Practical example of this that affects millions: people with #ADHD Have less dopamine in their brains (oversimplification). Dopamine is one of the things that must be present to form a memory. Less dopamine = fewer memories (again, oversimplification).
ADHD people are incredibly forgetful and spend our lives being gaslit by people in our lives who have heard these 🐄💩 lines, and parroted them without thinking.
@Sparky and the seratonin &, &… like there are SO many chemicals involved in the 1st stage, and then you have the process of transfer to long term memories.
I basically stopped digging into details once i was able to understand what the primary thing that was likely affecting my lack of memory was, and that I wasn't a failure of a human being, or having early onset Alzheimer's. ;) That being said, i have paid an atypical amount of time learning the high level stuff around memory. ;)
@Sparky yeah, i have never figured that out. I have an atypically good memory for things that happened in movies, but learning that movies invoke heightened emotions, and heightened emotions invoke more chemicals that help memory I was like "ok, now I understand why i remember how that scene went down"
So, I can tell random minutiae about The Incredibles, but Ohm's Law? Nope. Has a great visual component, that helps remember and use it. Need it regularly. Can't !#$! remember it to save my life
I remember my dreams clearer than I remember my waking life.
I can only conclude that the Dreamlands are real and what I do during the day is a pale illusion.
@Sparky but more direcly to your point... why is there all this random 🐄💩 that isn't emotional that we don't care about and don't use that we can't forget.
@masukomi@Sparky My assumption is that I remember what I pay attention to. I pay attention to things that match my energy levels. For example a person speaking at a certain pace will have my attention. What I do factors into that as well, like moving about or doing another thing at the same time.
It's pretty much irrelevant to me how important the topic or the person is.
@kalikiana@Sparky > My assumption is that I remember what I pay attention to.
Unfortunately the studies prove that's not true. It's just a thing that feels like it should be true.
> It's pretty much irrelevant to me how important the topic or the person is.
I assure you that's not normal. Most people will forget the irrelevant 💩 said to them unless there's an emotional / significant component to the moment.
@masukomi@Sparky I don't know what those studies say about most people. Maybe you can elaborate on the difference?
In my experience in day to day life there is a clear distinction between not processing something and forgetting. I don't forget much. If I learned something but got distracted, which is common, the memory will still come back to me.
@kalikiana@Sparky very simply they say that that it doesn’t matter how hard you want to remember a thing or how much you pay attention to it. That’s not what causes a memory to be formed.
In your case, actively paying attention may have an emotional component. Heightened emotions increase memory.
Literally, every ADHD person should be able to confirm that simply paying attention doesn’t help remembering things.
@masukomi@Sparky Anyway I just wanted to say from my perspective how I experience it. Because people can say the same thing about me. I might explain it differently. In the end it doesn't matter because people who say "You don't care" don't want an explanation. They just assume I am being ignorant, on purpose or not, it makes no difference to them. We probably agree on that.
@masukomi@Sparky I can't remember important events of my past or he names of people I had significant interactions with or tasks I need to do from day to day.... But I remember the quadratic formula and the phone numbers of my best friends in elementary school and all kinds of random trivia that very few other humans actually care about.
@Qyriad oh dear. I was kinda hoping you weren't implying that because... that's just a lot.
I wasn't aware of mindful stuff helping memory. Thanks. Related to mindfulness: ADHD makes normal meditation an exercise in futility for me but i HAVE had good success with guided meditation. The ones in the Headspace app (not cheap) worked well for me, but I'm sure there are similarly good, but cheaper options out there.
I'm ignorant about "grounding" techniques. Will research.
@juliewebgirl I have no idea. That would not surprise me, but I think there’s probably something more at play for the people with exceptionally good memories
@null when I try and convince someone that the reason they did, something is some thing that is objectively false, and a lie I am gaslighting them.
That’s what it means to gaslight. When someone tells me that the reason I forgot was because I don’t care or because I didn’t feel it was important, they are gaslighting me and attempting to make me believe a falsehood about my actions.
