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Problems with my "operating system" vs NTs

Berianireth

Well-Known Member
Sorry about the title. I'm just not really sure how else to put it, and in fact I'm not sure if this is exactly typical of ASD either...How many others have had difficulty in remembering where objects are, or have trouble remembering what someone else did unless actively going into the situation trying to remember *certain aspects of it*? I know that being on Ritalin as a child probably lowered my IQ in specific ways relating to describing/explaining actions of others and working memory, but a psych eval said that even though the medication may have had influence something about my memory/reasoning capacity had to be approached differentially because the Weschler wasn't able to evaluate it sufficiently. I've heard that under duress some Autistic children will be quite prone to losing items... but does anyone know what I'm talking about? People tend to get upset at me about it like I am forgetting things they did on purpose to exasperate them. It's quite painful. :/ Halp?
 
i don't get annoyed with people who are absent minded, if they are always absent minded. but in most cases, i think they show an ability to focus when they are kissing up to the right person.

if you're absent minded, and willing to piss off those you really like, for example, then you're just absent minded. if you tend to piss off people who you don't like that much, maybe you are doing it selectively, but not on a conscious level. if you don't care about someone, it shows.
 
I don't think I've noticed myself forgetting things someone has done.. I'll often forget to do something they tell me to, though.

I very often lose things like my glasses and keys. Ill spend 20 minutes looking for keys only to find them in my pocket or, even worse, my other hand. Absent minded professor for sure.
 
I often forget things, but not specific things that people have done.

My forgetfulness pertains to myriad things, such as names, faces, dates, things I am supposed to do, ext. It is quite frustrating and has lead some people to believe I am just being lazy or willfully negligent. I also have to write down directions and set reminders for myself all the time.

I think the worst situation is when I bump into somebody I know, but I don't recognize their face. This doesn't happen with friends, but it does happen with acquaintances with whom I have spent considerable time. Once it even happened with a date of mine. It was utterly mortifying.
 
I go absent minded when I am either in the middle of chatting ( which is inevitably with enthusiasm, and barely see my husband pointing to his "invisible" watch; for he doesn't wear one). So yes, I have to be reminded of what I am doing or if in the middle of something, I fail to hear my husband talk.

But generally pretty spot on with remembering things and my husband often says that if he needs to remember something, really he should take me with him, for I seem to be able to relate the whole conversation and the longer it happened, the more I can relate, but if I was asked like an hour later, I would find it hard to even remember the parts of the conversation. So my short term memory is lacking very much.

Oh it is so unfair when people perceive our actions as being nasty! That is why aspergers needs to be out there for everyone to know, for let's face it, if someone met a clear classic autistic one, they would adapt their conversation etc around them. Yet here we are, for the most part, looking "normal" and it is only when people get to know us, they see us being "aspies" but then turn that around and see we are being rude.
 
I think the worst situation is when I bump into somebody I know, but I don't recognize their face. This doesn't happen with friends, but it does happen with acquaintances with whom I have spent considerable time. Once it even happened with a date of mine. It was utterly mortifying.

Oh yes!! Me, too.. I don't understand why I can't recognize faces! It happened once when someone I was dating (albeit briefly) shaved his head and I didn't recognize him.. he was really confused and I was mortified. And I've had people ask why I don't wave back when they wave hi to me on the street.. well, I probably either didn't see them because I was off in my own world or because I didn't recognize them and didn't realize they were waving at *me*. It happened just yesterday, I was supposed to meet a friend for coffee and he ran into me on the street a couple blocks away from the coffee shop and I didn't recognize him on the street.

I think this is part of the reason I don't like to watch movies too much.. I can't recognize the characters until halfway through the movie. Although, it does make those comedies that Shakespeare does with look-alikes (like *comedy of errors*) super fun for me :)
 
But generally pretty spot on with remembering things and my husband often says that if he needs to remember something, really he should take me with him, for I seem to be able to relate the whole conversation and the longer it happened, the more I can relate, but if I was asked like an hour later, I would find it hard to even remember the parts of the conversation. So my short term memory is lacking very much.
My memory is like this, too... bad short term, almost photographic long term. It's so weird. The longer it's been, the more photographic it is. I wonder what about my brain causes that.

