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Details, memory and feedback

anon

I always struggled with memory retention for conversations. 

For example I'm abroad on holiday and working. During our Teams meeting allot expressed that they catched Covid.

Now after work I wanted to call my family, so this could be a topic of discussion (small talk), I could say what I heard and ask them how the situation is at home, if they heared if Covid is getting back among their circle or if they heard things on media. But it doesn't come forward it's like I can't retain things from my memory, I need to concentrate to be able to. I have had friends talking about their whole day detailed, so I know one should be able to if they want, and I do want. 

They say people with autism, Asperger are good with details, but then a part struggle to retain it. Look at Elon Musk he could talk high level details for hours and he is on the spectrum. While others struggle with simple things as details from an earlier conversation. 

The spectrum is broad and confusing, I'm not going to question that but I'm interested if this is a difficulty among you?

I don't think I have autism merely because I don't have any sensory problems with light or sounds, but more of some encoding problem. But then many autistics would express that they struggle with this same thing, is it other than encoding that puts a wall to the issue? 

Parents

  • Are you just exploring the possibility that you are autistic then? And yep! The memory thing can swing both ways. Some instances from my childhood are seared into my brain like a branding iron and the recall is visceral. If we are talking about my special interests, I know a lot and can give you all the detail.

    But, oddly, there can be memory processing problems in tandum with this. Life's trivia will go in one ear and out the other and I'd never get through the day's to do list without writing it all down. There isn't room in my head to retain stuff of no import to me and I can't process lots of facts at one, I have learn and internalise and memorize one at a time, so no. I don't do a good job of that type of small talk either. Some autistic people, on the other hand, have eidectic memories. I wish I did.

    Some memory processing problems also go with other forms of neurodivergence; dyslexia, say. And I am dyslexic as well as autistic.

    If you are waiting for an assessment, I'd raise the above as an example. Your assessors should be able to tell you if the way your memory works is an autistic trait or due to something else.

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  • Are you just exploring the possibility that you are autistic then? And yep! The memory thing can swing both ways. Some instances from my childhood are seared into my brain like a branding iron and the recall is visceral. If we are talking about my special interests, I know a lot and can give you all the detail.

    But, oddly, there can be memory processing problems in tandum with this. Life's trivia will go in one ear and out the other and I'd never get through the day's to do list without writing it all down. There isn't room in my head to retain stuff of no import to me and I can't process lots of facts at one, I have learn and internalise and memorize one at a time, so no. I don't do a good job of that type of small talk either. Some autistic people, on the other hand, have eidectic memories. I wish I did.

    Some memory processing problems also go with other forms of neurodivergence; dyslexia, say. And I am dyslexic as well as autistic.

    If you are waiting for an assessment, I'd raise the above as an example. Your assessors should be able to tell you if the way your memory works is an autistic trait or due to something else.

Children
  • in reply to Dawn

    I did an assessment DSM-5, I filled all the 3 A criteria's, but you need to have 2 B criteria's, which I didn't fill. I "might" have some B2 but I guess any normal person would have some rigid thinking patterns or be distressed from here an then: 

    1. Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns or verbal nonverbal behavior (e.g., extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat food every day).

    https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-diagnosis-criteria-dsm-5

    Then the assessment is based on questionaries, they see you for 3-4 hours and base that. I think this is impossible, as they are basing your whole life in these few hours, were many misunderstanding can erupt, both how you answer the question or how they interpreted your answers. For example I asked them to turn off the fan when I was doing the IQ test. Then they used that to corner me into the spectrum, that I mentioned fan noise. I mean you are doing an IQ test and need to concentrate 100%, who wouldn't ask the fan to be turned off, it's not like I would react to the fan normally. So take the assessment with a grain of salt.

    Your assessors should be able to tell you if the way your memory works is an autistic trait or due to something else.

    Even though they are neuropsychologist, they don't seem to be able to have the knowledge for specific questions. Felt like their job was just to focus on the assessment and judge from that, without describing what they or how they reacted on my answers or how I described myself. And this was a private modern clinic specialized in ADHD/autism ... assessments.

    Most of the time I don't think about this and function well in society, now I have stomach inflammation and this makes me anxious and I feel depressed, because of the gut brain connection, and all this makes me question myself on how I function.

    My issues are what I mentioned, small chat, socialize. I do as well get depressed when doing high cognitive things, like playing chess, painting, translating, writing a novel. This last for 2 days before I get back to normality. It's like my brain is not made for high cognitive thinking, and I think this is connected with how I function. I don't know why it manifests like itself like this. But it makes me feel different.