@masukomi No, it's just a lie. Gaslighting is systematically manipulating someone with the goal of making them believe they are mentally unwell and incapable of trusting their perception of reality.
@null it can be that. It is not exclusively that. It does not have to be systematic and it does not have to have the goal of making the person and believe they are unwell. A classic example:, Man’s father told him that he should tell his new wife that she was ugly, so that she would not leave him. He did so every day. The goal was not to make the wife mentally unwell. The goal was not even to make her believe she was ugly. That was simply means of getting to the goal of making her not leave him
"If you wanted-to, you would have" is still a completely valid criticism/reality to levy at a neurodivergent person if they try and use their neurodivergence as an excuse to not do that thing they said they would do.
As is going "hey, didn't you info-dump for a good long time about how much you hate people saying they want to do stuff with you when they interacted with you but never following up, even when you were like 'oh, if you want to, let's schedule our next hangout Right Now!?' so why is it okay when YOU do it?"
@EppyNWS because you cannot see into the mind or body of another human being. You rarely know for a fact that they are lying.
Common example: some people are semi-ambulatory. They mostly use wheelchairs, but sometimes they can stand for a while.
Most people think that they’re use of the wheelchair is a lie. Most people assume that because you could stand for five minutes yesterday at this time you’re lying when you say you can’t do it today at this time.
@EppyNWS you simply can’t assume that they are lying to you. Maybe they are but unless you know that, for a fact that they are, any claim otherwise makes you an abelist ass . By “know” I mean possess objective undeniable facts.
Unless you just witnessed them doing or seeing something that directly contradicts their claims can NEVER possess the required knowledge when it’s a mental disability in question.
I am coming to this from "I have been abused by neurodivergent people who tried to use their disability as a bye when I called them out for abuse"
I am also neurodivergent in that I have MASSIVE anxiety issues that mean I spend a LONG time building a case and giving people grace because my "they are probably lying to you" sensor is pretty faulty and generally stuck on 'yes'.
But, seeing as one cannot see into the mind of another human being, you have to trust your instincts and the frequency if "this person is being a shithead and I need to stop interacting with them" is on par for neurodivergents as it is for neurotypicals so some neurodivergents will, in fact, pull the occasional "oopsy, I didn't remember" about little things or the "show me on video where I made that promise" about big things and should be treated accordingly,
And rescinding chances for people who do you wrong doesn't make one ablist if the person doing you wrong happens to be disabled.
I hear what you're saying. Let's assume what you're saying is 100% true. That sucks, BUT it doesn't change the fact that it is NEVER acceptable to invalidate someone's disability. It's FINE to call them out on their bullshit, but ONLY if you know for a fact that it is bullshit and not really their disability.
We have to give other disabled people the benefit of the doubt re their disability if we want to receive it for ours. Even when we don't believe them.
@masukomi
Hear this: if it were important, you would have fucking wrote it down, like persons do when when they don't want to forget something.
Gaslighting works the other way around, and take some fucking responsability for your actions once in a while.
@NicholasLaney You’re displaying your ignorance and your abelism. Forming memories and executive function are both based in our biology. It doesn’t matter how much I want to write down the thing. There is an incredibly high chance that I will forget about it before I make it to a piece of paper.
I have a biological disability that makes me forget things incredibly rapidly. I forget that I am making tea while I am actively in the process of making tea. I make tea every morning.
@NicholasLaney
Read this: taking notes and the location of the notes can also be forgotten and being made to a routine is practically impossible.
This, in fact, happens a lot to myself and people I know. Gaslighting still works. Responsibility is something you can take when you have the power to control things or are aware of them. However, situations that fall into the issues are out of them and a lot of us need to rely on third party individuals (social workers, family or other near people) and medication may help with it too (not at all but like helps). @masukomi
Anyone with a brain that has issues with dopamine or seratonin production / consumption/ re-uptake will have memory issues. That paper took least than 2 seconds to find. There are many many more for anyone who cares to actually research the issue.
