how I was feeling and who got more pissed than others. I was mowing my lawn last evening and as I was doing it I was remembering the last time I mowed the lawn and the exact day and what I was listening to on RNZ; it was the Voices podcast about a woman who had carried her children through the night over the borders between Iraq into Iran. I too was obsessed with Stephen King as a teenager; I admit to not really remembering the plots but can remember where I was as I was reading the books! Lying in the grass in my family home or in the sand dunes while at the beach on holiday, or eating huge bowls of weetbix covered with milk and a thick layer of sugar lying on my parents four poster bed! WTF. Truly weird. I worry that all the strong memories are leaving no room for other stuff but the truth is I keep on remembering and still enjoy the present and am mindful and all that stuff they say is good for you. Thank you for sharing your story; I’ll be sure if I ever meet you to not get too happy that you were super enthusiastic to see me and realize you are possibly not sure if we were, in fact, flatmates 10 years ago:)
I was JUST talking about the fringe genetic benefits of ADHD with a friend. That 30% rate in tribes is very interesting! Also, I’ve noticed that a lot of friends and people I’ve dated seem to have had it, too. We tend to congregate.
My long-term memory is pretty good, I remember a lot of what happened as a child, but I also have the same problems with names and faces, and that seems to run in my family. My short term memory is absolute garbage, roommates and partners have learned they have to remind me that I left something on the stove or I haven’t yet put all the groceries away or that my keys are actually in my hand.
@David As soon as I started reading this article I began to wonder. What you've described fits a spectrum condition called Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM)[1]. I have it too. I can remember exactly two brief moments prior to starting school, have only the vaguest recollection of events before high school and have the same problems recognising faces and recalling events. I've met people I was (apparently!) close friends with at University that I have absolutely no memory of at all.
I'm curious - are your memories in the third person? All of mine are. Apparently this isn't typical[2].
Now, this is where I we take a leap. I have ADHD, and anecdotally many people with ADHD also experience SDAM.[3] "...people with a genetic predisposition for busy minds and an attraction to novelty..." describes people with ADHD. That whole paragraph describes ADHD. "When I am “on” I am really on" is called hyperfocus. "When a project doesn’t interest me, or ceases to interest me anymore because it’s dragged on for so long, I’ll procrastinate endlessly to avoid it" describes my entire career. I've actually done a talk about how the coping skills I developed for living with undiagnosed ADHD may well have helped me be good at my job.[5]
There's a widely accepted screening test for ADHD called the Adult ADHD Self Report Scale.[4] If anyone's curious it might be a thing to try.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002839321500158X
[2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150420182757.htm
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/m01eia/ive_just_realised_i_dont_remember_9999_of_my_life/
[4] https://psychology-tools.com/test/adult-adhd-self-report-scale
[5] https://preview.tinyurl.com/isig-squirrel
Amazing article, life changing to re think non typical memory as a genetic advantage in some way (even though it doesn’t feel like it most of the time!). Thanks for writing this David, I have never understood how people manage to write their autobiography, mine would be done in about 2 sentences.
I have always been interested in the manifestation of ADHD in adults, as I feel like it's not really talked about much, I just knew it wasn't the same as the way children dealt with it!
I've always thought of ADHD (and other brain discrepancies like Autism) as more of a super power, as brain disorder sounds so negative and is not necessarily the case.
I am technically disabled due to leg issues, and I can't stand the 'dis' words! I am perfectly 'able' to live my life and go about my day without being 'dissed' 😂
Random side note that popped into my head while reading your article; my little brother was diagnosed as hyperactive when he was little, he had to stay away from sugar and artificial colours and flavours (no mean feat for my parents doing grocery shopping in the 80s!) - but looking back now, I really feel that he was just the only boy amid 4 sisters (we're a big family), and was probably just acting more full on and differently to the rest of, because of this! He may have just needed another brother, or for one of his sisters to be more of a tom boy, so he could play more rough and tumble games, and be able to work out the wiggles!!
I have the memory of an elephant, which annoys my husband no end - he forgets everything, but I feel that's more because he has me there to fill the calendar and remind him of everything, like a lot of husbands/dads/brothers out there...
