"Listen three times, Bast" (memory issues)

Kate of Lokys

Lately, my fiance has made me aware of a disturbing tendency of mine to not remember conversational details - or, indeed, entire conversations. For example, this morning, I woke up, went out to the end room to play some video games, and noticed that the carpet was wet from water getting in somehow after a few days of heavy rain. We've had problems with that before, so I moved some furniture out of the way, set up the floor fans that the landlord left behind after the last incident, sent said landlord an email describing the extent of the water and the steps I had taken to address it and asking him to come take a look at his earliest convenience, then called and left a voicemail on his cell phone (because he doesn't check his email that often).

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for being a MOTHERFUCKING ADULT, but just as I finished on the phone I noticed my bleary-eyed fiance out of bed and looking curious because I never voluntarily use the telephone. So, I explained that I had just called the landlord because I had noticed water in the end room and I wanted him to take a look at it, and my fiance said "I told you about the water yesterday, and I specifically asked you not to call Don until we tidied the place up a bit. We had a conversation about it and everything."

Or, for a second example: he and I went down to a town about 20 miles away to stop at a used game store, and on the way, we passed a drive-in movie theatre. Naturally, I exclaimed "Hey, I didn't know there was a drive-in theatre here, that's neat!"

My fiance started laughing, and said "You're shitting me, right?"

"What? No... what?"

Apparently, that's the third time I have exclaimed in surprised delight at the same discovery of a nearby drive-in movie theatre.

The weird thing is, my memory is absolutely excellent for other things. I can remember facts, figures, family holidays, the first 21 digits of pi (including the four-line rhyming mnemonic poem in which the number of letters in each word corresponds to the digit of pi occupying that position). I can remember where things are - once I've driven to a place once, I can almost invariably find my way back to it again without directions.

But I forget entire conversations that I have with my fiance, and possibly with other people too. During the conversations, I am coherent, I speak logically, I agree that yes, putting those new insurance documents in the car is totally something I should take care of. Then it just disappears from my mind, and a week later, when my fiance gets pulled over because one of the tiny little bulbs illuminating the license plate had burned out, he reaches into the glovebox for the insurance and registration and the only insurance paperwork in there is the card that expired three days before.

At this point, it's beyond "Oh, Kate is silly and forgetful about things sometimes, how cute" - it's irritating, and just on the verge of being actively harmful. It's not just that I forget things, it's that I have long, detailed conversations about them, then the conversations are completely wiped from my memory. I don't know if I've just been conditioned by years of nodding and smiling my way through conversations with my sister while I think about other things, or if I'm experiencing active memory loss, or if I'm slipping into very brief fugue states, or what.

So, I am looking for:

• suggestions for possible mnemonic techniques I can use to remember important conversations
• general advice on living with a faulty memory, like maybe buying PostIt notes in bulk or something?
• possible advice on diagnosing this issue, with the caveat that I am currently stuck in the United States of Lolhealthcare, so something like "go see a neurologist" is about as useful and feasible right now as "perform your own temporal lobe lobotomy at home on the off chance that it could be epilepsy"

Namrok

I've never met a woman who did remember things. However, one ex in particular had really, really, really bad memory loss. Like catastrophically bad. Couldn't remember anything from day to day at all.

Turned out she was dissociating constantly. Sometimes she wasn't herself. But mostly memories just didn't stick and she seemed to have one foot in a dream world all the time. She was just really good at hiding it. I'm not sure how long she knew she had these problems, how long she'd been trying to hide it or compensate for it, or what. She described when she was younger having events, drives, movies, conversations, even days just vanish on her. Lots of seemingly random missing time.

So you know, it could be psychological with no neurological base. Could try therapy first. I know this ex claimed she had the shit abused out of her when she was a kid. Apparently that can cause a lot of ongoing dissociation and memory loss issues.

Numi

Short term you might want to start keeping some kind of log of conversations that have occured, both to help you in your day to day and to see just how much stuff goes missing and if there is any pattern to what sticks and what doesn't.

There is probably an app for that. ;-)

mightyjongyo

I have no idea if this would actually help, or how ridiculous it is, but maybe keeping a diary of conversations or taking notes during conversations? The logic here being that it's supposed to help your retention if you're writing things down in your own words. At least, that's what they tell me in college.

PostIt notes or a whiteboard clipped to your refrigerator will at least help you remember things to do or not to do, but it's probably not very useful for day-to-day things and whole conversations. It'll still be helpful, though.

JebusUD

You could get a handheld tape recorder. Or a phone that does similar. Record conversation notes soon after. Play them back to you later.

Inquisitor77

There's an app called Evernote that people seem to really like. It acts as a one-stop note shop, so if you take notes on your smartphone, you can recall them on your laptop, etc.

If you or your fiance feel this is enough of a recurring issue to be a problem, then by all means talk to your doctor about it, and they can start running tests. Memory loss can be a symptom of many things, so the sooner you start that process the faster you can narrow things down. Best case scenario is that they check you for serious problems and you find out hey, I don't have anything major except a crappy memory for specific things. Welcome to the rest of humanity.

