Memory problems and making conversation

Welcome to the forum. I have visited Guernsey once for a holiday and it is such a beautiful island.

My short term memory is atrocious and seems to be getting worse. I have lists everywhere of things I have to try and remember to do.

If I'm watching a drama I have to record the whole series and then binge watch them all in one evening. If I try to watch one at a time as they are broadcast I get totally lost. I cannot remember what happened in the previous episode, even if it was only yesterday when I watched it.

When I was working and was required to talk to clients I used to have to keep a file with details of questions I had asked and information they had given me. Otherwise I would just go and have exactly the same scripted conversation again.

I have to rehearse and script conversations too, although I am trying to do that less now that I recognise that it is masking. I wonder if that is part of the problem, that these scripts are stored in a different part of our memory. That maybe why we autists tend to get so flustered and lost when conversations don't go to plan.

Conversely I have stuff stored in my longer term memory that I do not need. I can accurately recall and recite old phone numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, etc.

Guernseyguy said:

Has anyone with asd ever felt like an outcast to the rest of society?

Yes! All the time. Thank goodness for places like this.

Welcome aboard!

I recently requested contact from my local GP. I tried to get my questions and explanations clearly in my head in preparation for his call. When he finally called late afternoon, my memory went blank. I did scribble a few notes down prior to the call but struggled with my explanation which did not make the point I wished to get across.  I had to follow up with a hand delivered full page letter that accurately conveyed the points I wanted to make in conversation.  My short-term memory sucks.

I forgot the words pillow and wardrobe in previous conversations. 

Yes I definitely agree with you.  I think that our memory is preferential because we are monotropic- (meaning we autistics typically have  an interest based nervous system and intense single attention tunnels).

Yes, I realised early last year that I most likely have both, and how they interact is quite interesting too. It seems a lot of us have both.

I find it interesting that short-term memory issues are associated with ADHD AuTriker, as I have recently started to wonder if I may also have ADHD.

My husband has a very patchy memory, sometimes he struggles to remember what we are arguing about during the argument! He also struggles to follow TV shows with too many characters. He doesn't officially have autism and resists the idea he might (I'm the one who is happy to self diagnose as autistic but I have been having suspicions about him for a while now) but he is ND as he has schizo-affective disorder.  Like me, he couldn't do the eye-emotion test, but he resists doing other autism tests.

I do script conversations, especially for phone calls, a lot of autists do. Short term memory problems are associated with ADHD (which I also reckon I have) - if most people have 4 short term memory slots, ADHDers only have 3 apparently.

I get that too. Often at work I struggle to make myself understood, because a key term (e.g. "invoice") has suddenly vanished from my head, or I've used the wrong term by mistake.

I experience similar Martin . 

I use thing a lot too. Sometimes green thing or red thing or thing over there waving my hand in the general direction.

But I'm not too worried about the tip of tongue thing (!) since I heard that actually above the age of about 30 everyone gets that several times a day!

It's a favourite book of mine too, so I had no excuse at all. 

'that makes me feel so much better about my own memory issues' - excellent. 

I remember faces more than names but ngl if I spoke to someone only once or twice 10 years ago I won't remember their face either, and then I get a random stranger wave at me in the street and in my head I'm like oh no where/when are you from? Faces will go into the long term memory easier if I interacted with the person more than a handful of times, but the name will take months of regular interaction to be retained, and I swear it's not personal it's just I already have so much I struggle to remember daily and weekly that unless you "join the regular cast" I just don't seem to have the memory space to dedicate for what your name is and the last conversation we had.
Case in point: Because I barely meet my neighbours (ships in the night is the term I'd use) it's taken me about a year I've lived on this street per house to learn the immediately nearby houses occupants names. I only just got the names of one of the next door downs because they dropped a xmas card and signed their names at the bottom. That card has now gone in a collection of last years cards I use to double check not just the names but the spellings of people I know just incase I meet them on the pathway. Sometimes if I get chatting to one of them I'll be trying to alude to others and get them to drop the name so after the conversation I can run inside and write the others names down.
Other half is no use to ask as his brain does the exact same thing. But then we suspect him of having ADD.
(I'd consider it myself too but mine is not at the other half's level, and I do know my memory has been damaged by trauma as it never used to be this bad for me.)

I'm not quite sure how to respond to that. Buying the 2nd book is something that I can imagine myself doing, especially if it had been a while since I'd read the first book. It's the fact that you had then bought the same book a third and fourth time. I'm so sorry Steven , but that makes me feel so much better about my own memory issues. 

I bought the same paperback four times(!) because I'd forgotten that I'd already bought and read it previously. *sobs*

I find I can remember conversations and events that happened years ago in vivid detail. However, my short-term memory can be terrible. For example, if I'm watching something on TV with ad breaks, I can find that in the short space of time it takes me to make a drink or pop to the loo, I've completely forgotten all about the programme or film I'm part-way through watching. Most frustrating when it's been something I have been particularly looking forward to watching.

Sometimes I might say something to my son that I've forgotten I had said to him minutes earlier.

I tend to attribute my short-term memory issues to my age and the fact that I'm post-menopausal.

Anyway, I probably should have said this first, but "Hello" and "Welcome" to the forum Guernseyguy. 

I'm very forgetful, i have to leave notes to  myself all around the house. And the number of times people have said to me..... You've just said that  !!  Totally useless with  names and faces, but i can remember things i may have done, many years ago,

For me, I often know that I know something, but struggle to retrieve the actual information. E.g. I might know that I spoke to someone and what they told me was important, but I can’t remember the details until they are no longer useful. It can be very frustrating at times. I imagine it’s a bit like when someone says that they have a word ‘stuck on the tip of their tongue’.

I have too many memory-related issues to list, including forgetting the genders/sexes of people on this forum even if they are my 'Friends'. I *love* that people have the right to choose their own identity regardless of the horrible pressures of convention, so these particular memory lapses & struggles with literal thinking depress me. 

I make notes on people so I don't end up asking them the same questions I've already asked them. I find that I can remember details about conversations when I get home, but not necessary two weeks later when I see the same person again. My gran used to do the same thing; when she died we found lots of notebooks where she'd recorded details about everyone she met. Which is funny, because I've never thought of her as being autistic :/