Ask Lemmy

No joke, I opened this thread to comment on it last night and forgot until I saw it in my feed again today.

I started keeping a diary, and I found that helps. Something about writing things down helps encode memories, but then if you do forget you have a reminder.

In particular my gratitude journal is helpful. I often find myself in a state where I can't think of a single good thing going on in my life. But then going through it I read about how a stray cat came to sit in my lap in the garden, and while I didn't remember that before I read it the memories come flooding back.

I suspect I have SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory) syndrome, it could be you do too?

Its a mixed bag.

I don't remember a lot of specifics from my childhood, but I also wouldn't say I don't remember my childhood. I don't remember the names of all my elementary schools, or exactly where they were, but I can remember most of my friends and what we did together. Like at my first elementary school I can remember that I basically just did normal kid stuff. I know at my second elementary school I got into videogames, because a lot of my friends from that school had gamecubes. But I can only remember a few actual individual times we were playing gamecube, even though we played together several times a week for literally years. I know mario sunshine was my jam but can't remember any specific days I played it on. I know when I was homeschooled I spent more time on neopets than doing actual school (thanks mom), but I have literally no individual memories of playing neopets.

So like... I do know my own history well enough, but just not specific days unless it was something really noteworthy. I have no idea if thats "normal" or not.

I can remember medical facts really well. I want to get into the medical field in some capacity, because for whatever reason that shits sticks in my head. Special interest I guess? Idk.

My memory is poor and my facial recognition is zero.

I remember broad timelines, and I try to take pictures of my life so I can look back and jog my memories. Sometimes weird memories randomly bubble up to my consciousness though.