Rethius

I just took a class about improving memory for work. Basically, what I learned is that you have two different kinds of memory - short term and long term. It sounds to me like once you get something in your long term memory you seem to be able to recall it with no issues, but the stuff that you get in your short term memory floats away pretty quickly.

What you need to do is try to get some of these things from short term to long term - unfortunately I don't have any techniques for improving short term memory besides writing shit down on a notepad.

BUT I will tell you what I know about working shit into long term.

Basically, you have to try to associate new facts with something you're already familiar with. If I were to read you a list of 15 words like this:

VEGETABLES
CHIPS
SCRAMBLED EGGS
APPLE PIE
BREAKFAST
STEAK
TOAST
CHICKEN SANDWICH
LUNCH
WINE
ORANGE JUICE
MASHED POTATOES
DINNER
CEREAL
PEPSI

And then ask you to recall them immediately, it's pretty unlikely that you'd be able to remember them all. One technique that works for improving short term memory and tying items like this to your long term memory is to associate them with something that is already in your long term memory.

So, if I gave you the same list of words but you grouped them with something you're familiar with like this:

BREAKFAST

CEREAL
TOAST
SCRAMBLED EGGS
ORANGE JUICE

LUNCH

PEPSI
CHICKEN SANDWICH
CHIPS

DINNER

WINE
STEAK
MASHED POTATOES
APPLE PIE
VEGETABLES

Then it would be more likely that you would remember them.

Another thing that really helps with short term memory is to keep things in small groups. It's the reason that acronyms are so helpful and prevalent in the world. National Aeronautics and Space Administration may be hard to remember, but NASA isn't. Once you've got NASA down, it's much easier to remember what each letter stands for and cheat your long term memory into remembering something complex.

Small groups work better in pretty much every case. Think about a phone number. Usually, it's pretty hard to remember a string of numbers like that, but spacing things out (555 555-5555 as opposed to 5555555555) makes it easier for you to keep down.

In summary:

- Try to tie events and conversations to something you already have associated with your long term memory that you recall pretty well.

- Try to keep things small and grouped. In your situation, I would recommend trying to boil conversations down to important points (don't call the landlord) and tie that to a memory that you recall easily.

Best of luck to you, and I hope this can be of some use - I learned it for corporate/office environment shit, so I don't know how well you can apply it to everyday situations. Hopefully it's better than nothing.

ihmmy

I have similar issues with work conversations - if someone says something to me, there's only like a 30% chance I'll remember it as a to-do. I tend to email myself these tasks if I'm at my computer, or scribble it down on a note pad or postit note otherwise. I forget things in my personal life too, not quite as bad (I think...) but it's harder to keep notes on stuff like that

MKR

Run through a list of bullet points at the end of a conversation with the person you're talking to. I can't remember anything unless I'm able to say it in my own words. And when I can, it never goes away. I had to learn this when my dad would rattle off complex lists of instructions from a plan he built in his head.

radroadkill

Maybe a small calender for things like dates, phone calls, appointments, and paperwork? So if you have a convo about when to call someone or when to switch out paperwork or follow up on something it's on a calender you take with you? I now keep one by the front door and one in my purse so every morning I can't NOT see what's going on that day.

I remember all sorts of absurd, weird, tiny details from conversations and events years ago but deadlines and appointments and things always slip my mind so at least this helps me keep track of the big things. And now I'm finding it easier, months after starting, to keep them in mind.

oldsak

Has your memory always been like this, or is it a more recent development?

From what I understand, good memory is fostered by those things which lead to good health in general, namely good diet, sleep, and exercise. How are you on those fronts?

harry.timbershaft

Jokes about "selective hearing" and "selective memory" as associated with relationships aside, are you on any medications - specifically an SNRI or undergoing long-term opiate therapy? Both of these types of medication can cause the kind of memory problems you are describing.

Kate of Lokys

Thanks for the advice so far. Logging all of my conversations seems like a real chore, but given the alternative, I think I'm going to try it out for a week or two, see if it makes a difference.

Some background info: I'm a fairly healthy 20something woman, non-smoker, very occasional drinker (like a couple of individual drinks per month), not on any drugs other than simple monophasic birth control. Before this issue popped up, I would have described my memory as good to excellent - I mean, I occasionally forget to take the garbage out, but that's about it. My current memory loss is different, though. In the past, if I forgot to do something, I remembered as soon as I was reminded of it: "Oh, right, sorry, I knew I said I would do that, it just totally slipped my mind." But with this current thing, I don't remember the conversation in which I said I would do it. I have no mental record of it at all, and that's what's freaking me out.

The main thing that has me a little worried is that my sister had epilepsy when she was younger, and I know there's some degree of genetic component to that particular affliction. It's possible (but highly unlikely) that I'm experiencing some sort of transient epileptic amnesia, or something like.

I guess for now I'll just try the notetaking method, and see how that goes.

poshniallo

I don't have any advice yet, without having a long think, but I just wanted to say you're not so unusual. The degree is a little different, but I and many people I know can remember astonishing amounts of facts but not what they had for breakfast. It seems to be an entirely different area of memory.

Just wanted to tell you you're not a freak.