One of my aunties (one of dad's sisters from another big family of 13 children!) thinks all the men in that family were born with a 'Bumbling English Professor Gene' and need women around them to organise their lives - it's probably because they've grown up in a house full of strong capable women around to organise everything for them and got used to it, but it makes me laugh!!
But never fear, if you ended up on the Generation Game, I have no doubt you would remember the "Cuddly Toy" - that was always my favourite thing in the line up!!!
Very interesting article, David. I have no memories of my life at all before starting school. Only about 4 memories of events between the ages of 5 and 10. Maybe 15 memories of events between 10 and 15. Progressively more from16 onwards. I never thought it was unusual to remember so little from early years. Now I wonder.
I have a terrible memory for names - 2 seconds after I am introduced to someone I forget their name. Many times I bump into someone whose face I know but I can't remember their name. I can only remember about 4-6 addresses (including my own and my old one in Auckland). I can remember how to get to the houses of most people I know or particular shops or locations after just 1 or 2 visits but I have no idea what any of the addresses actually are.
This was really great! It’s nice to know that other people feel this way. Anytime I watch a crime investigation show I get anxiety thinking about how if someone asked me where I was on a certain date and time I’d have no clue. I’m sure I’d go to jail.
Having grown up in an incredibly abusive and traumatizing environment I consider myself lucky for the things I have “forgotten.” Of course the pain and memories lie deep down but for the most part I feel I’ve been able to overcome them and live a good life. Because the trauma occurred between the ages of 7-18 and I’m now 40, that time seems to have almost happened to a different person altogether. I’ve also read that each time a memory is visited your brain has a way of rewriting certain details, so perhaps each time I’ve gone back to those times, with the distance of time and therapy, I’ve been able to rewrite my experience and level of hurt. The mind is such a complicated and magnificent thing .. because if you ask me all of my grandma’s phone numbers from the time I was a small child until her passing, I could recall all of them immediately. But don’t dare ask what I ate for breakfast today or what I said out-loud just a few moments ago.
This has me wondering if I've met Rob Schneider. I don't think I would remember.
I was "lucky" to get diagnosed with ADD as a child, so at least I kinda knew what I was dealing with, but not really sure it made much of a difference. When it comes up I like to joke with people "it's like learning to ride a bike, which I don't remember how to do". Picking up and putting down new skills, pretty easy though! (Unless it's riding a bike, I'm getting too old for that game, falling over is no longer an option for me).
How we remember things vary from person to person as well. Marilu Henner is an American actress who has an autobiographical memory wherein she remembers everything. Give her a date and she can tell what she did right down to what she ate for every meal, who she talked to and what they talked about as well as what she wore and the time she went to bed. She said that until dvds came out, she had difficulty explaining to people how she accessed these memories. When she the menu section on a dvd, she realized that's how her brain organized all of her memories and she now tells people her memories are one giant dvd menu. I suppose how good your overall life has been has a lot to do with how well you live with all of your memories intact, if the good outweighs the bad, it must be nice to be able to dip into those happy days and some kind of hell on Earth if you have too many horrible memories.
Do you remember meeting Gene Simmons?
Sounds like you could do with trying some Ārepa. A nootropic brain drink. 100% natural and made right here in Auckland. Good stuff 🤗
OMG you have described me and my memory almost exactly! I am always meeting people 'for the first time' who then tell me all about the really important conversation we had x years/months/weeks earlier and I have no recollection of them at all.
I have almost no memories of my childhood that aren't stories recreated around photographs. I put it down to being generally miserable but maybe it's just a thing. And, as you describe, I don't recall why I'm no longer friends with someone, or why we broke up several years ago.
Good to know I'm not the only one! :)
I now have, on top of a general memory malaise, the joys of perimenopause that just compounds all of this. It makes working quite challenging when you don't remember anything you just read!
I could have written this post almost word for word describing my experiences with memory! My roommate is the Dan in my life, and often says things like “do you remember in blah blah blah” and my response is always “you know that i don’t” haha.
i also have adhd and it absolutely affects my memory. I don’t remember most books, or movies, or tv shows, unless i’ve watched/read them over and over. I also have no memory of childhood.