ADHD is in no small part a problem with our dopamine re-uptake. we produce the same amount but more of it is lost in the process of using it. Like a leaky oil pan. As a result, we all have a shitty memory.
@masukomi I suffer from depression and have for decades. There’s a huge amount of my life I just… can’t remember. A frequent thing is someone saying “Don’t you remember when we did X?” No. I do not.
@decius i hadn’t thought about depression and memory but that makes sense to me. I don’t know much about the chemistry of depression, but i’d bet that it probably involves a lack of / problem with dopamine like ADHD and thus trouble with memory formation.
@decius and yes, i can 100% empathize with the “no, i do not”. Apparently my ex flashed her boobs at a gathering of friends once. I have zero memory of this. Friends tell me i was there.
@masukomi I find it helpful to apply it to small things (e.g., forgetting to start the dishwasher) because it helps me stress less, but I can see why it’s unhelpful or even harmful for other people.
@julia
The human brain starts to believe things that we tell it again, and again.
So while it may reduce your stress, when you forget to do some thing that is actually unimportant, or that you actually don’t care about you are also training yourself that when you forget some thing that is important to you and that you do care about that it is because you must not have actually believed it was important, or actually cared. Thus setting yourself up for self gaslighting.
@julia I am not a psychologist, but I am someone with an objectively poor memory. Personally, I have found that learning to accept the reality that sometimes your body just does not form memories when you wish it would have is a much healthier approach which, if internalized will eventually spread compassion to those around you when they forget something.
It is a simple strategy with no blame, no falsehoods, no gaslighting, and it help others not feel like failures when you share it.
it is totally possible (for most folks) to apply effort via specific techniques to increase the likelyhood that you will remember a specific thing.
The problem is that you can't do that for everything, and sometimes it doesn't occur to you that X thing should have that effort applied. Also we gaslight ourselves "I'll remember that".
@masukomi
Putting things in your daily path use to work to avoid forgetting things a lot. However, AD(H)D may be present with autism and could make that even harder. @Npars01@julia
@elr@masukomi@julia@Npars01 Writing things down only works if I remember:
That it was written down
To check the list when I can act on what is written
Don’t get distracted on the way to do the thing
That’s 3 points of failure that have to be overcome for a list to work.
What does help is putting things where I can’t miss them to overcome object impermanence, If I can’t see it I forget it exists), routine, and Ritalin.
And even with Ritalin, I only remember things about 80% of the time.
@elr@julia@Npars01@samhainnight The "Oddly Influenced" podcast https://podcast.oddly-influenced.dev/ has a 5+ part series lately about "The offloaded brain". It's a very "thinky" series but the basic gist is that you can eliminate many memory items by setting up "affordances". Ex. You don't have to remember if a door is push or pull because the affordance of a flat plate, or a "pull handle" triggers the appropriate action when you reach it.
@elr@julia@Npars01@samhainnight I think there's a LOT we can do to improve our lives by figuring out what affordances we need to set in place in order to trigger desired behaviors in ourselves.
I'm only starting to figure out what that means from a practical perspective but... i think there's a treasure trove of value in the idea.
@Npars01@masukomi@julia
I don't understand the question. In what situation would the use of memory aids Not be adviseable?
People who use these things are just more reliable. I didn't learn the term "executive function" until recently, but that's what it comes down to.
@Nazani@Npars01@julia 100% this. A person with a great memory will still be well served by adding the thing to a todo-list to check off later. If for no other reason than it serves as an additional guarantee that it'll get done.
average people have decent memories and yet as developers we file tickets about bugs to fix and features we want because we can't remember them all. Ticketing systems are just memory aids.
I don't think it's fair to say the memory aid adds to stress. It's the internal 🐄💩 the person has set up in their 🧠 around it. Regularly stressing because they forgot to add to it, or check it is not the aids fault. It just means they picked the wrong aid for their 🧠 / situation.
