Poor memory

Very interested to see this post as I’m in a similar position. I did have a traumatic childhood and like you Over... I often remember bad incidents rather than the happy ones! I’ve got to the stage now where I can hardly remember people’s names, I can hardly remember what I did two minutes ago and have recently gone to put my milk into the boiler (next to the microwave!!!!) Beyond help lol!!!!!

I can't remember names either, not even when I was teaching. My pupils had a great time swapping seats, because I had to rely on my classroom table planner for their names. Still have name blindness, even when just introduced I spend days afterwards trying to remember the person's name. I now write them down and who introduced them to me, so I do have a reference.

I think this stems from my horrible childhood. I could never remember anyone's name not even my teacher. I still have flash backs with many dreams seem to be of particular moments in the past. Can't put any names to faces but remember the particular episode in great detail; the place, date and time that it actually happened. I can even remember the exact conversations and the circumstances leading up to event but not the names of the characters involved. Very weird.

My memory is better when I am not stressed. Right now I am burnt out, so am really struggling.

I have noticed over the last 5 years or so that my ability to hold a though in my head, without actively repeating it constantly to myself, is almost non existant. Awful, because a student will be speaking (for example) and I have a point to respond with, but by the time they have finished, my point has gone.

I have to write things down if I need to remember otherwise, poof! Gone.

I find it almost impossible to remember names of people unless I know them quite well. If I'm introduced to someone for the first time its as if my brain refuses to remember their name. Its a problem I've had for a long time. Not just age related.

I had an excellent memory. Menopause has put paid to that!

I have an excellent memory of rotten times in my life but more difficulty with good episodes. My life has been generally good just some bad times early in marriage and they plague me 37 years later!

Bodach I am glad there is someone else who has problems with names. Most of my life I have looked at people & known them, known all about them, then grubbed around in the depths of my memory trying to remember their names. I do it with famous faces too! Their name is there on the tip of my tongue then fades quickly away. I read an article that said it is akin to word blindness & referred to it as Name blindness. Glad I am not nuts or alone!

As I’ve gotten older random conversations and situations spring into my mind with no warning but with great clarity. Some good ....others best forgotten!

Everyone has both gaps and different ways of remembering the same events from others who were there. We also all have different priorities - we can't hold everything that we learned or experienced in the immediate recall part of the brain. Our brains are very good at knitting together pieces of our experiences and forming synapses that will best help us survive our negative experiences. Unfortunately, survival doesn't necessarily equate with healthy in terms of how we then conduct our later relationships with others, but that is a whole other story. Simply, those who suffer great trauma can have complete memory loss around it, so I guess our experiences and our memory of them are on an ever moving continuum.

My memories of time before my late teens are very sparse - I can recall very little of my childhood or even school days - no idea why

Doodle

Can you picture peoples faces or scenes from childhood?
If asked to picture someone you worked with or someone you know well would you be able to recall their face and see it in your mind?

Yes I can remember scenes and faces and names to, but what I remember would be from the same set of memories. On a lighter note hubs got out his diaries which he has kept for 46 years read through some of them and there's mention of people in their who neither of us could remember.

i used to have a good memory, esp for written material. i find i recall odd things from many years ago.
but in the last few years, i have noticed that often i have no sense of what i have just done.
it is only in writing this that i have realised that that is a different category than remembering written data.
for example, i will have the thought or intention to turn the boiler off. when i go to do it, i find it is already turned off. i must have done it but all i can recall is the motivating impulse to do it, not the event of having done it.

Can you picture peoples faces or scenes from childhood?
If asked to picture someone you worked with or someone you know well would you be able to recall their face and see it in your mind?

I had a pretty idyllic childhood, with no traumas whatsoever, but I have always had a specific flaw in my "memory bank". I have never been able to remember people's names. I can remember dates, places, professional procedures and techniques, and reel off strings of numbers with ease. I can recall and recite long stretches of poetry and song lyrics, and get by in three different languages, but am hard pressed to name any of my friends from school, university or subsequent life - or even someone to whom I have just been introduced. And the older I get, the more poetry comes back to me, and the more names elude me. That's life...

I have always had a poor memory too but I put it down to being on sedatives from the age of two. My childhood was very normal apart from that.