Poor memory

I looked for something on this subject as for the past year I have been forgetting names. Not just peoples names, but TV shows or films I have watched.
I have no problem with recall of events , but names? I have been so worried. Just hit 60, active nursing job but my mother developed dementia in her early 70's and it is on my mind constantly.

I remember the liberty bodice well,rubber buttons. I can also remember being about 18 months old and dropping my nighttime milk bottle,back then they were made of glass and it shattered and I can just remember standing in a sea of milk. However asked me what happened two days ago and I have no clue ???‍♀️

Admin, please delete. Sorry, this was meant to be a new post.
Thank you.

I've just been watching the inauguration of Jo Biden.
Wow, so refreshing after the last four years. Let's hope he can achieve the unity he wants.

welbeck

ok i admit ignorance on the liberty bodice front. just sounds odd to me. why not wear a vest. what are the buttons for. it sounds like a specifically female item of underwear, which seems odd to me for an infant.

It was a second vest. Layering if you like. Years ago when there was no central heating, no warm anoraks, clothes on rations after the war it was a wonderful piece of clothing. The name is a bit unfortunate as it sounds less than liberating. Nearly all girls wore a liberty bodice when I was a girl and it had suspenders so you could keep up your dark brown lisle or woollen stockings. No tights or leggings then unfortunately.

ok i admit ignorance on the liberty bodice front. just sounds odd to me. why not wear a vest. what are the buttons for. it sounds like a specifically female item of underwear, which seems odd to me for an infant.

Totallylost I have SDAM too. I gather we are quite unique. You are the only other person I have come across with this apart from Dominic Lawson.

Might be worth looking up Aphantasia and SDAM I found out last year I have both of these conditions, it makes so much sense of my life

My memory is quite strange,i can remember things/conversations etc what happened years ago even to the point of where i was standing and sometimes what i was wearing.
Yet i have to sit and really think what i ate yesterday.
I put it down to todays living and memory overload.

I do remember my liberty bodice. It was quite cosy and had rubber buttons. I remember my mum buttoning me into it, when I was very little. Probably about 3 years old.

welbeck I am sure a liberty bodice is just a woolly vest with buttons up the front to keep a child warm, not sure how it can be awful if you don’t know what one is!

i am helped by writing things down. when i was studying too, that's what i did. and copy out quotations.
now i find that if i have made a shopping list, even if i forget to take it with me, i can usually recall most of what i had written on it.
i try to keep a diary too, even if only mundane entries.

bijou, how awful, a three year old having to wear a liberty bodice. i don't know quite what it is but i bet it was far from liberating and that a male child wasn't expected to wear one.
sounds like a nice memory though.

I can remember walking onto a flower bed and picking the flowers. My grandmother appeared and lifted me up. She died when I was 2 so I must have been very young.

I remember when I was just three my dad came to get me out of bed and started to dress me and put my liberty bodice inside out. Took me into their bedroom. My mother had just given birth to my sister and the midwife was just bathing thebaby.
I remember lots of incidents from when I was two.

Have always had a problem with being able to remember part of someone's name (Christian or Surname) but not always both.
Now can often recall details from times past, but need to concentrate on immediate matters.
As my wife's aunt said at my 60th (long time ago) "I often think about the hereafter. What am I here after?" Now I know what she meant!
Grateful not be like the friend's husband with Alzheimers
SO devastating, now, to see only very brief glimpses of a once witty intelligent man who sometimes seems hell bent of doing and going the opposite to everyone else.

I used to have a very good memory and couldn't understand how my mum had forgotten some quite memorable moments from the past. I do understand now.

My DD, who is a neuroscientist, is currently writing an article on dementia and bilingualism. She says that memory and identity is intertwined, and that cognition - thinking - seems to be the best way of preserving our memory and thus our self. Learning another language can help to strengthen the memory. Basically, it's a case of use it or lose it. It might be worth a try.

I started learning Spanish with DuoLingo during lock down but got bored. DD is brushing up her French and learning Swedish, so I might give that a go. My DH speaks Gujerati but that doesn't seem to be widely available and the fact that it doesn't use the Roman alphabet, of course, makes it much more difficult. (I can say a few things in Gujerati but they tend to be about food or are much too rude to say in public.)

I had an awful time as a child and have no memory of my life prior to leaving home at 16 but I do have deep rooted memories of my maternal grandparents who were lovely from what I remember. I have always put it down to trauma as I can be reminded of things by my elder sister sometimes so I think I just ‘choose’ not to remember.

I had 3 children and after each one, my memory got worse. I always say they stole my memory.
I’ve never been any good remembering dates. Like the date of someone’s birthday or what year an event happened, even if it’s something personal. I know what year my children were born, but I’ve forgotten their birth weight. Which should be etched on my brain.

I’ve come to think over the years that on the whole clever people have good memories. They study and retain the information. Which helps with exams.

My husband has a really good memory for places and events. I’m not so good, but if he reminds me where we ate and possibly what we had, I have total recall.

I have a very clear memory of an incident that I'm told never happened.
I was aged 12, supposed to be keeping an eye on my baby cousin, then looked round to find he was floating face down in my grandmother's lily pond. I ran to get my uncle who was gardening. He leapt in and got the baby out, perfectly unharmed. I got a terrible telling off from my mum and my auntie, the baby's mum for not having jumped in myself to rescue him. I couldn't swim and didn't know how deep it was, so I thought we would both probably drown, better to get his dad.
Many years later I happened to mention it, and my auntie and mum both said I'd imagined it, it never happened. I can't believe that they would ever have forgotten such an incident, so I must have imagined it. But it remains a very clear memory to me. Wierd.

By the way, if you go to the kitchen and can't remember what you went in for, that is quite normal.
If you can't find the way to your own kitchen, that is time to worry.

Unigran4 I’m so sorry to read what happened to you in your childhood. My dear friend was in a similar situation to you as a young child. She kept it buried all her life till aged 67 a few years ago. Her GP referred her to a counsellor and she found the sessions really beneficial. It’s never too late to seek professional help if you haven’t already ?

I have what I call the credibility gap. Actually incredible!! Can sometimes take 3-5 minutes to recall someone's name even though I know it full well. This doesn't happen often but I'm talking tip-of-the-tongue well known like??? Helen Mirren. Really frustrating. Thankfully I no longer allow it to be embarrassing. I just let it go and, so far, has always returned. Fingers crossed........

Sazzl: you have said earlier on the thread you can remember many things from when you were 2.3.4. and five years old.

I too have good long term memory and have found many others cannot remember too far back. My earliest memories
go back to me being two and a half years old and living in the home my parents had even now I remember it so well. We lived there until I was 5 years old and then moved so I remember going to my first school and all those early days.
It is only in the last year that occasionally I will be trying to think of a word and cannot remember it and then a few minutes later it comes to me. I blame it on my daughter who has given me a lot of stress and I am hoping it is nothing more.

I used to know the Latin names of plants. Now I have trouble to remember the English names. The only other thing is people’s names. They come to me some time later.
I think the brain must be like a computer and it takes time to scroll through it .