I have aphantasia and probably SDAM. I can barely remember my own life.
Ive been waiting for years for glasses that can scan someones face, tell me who they are, and give me interesting points about them (kids' ages, wifes name, what they do etc).
It is very common for me to be around town and have people come up to me and say my name, and I dont recall ever having met them before.
On the plus side I live in today and dont dwell on the past. It is like a superpower for happiness.
I've got SDAM, I guess? Although, I object to the characterization. I view other people as being neurotically obsessed with remembering their past and their hurts. If I want to remember something, I take a picture, and write a short (or long!) note about it, and that's enough for me to remember (read: reconstruct) a narrative about that event.
I'm a pretty deep pessimist, as well, so I'm pretty happy with my life, all the time. Drives my wife bonkers.
I have experienced similar. A while ago I had some memory issues due to severe insomnia over weeks. It certainly sucked but the memory loss part wasn't so bas as I basically just felt happy often, not even remembering little annoyances.
It's kind of a double edged sword in my opinion because it's not really affordable to always be in that state.
It's strange seeing posts about aphasia on HN every so often. When I was a teen, I suffered a stroke secondary to a TBI that had happened a few days before. As a result, I developed global aphasia and lost my internal monologue. I don't think in words anymore except when I'm either conversing with or thinking about conversing with someone else. To this day, English feels like a second language to me even though it's my native language, and I still have lingering anomic aphasia.
Some days are better than others, and it does affect my ability to code on worse days because I can't remember the names of even common API functions (thank goodness for IDE suggestions!), and if I'm in a lot of meetings in a day, I'm utterly exhausted by the end of the day from the mental effort of trying to tease out meaning from context when there are words in the middle of sentences that have no meaning for me. It's not really something I talk about, so only my husband and my doctor knows about it.
Probably the most annoying part, besides the embarrassment when I can't remember a common word, is the way my brain keeps wanting to file words in the same slot that doesn't work. So I see a word again, know that I used to know what it meant, look it up and for maybe 30 minutes if I'm lucky, I'll remember the word and its definition, but later that day, I'll have forgotten it again.
At least for me, it feels humiliating to forget even common words like "ice" or "screwdriver," and end up saying something unintelligible like, "Could you bring me the thing for the thing so I can do the thing?" along with vague gestures that my husband, to his patient credit, often understands.
In the end, I just have to quietly power through and do the best I can, and I suspect others in the same boat keep quiet about it, too, so I wanted to finally talk about it. To all of you, stay strong, be kind to yourself, and take the time you need to process information.
This is me all the time, but as I've gotten older I realized extensive note taking is extremely helpful for work. I can't recommend it enough for people like me
Nothing changed my work life more positively than having a notebook and pen with me at all times. "This is simple, I'll remember it, no need to write it down"... no you won't.
Fully agree with both of you, especially about writing even simple things down, because it's usually the simple thing I didn't write down that trips me up.
The hardest part is making sure my notes are always up to date, which sometimes means rewriting them to make it easier to tell at a glance what my responsibilities for the day will be.
I've also found that I sometimes remember the first letter of a word even if I can't remember the word itself, so I also keep an index by letter of medium-term information. For instance, I might remember that a contact's name for a work project starts with S, so I flip to S and see his name is Steven. It'll also be filed in a project-related contacts list so if I can't remember the first letter, I can at least skim until I see the name.
I've just started experimenting with transcribed voice notes combined with a local LLM to help me write high-level summaries as well as helping create the index. Still needs work, though. I always have to double-check the outputs to make sure the LLM didn't miss anything important.
Side note: LLMs, even relatively small ones, are really good at helping me find a word via a vague conceptual description of what I want to say. Quite helpful, because on bad days I run into a missing word several times a paragraph when writing. When that fails, I use a related words site and drill down finding closer and closer words until I see the one I wanted.
I learned thinking too much about it makes it worse. Just have to do lists that are ephemeral that you'll rewrite and start over 5-10 pages from now. Just pencil and nice small notebooks that are portable is more important than my laptop or phone most of the time for work
I try to keep things simple because any attempt at a complex/heavy process will never become a habit. But what I find is, even the act of writing something down means I will remember it.
For me it is not at the same intensity at all times, but it can reach levels where I forget the name of my roommate or the name of my friends partner. However, I still know that I know their names. It feels like there is an error in the communication between parts of my brain. Like it's comming any time now. But it doesn't.
I've found my ability to recall names (or proper nouns) to decline as I entered my 60s more than any other cognitive facility, both names of people as well as objects that have one-off names, such as 'Montessori' schools or 'Schroeder', the musician in the Peanuts comics. I suspect such name recall is done using a minimum of secondary cues and associations, relying entirely on a very limited subset of neurons and pathways to drive the retrieval.
So far, I've not been able to devise any way to improve such recall, other than to guess the likeliest first letter of the name then step through successive letters to, hopefully, trigger remembrance. But I bery much doubt most of the memory-enhancing techniques that are in vogue will help. Regenerating a mnemonic to cue the name is no easier than recalling the name itself.
