ADHD

I have a time with a psychologist next month, to ascertain if I have ADHD or not. I'm sure I will be unable to give him any examples of why I think I have ADHD, because my mind just blanks in those situations. I know it does because that exact thing happened a few weeks ago when I was on the phone with the psychologist about scheduling that meeting, and he asked me why I thought I had ADHD, and I couldn't produce a single example of why. I'm lucky to have gotten a time after that.

I had the idea of writing down the examples on paper as they came to me. I had that idea like 3 weeks ago, and I haven't started writing yet. I know for sure I'm gonna be scrambling to write down some examples like 1 hour after midnight on the day of the meeting.

All the time

I have come to find that my memory itself is quite good. I can, in fact, remember quite a lot of things in detail.

It's the recall part that is messed up. I can't necessarily remember something on purpose. It might come back to me when it totally isn't relevant or doesn't matter anymore, so I did remember, but even trying to recall the name of a song I was listening to 5 minutes ago might be impossible even though I definitely know the name of the song; it's in the chorus! Shit how does it go again?

Medical personnel: Hello, you waited so long for this important appointment, let's get started right away, yeah? So tell me about your symptoms.

My brain: (white noise)

Fucking worst.

I sometimes have difficulty remembering people's names. Even people I have known for years.
It's really frustrating when you suddenly see someone you know very well and can't more than a "Hey! ...you" out only for their name to immediately pop into your head about 30 seconds after the conversation is over and you're walking away.

It's all good, your brain has automatically prioritized processing over rote memorization of useless info, which by the way can still be accessed given the right context. Otherwise, embrace the processing bit and apply your computational genius to the max, forgive your memory loss.

I'm right there with you.

This is me and I feel like I’m defective or something. I can’t remember dates and locations for the life of me. That’s why I take so many photos (to help remember). My great-grandmother was demented, which doesn’t help. I mean I don’t really know, but I have this worry that I’m going down that path…

I can relate to this and I'm unsure if it's part of ADHD but I'm sure it contributes. Sometimes I wonder if I have a less extreme version of SDAM.

Autobiographical memory may differ greatly between individuals. Hyperthymesia, also known as hyperthymestic syndrome or highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), is a condition that affects an individual's autobiographical memory, essentially meaning that they cannot forget small details which otherwise would not be stored. It forms one extreme, in which a person might recall vividly almost every day of their life (usually from around the age of 10). On the other extreme is severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM), where a person cannot relive memories from their lives, although this does not affect other memory capabilities or general cognition.[SDAM is a severe autobiographical memory deficiency, but without amnesia.