Removing stressors improves every aspect of your mental and physical health. Things don't cause stress. What those things represent to us as individuals may cause stress. Separate the 2.
@Npars01@masukomi@julia I am 46, recently diagnosed with #ADHD for the first time. Noticeable memory issues since my early 20s, possibly since my mid-teens. I use all of those memory aids listed! Plus the GPS on my phone, because I get lost if I'm going places I don't habitually visit.
I also take a lot of photos at events & gatherings, otherwise I forget who was there and what happened.
I even set reminders on cough Alexa cough to tell me when to start getting ready to leave the house.
That's pretty standard for us. 42 alarms leading up to every event. Heavy use of "remind me to x". Notes everywhere. Notes about the things that are in other notes because we forgot we noted it.
i ALWAYS lost my car in boston because I could never park in the same place.
Spent years terrified i was going to have/having early onset Alzheimer's before I realized it had ADHD. (drugs help too).
YES. I am now 6 weeks on meds and feeling so much more balanced! Can't tell yet if the memory issues are improving, but I think I just need more time and evidence to see one way or the other.
I have come to rely more and more on Alexa because too often, I write lists or reminders & then forget to look at them or forget where I put them!
Last month I gave my husband a new wallet for Christmas. Amused, he informed me that I'd already given him one for Father's Day. 😆
@courtcan@Npars01@julia in my experience stimulants help with memory, but don’t solve the problem.
For some people stimulant medication is absolutely life-changing. For me it makes everything a bit easier, but doesn’t bring me to a Neurotypical state. A higher dosage might improve things more, but I am avoiding trying that.
@courtcan@Npars01@masukomi@julia therefore - "if you cared enough, you would have made the effort to use whatever memory aids necessary to remind you."
@hyc@Npars01@masukomi@julia What they don't understand is that setting the reminders or not setting the reminders is in no way related to caring or not caring. Caring, finding certain people or certain events significant, never once enters into it.
Setting reminders happens solely out of sheer desperation. 😆🤣 😀🙂🤔🙁😫 😑 sigh
> "setting reminders happens soley out of sheer desperation"
Eventually, i hope you will come to see that strategies like that are simply accommodating your needs.
Example: If you back really hurts, and a cane helps, you shouldn't only reach for it out of desperation. You should reach for it as soon as the hurt starts because it's a simple tool to accommodate your current needs. ;)
if a tool makes your life easier / more successful & hurts no-one, then joyfully embrace it. :D
Late diagnosed folks (myself included) just have a lot of internalized abelist bullshit to work through. "I shouldn't need to X" is just abelism talking.
Using accommodations that help doesn't make us lesser, or weaker, or any of that. It makes us more capable. It gives us spoons. Accepting that removes so much self-hatred.
@courtcan@Npars01@masukomi@julia
I got myself glasses with Alexa built in. The ability to set alarms and reminders without using my hands outside the home has been a game-changer.
@courtcan@Smingleigh@Npars01@julia Just as an FYI: I wouldn't recommend investing in any at the moment. They just fired most of the folks related to it. They want to put AI in all the things (like everyone else)
I don't understand why this means "fire all the devs" because... like, wouldn't you want to add it to the existing voice assistant? And wouldn't you want those people specifically to do it?
I can't remember names. Just can't. Faces are difficult too. And my college had a cognitive psych course and I did the memorize 50 items, etc. Still can't memorize names quickly.
But my visual memory is fine. I can take a walk through an OR and two days later tell you what was where and how many of each were there.
@JHB17@masukomi@julia A person’s name is the LAST thing I’ll remember about them. If then! And yes, I can mentally walk down the isles of Costco and look at what’s on the shelves, but can I remember a phone appointment later in the day? Probably not.
THIS. THIS is the key to understanding ALL disabilities and different capabilities. I just wish i had a clue why it is SO damn hard for people to internalize it.
Like, i get the default assumption that "others are like me". We have to work from some assumption and that's a decent one. BUT why such resistance when someone says "it's different for me." ?
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