> So far, I've not been able to devise any way to improve such recall
The only way I've found is not intuitive: Extreme health consciousness, both in diet and exercise. I pretty much had to give up alcohol as well, just a couple of glasses of wine and I would experience these weird name/word outages.
This might sound rude, but people remember things they care about. Maybe you legitimately don't care about all these names as much as you think you ought, and feel guilty about it?
I've given up and am honest with myself about how many human relationships are transient and not worth holding onto.
I wish it worked that way. Once I forgot the name of one of my favorite singer/song-writer. It's not a one off. I can describe the 'thing' it's many marvellous qualities, obscure anecdotes, but heaven help me with what's the name.
A terrible thing to have if you are interviewing for a job.
I have this and am just 39yo. It’s crazy how I forget someone it’s embarrassing. Usually when I don’t get enough sleep. Forgetting actors or movie names.
Yes, I have Acquired ELD from a stroke. It does affect my ability to code, especially on the days when I'm more mentally or physically fatigued. And I do also get headaches and fatigue both when expressing my thoughts, as well as when listening to others express theirs.
I tend to last longer when discussing technical subjects with clear logic, goals, and answers than I do in a more free-form conversation that can go in any direction without warning. And I do better in a conversation with only a single person than with multiple people.
I just have to pace myself and take breaks as needed. Fortunately, I have flexible work hours and WFH, so this is possible for me to do.
This, or something similar, has affected me quite a bit at work. I'll be speaking about something and then suddenly be unable to recall a very common and simple word. Even though I have the concept/thought in mind, I can't find the word and I'm just sort of stuck, awkwardly pausing while I try and remember a word like "representation" or something. Sometimes I just have to move on to something else because I can't complete the thought. It's rather embarrassing because it kind of makes me look like an idiot. Of course, about 15 minutes later the word will pop back into my mind.
I don't really know what to do about it, if there's anything that can even be done.
I usually roll my eyes at technology-as-metaphors-for-the-mind, but it really does feel like sometimes something I'm trying to remember is stored on a tape backup somewhere, and I just need to initiate the recall and then wait a while while someone searches through an archive to retrieve whatever it is. Happens most frequently if I'm trying to remember something I definitely know but don't use very often, like the names of actors in some old movie. It might even take a few days sometimes, but I don't need to actively think about it but it feels like it's a long running background task that will eventually complete.
I experienced that. The conversation has long ended, but few days later 'the answer' pops into my head. It is something of a shame, I have no clear way to speed it up.
> I don't really know what to do about it, if there's anything that can even be done.
I wouldn't really worry about it too much. A certain amount of this is normal, happens to all of us, and just an illustration of how our brains aren't perfect machines. You can certainly mention it to your doctor, and they can give you an idea if it is happening to you more than what would be considered normal.
My fathers mother couldn’t remember the name of the city she was in, just used the name of where she lived for years. Couldn’t remember most proper nouns, including the names of her kids, so would just recite the list until she got to the last one.
My fathers brothers and sisters had it bad too.
My and my sister have it just a bit, but have good/funny/memorable coping strategies such as holding words while we dig up mnemonics, as do some of our cousins from that side.
I don't have this, but I have noticed that I have trouble recalling names especially if I neglect my sleep for too long. It's not just names of persons, programming knowledge is affected too - I forget the names of functions, config parameters, etc. So I view this as my signal to go to bed earlier and sleep more.
My memory for names is abysmal if I just hear it, but if I see a name written down, then I can remember it as well as most people. It's terrible if I'm introduced to people as their name goes into my ear and I almost instantly forget it, even if it's repeated. Once I see it, though, I'm usually very good.
I had a similar issue with learning French at school - we had a teacher that would just speak the language and get us to repeat it. That was just terrible for me as I had no idea what was going on as I had difficulty learning it despite being very academically gifted. After about 6 months or so, the teacher started using textbooks too and once I could read the words it all became so much easier for me as I could visualise how to pronounce the words etc.
Very interesting - for a moment while reading I thought anomie was utilized in the text - just to take a moment and go back to clearly see anomia - all good now.
Ive been waiting for years for glasses that can scan someones face, tell me who they are, and give me interesting points about them (kids' ages, wifes name, what they do etc).
It is very common for me to be around town and have people come up to me and say my name, and I dont recall ever having met them before.
On the plus side I live in today and dont dwell on the past. It is like a superpower for happiness.
I've got SDAM, I guess? Although, I object to the characterization. I view other people as being neurotically obsessed with remembering their past and their hurts. If I want to remember something, I take a picture, and write a short (or long!) note about it, and that's enough for me to remember (read: reconstruct) a narrative about that event.
I'm a pretty deep pessimist, as well, so I'm pretty happy with my life, all the time. Drives my wife bonkers.
This is true on many levels.
4:10 @ The Woman Who Could Not Forget - Jill Price
https://youtu.be/SoxsMMV538U
Perfect Memory = Perfect Inability to Forgive | House M.D.
https://youtu.be/dohQfI3u2lc
It's kind of a double edged sword in my opinion because it's not really affordable to always be in that state.