One of my biggest concerns when it comes to my memory are people gaslighting me. I can never be sure if i really did say or do the thing i’m being told. I can never be certain someone isn’t trying to manipulate a situation to make me look or feel a certain way and i cannot defend myself. Or if I absolutely remember something (i think), having people tel me definitively “no it didn’t happen that way” instantly puts me on guard.
I have never met Rob Schneider, but i do have a similar story. In 2006 I went to see a band i really liked, who I had never seen before. They played on a show I went to in 2005, but we got there late and I missed their set. After the 2006 show, I spoke to the singer very briefly, and mentioned I would be going the next night, and he offered to put me on the guest list. I thought, wow, this man is so kind! He continued to be extremely kind at every show I attended and we became friends.
Fast forward 8 years later, I am at a show, and somehow it got brought up when we first met. I said we met in 2006, and he said no! we met in 2005. Thinking he just had the years mixed up, i mentioned what tour we met on. He said no again, told me the exact bands, state, city, and described in detail the weird state park that the show was at in 2005. The one I definitely was at, but completely missed their set. I had never even heard their music at that point. I still cannot remember meeting him, what we discussed, if i even knew he was in one of the bands that played that night.
All that rambling to say, I’m glad I’m not alone.
I definitely empathize with this blog post. One thing I've noticed for myself is that if I don't write it down, most likely I will never remember it. For instance, just last week I rescheduled a weekly meeting on my digital calendar and totally forgot about it because I didn't write it down in my day planner.
Also, in regards to ADHD, I'm wondering if I have it although I don't want to self diagnose. I never really thought about it seriously until this past year when I started graduate school. My grad school experience so far has been a mix of liberation, confusion, and utter madness and I can't help but wonder if its my own chaotic brain at fault. From my understanding, the great thing about grad school is that your studies are pretty much self-directed, especially in an arts or fine arts program. The problem with this for me though is that I can't settle on one topic/area of study. I try to force my brain to do it which just results in a state of brain fog. And I try to find concrete commonalities in all of my interests but its overwhelming and ends the same way.
Because of this, I feel as though I'm either falling behind or a little lost compared to my colleagues. They all seem to have a clear direction where they want to their studies and practices to go. Meanwhile, I'm wayfaring in this massive sea of ideas, doubts, curiosities and sometimes just complete dead-ends. I think being curious is a good thing but I am worried that maybe, depending on your situation, it may not be a good thing in the end. Any thoughts? Perhaps the Webworm community has advice for a wayfaring sailor like me?
The best way it’s ever been explained to me is that memories are more like word documents than PDF files. When you open one up to recall something it’s malleable and can be edited.
I struggle with faces and names a lot too. I manage a bookshop and a good percentage of our regular customers have ongoing orders of magazines or newspapers. They come in and don’t say their names, just hello! I often find myself going out and looking in the drawers hoping one of the names listed jumps out at me. It’s an ongoing anxiety issue but I guess in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter too much.
Such an interesting topic. I am almost the exact opposite of what you describe. My brain is full of vivid memories. At Xmas time I decided to try to remember every Xmas over the past 25 years and was able to recollect where i was, who was there and what happened for all. I can even remember the presents and how I was feeling and who got more pissed than others. I was mowing my lawn last evening and as I was doing it I was remembering the last time I mowed the lawn and the exact day and what I was listening to on RNZ; it was the Voices podcast about a woman who had carried her children through the night over the borders between Iraq into Iran. I too was obsessed with Stephen King as a teenager; I admit to not really remembering the plots but can remember where I was as I was reading the books! Lying in the grass in my family home or in the sand dunes while at the beach on holiday, or eating huge bowls of weetbix covered with milk and a thick layer of sugar lying on my parents four poster bed! WTF. Truly weird. I worry that all the strong memories are leaving no room for other stuff but the truth is I keep on remembering and still enjoy the present and am mindful and all that stuff they say is good for you. Thank you for sharing your story; I’ll be sure if I ever meet you to not get too happy that you were super enthusiastic to see me and realize you are possibly not sure if we were, in fact, flatmates 10 years ago:)