Embarrassed-memory stuff

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So at my job I often find that I embarrass myself by just not remembering people who I met recently, or what things I talked about them with. It took me WEEKS to know all the faces of my parents, meanwhile parents who had for me a makeup class for their kid once or that even saw me in training remember me and when I introduce myself are like “we already met”. Or I would continuously confuse who was who’s parent which was also bad. Today trying to be friendly I asked a couple of parents if they had any holiday plans and was confused by their reaction, they seemed to act like it was weird to ask or that I’d asked something uncomfortable. Afterwards I wondered if I had asked them the same thing the last time I saw them and thus they were wondering why I was asking them again.

This has been an issue I’ve had for a while now…I remember in high school coming into my class and the teacher greeted me and I said nice to meet you and she was taken aback and said “we just met downstairs in the office…” somehow my brain had just instantly deleted the memory of her. It’s so frustrating.

Does anyone else have this problem?

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I remember faces but have a hard time with names. At the cricket club your always meeting new people as you do but a lot of the time I just have to bluff my way through things. Just maintain calm and just be friendly. I wouldn’t get too worried about it. Most people are so busy these days and those that you do remember will remember you well.

I just try and concentrate and make a point of that name…as I say it usually takes me a couple of meetings and saying their name before I’ll remember it!

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ppl with sz seem to be constantly worried something is going wrong in their mind thought process, something is NOT always going wrong. its just that, armed eith the knowledge we have an illness we tend to explain other issues using it.

oh i can’t have friends, i can’t perform sexually, it mustbe the sz. in reality youre giving the sz an almost godlike status as the controller of your life. tough emotions? by god, i can explain them with the sz!

thats no way to go through life. i remember one poster who is very high functioning fishing for reasons he might have cognitive impairment, some of which were pretty lame. the dude was all like, it took me a second longer to remember what i was going to say in my law school interview.

if youre normal consider yourself blessed.

sz is not alzheimers, our brains are a little atrophied snd stuff but for many of us we are still within the normal range for deterioration over time. there are those of us who suffer mild intermittent cognitive issues too so that isn’t completely gone either. the idea of sz being a degenerative disorder came from kraeplin’s definition of dementia praecox. old ideas. we’re looking forward to the future.

you wouldn’t go back 70-100 yrs to choose your treatment options. “doc, i want insulin shock therapy!” or “i want you to drill a hole in my head and bleed me”, lock me in an asylum! “i want haloperidol instead!”. thats a very bad way of going about this.

so when characterizing your illness, dont turn it into a self fulfilling prophecy and dont base your unique life outcome on old ideas or something you have a hunch about.

we are an extremely diverse disease in that we have so many different presentations of symptoms. i have good days and bad days every week, for many thats unheard of to fluctuate that abruptly.

you see things and have sleep issues ptsd etc, but other than that you’re not the stereotypical drugged up burnt out sz. there is no typical course of illness, only hypotheses, some based on extremely old information.

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I had the same problem. It is blank sometimes. The memory of the action does not exist.
It happened with me even a few times on this forum. I repeat myself a lot.

Now on better medications, I have much better concentration and also sarcosine has helped a lot.

Have you considered sarcosine?

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I can definetely relate to that. I get embarrassed because I keep forgetting the names of people’s children.

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I use mnemonics for names, but I’m not sure what to use for prior questions. If I meet Ronald, he’s Ronald McDonald, Jack is Jack Daniels and Harry is Harry Potter.

The only thing I can think of at this moment is to take notes.

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You are one, you meet a lot of people. That’s the difference. If there were one parent and thirty teachers, you could easily remember the one parent’s name but you would not know all the teachers unless you’d had a lot to do with them.

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Same here man. Many of my friends and acquaintances already mated and they got kids, and I’m always like “how’s your little one doing?” Cause I can’t for the life of me remember their names :disappointed_relieved:

Ok maybe there’s some frustration hidden behind this memory issue… as I would’ve maybe had kids of my own by now, hadn’t been for this illness + the prodrome aka buildup.

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@Anna, story of my life.

Which is weird, because otherwise my memory is OK.

But I have exactly those kind of problems. Names and faces. I can remember most conversations, just not who they were with.

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I think memory is not just remembering, you also have to be able to forget unimportant information. I’ve found I suffer from issues with remembering from day to day, but I exceed when it comes to forgetting. There are certain things that aren’t in place. Normal people have memories on the savant level compared to us. Every time I wake up in the morning I feel reborn!

I read more about this neurodegenerative theory of sz and to be totally honest it doesn’t seem clear cut. Have you ever considered that maybe the degeneration is due to the medications. However, you aren’t on medication.

I also don’t believe psychosis is toxic to the brain.

If psychosis were neurotoxic you would have a very bad looking brain. Idk if you’ve had it imaged.

In sum, schizophrenia has cognitive symptoms, our memory isn’t as good as the normies’.

But I have to say, if you haven’t had memory issues in 20some yrs, why would they show up now?

My sister always tries to ground me by saying “you’re trying to be unique!?” When I complain that very few ppl understand my/our issues. Then she says I have delusions of grandeur which couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The reality is that we’re very unique, the majority of us suffer from symptoms which are similar to a learning disability. But silly accidents like what you did DO happen to normies. I remember when I was one and I used to make silly mistakes all the time.

It’s not like you forgot the light was red or something serious like that. Hopefully it doesn’t progress to that.

Just keep tabs on it, if it gets worse talk to the neurologist in your area.

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Dementia runs in my family unfortunately. However generally not until old age. My mom also has terrible memory even worse than me but she has no mental illness so maybe it is unconnected.

Most current research seems to point to antipsychotics protecting against degeneration. However they can cause many other long term health problems depending on which you’re on and what dose.

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Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is a very bad brain disease and cant be diagnosed with a brain scan. Just because our brains dont look bad doesnt mean it isnt. Im not trying to self pity, just making a point.

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I am epic bad with faces. I once confused my son with other boy about the same age standing in a potty line. I was about to get mad at the day care lady because she had my son in a potty line and he was not potty trained yet. But then I noticed that he had a slightly different shirt on than I had dressed my son in, so I moved on… Good thing I noticed, lol that would have been confusing.

I also confused two friends that I had known for a long time. I started talking to her like she was my other friend. She looked confused but I didn’t get it until she said something. Then I recognized her voice and said I was sorry.

When I meet people for the first time, I never remember their names. Or rather, I remember the name but have no way of identifying the person. So, when they talk to me next, I wait till they give me some context and then reply. I never introduce myself to someone because I am never sure who I met. I just wait to see if they introduce themselves. If they do, then I introduce myself and say nice to meet you.

I think it is called: prosopagnosia.

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