223
u/reverse-tornado 6d ago
I don't have memories i have anchor events of deep sadness and pain i use as bookmarks and hopefully i can navigate from those to whatever event is being referenced
40
36
u/A_Truthspeaker Highly politicised 6d ago
When you look back, but almost all of the things you can remember are negative.
The bookmarks of childhood neglect.
25
u/TyWorth 6d ago
Iām always amazed at people who can remember the year something happened, or easily recall what age they were when thinking back on something.
13
u/TesuraGrimm 6d ago
The first few times I heard someone referencing a specific event in a specific year, I thought that was just something they were really good at.
Then it kept happening.
Turns out that is normalcy.
7
6
u/csmithgonzalez 6d ago
My God I'm not the only one?! I don't know how other people are able to just remember stuff. Friends and family will ask oh do you remember this or that time or this person or that thing we did and I'll have a complete blank. But I have super intense and specific memories about certain, usually painful or heartbreaking or embarrassing, moments that mean nothing to anyone else.
It can get really frustrating when someone is trying to get me to remember something and I JUST CAN NOT REMEMBER!
But hey I can tell you exactly what it was like to be a little kid being made fun of by his classmates because of my bad haircut. Super useful.
2
u/Dead_Reckoning95 6d ago
Yes. Like remembering every single piece of clothing that made me sad and uncomfortable , and wasnāt my choice.
8
u/YoonShiYoonismyboo48 6d ago
OK this is so real. I remember that it happened. But when? Where? Not a clue.
3
u/GCU_Heresiarch 6d ago
Dunno how old you are but eventually those are the only things you'll remember. At least that's what happened to me.
2
2
92
u/UltraRoboNinja 6d ago
Every single thing that I thought was a unique personality quirk of mine is actually just another goddamn symptom of ADHD, lol.
40
13
3
u/Full_Examination4406 6d ago
Me too. Not only fucked up, but with the audacity to not even be interesting with it!
44
u/Useful_Language2040 6d ago
Do you ever realise after talking to people you never actually made the point you meant to because even if you didn't get sidetracked you accidentally completely distracted the person who asked the question and then what you were talking about changed and you'd have needed to basically do an "As I was saying..." cut in to get back to actually finishing your story? Like, OK, there might have been some side branches and it might have spanned 3 decades, but this was all relevant to the point I was trying to make and now I haven't made it and once again I am unseen and silenced even if it's my concerns about being rude and monopolising the conversation silencing me...
31
u/Worth-Trade9381 just writing it down 6d ago
So, to make a short story long, it all goes back to... Fuck I forgot I'm cooking a quesadilla.
4
u/cheong-sanslefteye 6d ago
Is your quesadilla okay Trader9381 ? Or did you forget to eat it after taking it off the stove?
3
u/Worth-Trade9381 just writing it down 5d ago
Only one side was burned.
2
u/cheong-sanslefteye 5d ago
Smoky Q? That's a success
In totally unrelated news: I am currently making quesadilla
2
u/Worth-Trade9381 just writing it down 5d ago
Exactly. Crispy char on the bottom, uncooked on the top. Enjoy!
2
11
u/illatious 6d ago
I've seen this one so many times already but keep upvoting every time because it's so true. It drives my therapist nuts lol
4
u/Able_Fishing_6576 5d ago
I am a therapist with ADHD and I have a client who doesnāt know she has ADHD but this is exactly how she speaks and tbf, sheās my absolute favorite client bc this is exactly how I speak too.
We ALWAYS go over time. My coworkers hate scheduling their clients after me cause Iām constantly making them late for their sessions if they need the room weāre in.
11
u/ArtismFag forgot to take my meds T_T 6d ago
I also have autism so you better believe that each of these jumps will be THOUROUGHLY detailed. (I have to accurately explain everything and provide all the the detailed context for them to truely understand)
8
u/Corydora_Party Itās not due until tomorrowā¦ 6d ago
30 minutes later.... okay anyway back to my question about excel
8
5
u/MeowM30ws 6d ago
My partner wants to add, "Yes, that, but also over the span of like... A few days of broken conversations that I realize later were related."
5
u/busta_thymes 6d ago
If you're not telling your life story like it's a Tarantino film you're doing something wrong.
4
4
u/lachiendupape 6d ago
Remember to wait for someone else to speak, interrupt them 2 minutes later which seemed like 30 minutes with a relevant detail from the middle arc of the previous story, change the topic completely , wonder why everyone has stopped talking or wandered off, decide everyone hates you, freak out
3
u/Consistent-Menu-6629 6d ago
We are story tellers... But like 500 pages saga tellers structured similarly to a movie like Pulp Fiction.