When someone says to you "We've met" and you're drawing a blank, look them in the eye and say "Yes!... but WHERE?"
... and they'll take it from there.
Some days are better than others, and it does affect my ability to code on worse days because I can't remember the names of even common API functions (thank goodness for IDE suggestions!), and if I'm in a lot of meetings in a day, I'm utterly exhausted by the end of the day from the mental effort of trying to tease out meaning from context when there are words in the middle of sentences that have no meaning for me. It's not really something I talk about, so only my husband and my doctor knows about it.
Probably the most annoying part, besides the embarrassment when I can't remember a common word, is the way my brain keeps wanting to file words in the same slot that doesn't work. So I see a word again, know that I used to know what it meant, look it up and for maybe 30 minutes if I'm lucky, I'll remember the word and its definition, but later that day, I'll have forgotten it again.
At least for me, it feels humiliating to forget even common words like "ice" or "screwdriver," and end up saying something unintelligible like, "Could you bring me the thing for the thing so I can do the thing?" along with vague gestures that my husband, to his patient credit, often understands.
In the end, I just have to quietly power through and do the best I can, and I suspect others in the same boat keep quiet about it, too, so I wanted to finally talk about it. To all of you, stay strong, be kind to yourself, and take the time you need to process information.
The hardest part is making sure my notes are always up to date, which sometimes means rewriting them to make it easier to tell at a glance what my responsibilities for the day will be.
I've also found that I sometimes remember the first letter of a word even if I can't remember the word itself, so I also keep an index by letter of medium-term information. For instance, I might remember that a contact's name for a work project starts with S, so I flip to S and see his name is Steven. It'll also be filed in a project-related contacts list so if I can't remember the first letter, I can at least skim until I see the name.
I've just started experimenting with transcribed voice notes combined with a local LLM to help me write high-level summaries as well as helping create the index. Still needs work, though. I always have to double-check the outputs to make sure the LLM didn't miss anything important.
Side note: LLMs, even relatively small ones, are really good at helping me find a word via a vague conceptual description of what I want to say. Quite helpful, because on bad days I run into a missing word several times a paragraph when writing. When that fails, I use a related words site and drill down finding closer and closer words until I see the one I wanted.
For me it is not at the same intensity at all times, but it can reach levels where I forget the name of my roommate or the name of my friends partner. However, I still know that I know their names. It feels like there is an error in the communication between parts of my brain. Like it's comming any time now. But it doesn't.
So far, I've not been able to devise any way to improve such recall, other than to guess the likeliest first letter of the name then step through successive letters to, hopefully, trigger remembrance. But I bery much doubt most of the memory-enhancing techniques that are in vogue will help. Regenerating a mnemonic to cue the name is no easier than recalling the name itself.
The only way I've found is not intuitive: Extreme health consciousness, both in diet and exercise. I pretty much had to give up alcohol as well, just a couple of glasses of wine and I would experience these weird name/word outages.
I've given up and am honest with myself about how many human relationships are transient and not worth holding onto.
I wish it worked that way. Once I forgot the name of one of my favorite singer/song-writer. It's not a one off. I can describe the 'thing' it's many marvellous qualities, obscure anecdotes, but heaven help me with what's the name.
A terrible thing to have if you are interviewing for a job.
Do you get headaches / mental fatigue while expressing your thoughts?
I tend to last longer when discussing technical subjects with clear logic, goals, and answers than I do in a more free-form conversation that can go in any direction without warning. And I do better in a conversation with only a single person than with multiple people.
I just have to pace myself and take breaks as needed. Fortunately, I have flexible work hours and WFH, so this is possible for me to do.
I don't really know what to do about it, if there's anything that can even be done.
I usually roll my eyes at technology-as-metaphors-for-the-mind, but it really does feel like sometimes something I'm trying to remember is stored on a tape backup somewhere, and I just need to initiate the recall and then wait a while while someone searches through an archive to retrieve whatever it is. Happens most frequently if I'm trying to remember something I definitely know but don't use very often, like the names of actors in some old movie. It might even take a few days sometimes, but I don't need to actively think about it but it feels like it's a long running background task that will eventually complete.
I wouldn't really worry about it too much. A certain amount of this is normal, happens to all of us, and just an illustration of how our brains aren't perfect machines. You can certainly mention it to your doctor, and they can give you an idea if it is happening to you more than what would be considered normal.
Does this cause headaches ?
Speaking/writing/drawing etc puts too mental strain on me if I do it for maybe 10 mintues or more.
These problems are classified under expressive language disorders
My fathers brothers and sisters had it bad too.
My and my sister have it just a bit, but have good/funny/memorable coping strategies such as holding words while we dig up mnemonics, as do some of our cousins from that side.
I had a similar issue with learning French at school - we had a teacher that would just speak the language and get us to repeat it. That was just terrible for me as I had no idea what was going on as I had difficulty learning it despite being very academically gifted. After about 6 months or so, the teacher started using textbooks too and once I could read the words it all became so much easier for me as I could visualise how to pronounce the words etc.