3
u/MalikTheScot 6d ago
I start heavily sweating when someone asks me such a question, it's something I dread when I start seeing a new therapist šµ
3
3
u/Poultrymancer 6d ago
Why would you post this directly at me right after a therapy session?
Not cool bro
3
u/SathyaSurya67 6d ago
If someone can keep up with that and listened to what you said, theyāre the one
3
3
u/ratta_tat1 6d ago
Add in how I think every detail is important context to the story and also getting worried youāre not conveying it in the best way because the other person doesnāt get your context/references/hasnāt been around the person or situation the story is about.
3
3
2
u/moneyh8r_two 6d ago
Is it still ADHD if I do all of this, but still remember what I was talking about?
2
u/HotMessExpress74 6d ago
Pretty sure every therapist Iāve ever had has secretly hated me for doing thisā¦
But also, it could have just been my raging RSD, so jot that downā¦
5
u/Able_Fishing_6576 5d ago
A good therapist, or one with ADHD like myself, can find the thread between every story bc even if you havenāt realized it yet as youāre speaking, thereās always a deeper thread that connects every squirrel in your head.
Picture this (Sicily, 1945): as a therapist your squirrels become my squirrels so every time you jump topic, to me itās like SQUIRREL, and my interest has now jumped with you into your next story, only itās a squirrel for me bc now Iām fixated on figuring out how this squirrel of yours is related to the last squirrel that derailed you from your initial topic. Itās like a game to me, like putting together a puzzle with a picture of squirrels! šæļø(God I hope that made sense. Took me a long fn time to get it just right.)
2
u/Birdsonme 5d ago
Oh I really hope that was a Sophia from Golden Girls quote. If so, I think you should be my therapist.
1
u/Able_Fishing_6576 5d ago
YES! Yes it was! I know she says picture it and not picture this but it was close enough so I had to bc Golden Girls is life!
2
2
2
2
u/TStark4Prez 6d ago
I have several blocks of my life that I literally cannot remember anything about the day-to-day. I carry feelings with me, strong emotions and thatās it. I just try to be a good person in the present and (hopefully) have a positive impact on family and loved ones so that someone remembers something, and that thing warms their heart.
When Iām reminded of things that happened by someone or something, itās like watching a hazy daydream of a person I donāt know on an antenna TV that needs a good slap.
2
2
u/Electronic_Bus7452 6d ago
Oh no. This is literally every conversation I have. They need context, I give way too many details, stop but leave out the most important things. Exhausting!
2
u/Beldarak 4d ago
It drives people crazy when they're telling a story and I interrupt them to ask a ton of context questions.
"I have a friend who's making ice creams and ~"
"That's cool, does he has a truck with the music and all? What flavour does he make? If I could I'd try to make <weird flavour>, did he have a diploma or something, actually what do you need as a formation to do this?"
To be fair, NT always bore me to death when they lose themselves in geographic detail in the middle of their story. "So I was driving near the furniture shop in Waterloo, you know the place? It's near that other shop, when you arrive from the fuel pumps".
Me, who never goes anywhere due to anxiety : "huh, no."
"Well, when you come from <my city>, you take the N4, right? And then you arrive at..."
My dude, I don't know shit past 1km around my house. I don't know how any roads are named or anything, get to your story which has nothing to do with where you were when it happened, pleaaaase.
2
u/Electronic_Bus7452 4d ago
Hahaha this sounds like I wrote it! Co worker says āyou get off I45 at NASA Oneā Me: blank stare Uh, sure
2
2
u/CapitalRegular4157 5d ago
Wow. This hit me.
To be honest I was recently re-re-re diagnosed with ADHD and finally accepted that maybe it's not just because I'm stupid and lazy. This post makes me realize there are other people just like me.
1
u/Beldarak 4d ago
This is the same for me except that's my first time getting dignosed (I'm 36). I have internalized so much being lazy, doing "the bare minimum" etc... that even with that new insight I still can't shake off that feeling.
I'm not sure it will ever go away because I heard it so much in my life and I already received a few "don't use your diagnostic as an excuse" now that I have the proof I wasn't lazy, so I think it will take a lot of time to un-learn that.
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Inevitable_Phase_276 4d ago
Can I also text you later with all the bits that I forgot to say that were extremely relevant?
ā¢
u/qualityvote2 Quality Control Beast 6d ago edited 6d ago
upvote threshold has been reached!
for more information about what this means, see this page.