I can't for the life of me remember directions more than like 2 steps long unless they're written down.
 
I noticed I sometimes don't recognise faces when I should,it happened not long ago when my husbands friends partner came up to me and said hi I didn't recognise her face until she told me who she was and I have met her numerous times before.its happened to me a few times that I have people who know me but I don't know them.
 
These kind of subjects remind me of when I quit a long-time career. Some months later I was in a store and someone with the family greeted me by name. I had utterly no idea who this was...and in a delayed reaction thought it was someone else. She was actually someone I had worked with in the same department for about three years.

Looking back I'm not sure what that was really about. Whether my neurology, or just me in my own way trying to put that career behind me, as it had become "toxic" to me in many ways. Maybe some day I'll figure that out....or not. My long-term memory remains excellent....go figure.
 
These kind of subjects remind me of when I quit a long-time career. Some months later I was in a store and someone with the family greeted me by name. I had utterly no idea who this was...and in a delayed reaction thought it was someone else. She was actually someone I had worked with in the same department for about three years.

Looking back I'm not sure what that was really about. Whether my neurology, or just me in my own way trying to put that career behind me, as it had become "toxic" to me in many ways. Maybe some day I'll figure that out....or not. My long-term memory remains excellent....go figure.
I've had this happen with old co-workers, too. It happened a couple of times *while* I was still working my job and just didn't recognize them in their "street" clothes.
 
Datura I know exactly what you mean. Those situations can be so hurtful. Yes I guess it's absentmindedness but sometimes it's to such an extent that it is similar to what people do when they have dementia. Only I seem to retain a very graphic memory for verbal details often beyond that of every one else's. I might remember someone asking me to weigh out 1.76mg of lyophilized sphingophosphotidylethanolimine two weeks ago at 2:46pm but I won't remember where they keep the bottle and I'll have trouble recognizing the person if I see them at the store instead of work. It's frustrating.
 
I was just chatting about my old OS metaphor this morning with my husband. Although in a different way, it takes a while for my body to boot up some days. Like today, I was pretty shaky, clumsy, and stuttering until I finished getting woke up for the day.

My short term memory isn't very good and sometimes I blank out in a conversation. No clue why. I guess my CPU gets maxed out. :p

Not recognizing people out of their environment, however, is my prosopagnasia acting up. My visual processing isn't very good sometimes, and it effects my recognition of both relatives and dirty floors.
Not being good with verbal directions deals with poor auditory processing, and one reason I recently misheard a rabies commercial as "pizza is given by dogs, cats, and forks".
 
Ooh yeah I know what you mean. I have some kind of "neglect" that really should alarm me to my senses but I just can't jog my brain on. I usually blame whatever it is I perseverate on but I don't actually know why I shut out a lot of sights/sounds/cues.
 
kris I can totally relate to the shaved head scenario you described. I have a bad habit of identifying people by their hair, but since hair is so mailable this makes it really unreliable.

I have also had instances where I don't even notice a friend of mine until they draw attention to themselves. I mean, I notice that there is a person there, and I could give you a general description of them, but there is no recognition until they say "hello" and suddenly my memory bank is triggered.

Not saying "hello" to people on the street has gotten me into trouble in the past. I will either not notice or recognize somebody as they are going past and they will think I am intentionally ignoring them and accuse me of being a snob. Prior to this I wouldn't even give much acknowledgement to people when I did recognize them. I would look at them, and know that they had seen me, and that seemed sufficient. It's not like I had any questions for them, and they were not initiating contact, so I just moved on. Later it was brought to my attention that people find this behavior very rude, even "psychotic" to quote a friend of mine. So now I greet people and make an effort at small talk. I just hate it though when small talk doesn't go anywhere and I am left with this awkward, dangling stub of a conversation.
 
I have mild prosopagnosia too, and don't remember faces very well, and that can cause problems because people think that I'm ignoring them deliberately, when I'm not.

My short term memory isn't that brilliant, and I often do things like go into the kitchen for something and then forget what I came for. Also, I miss whole bits of conversation, and then I ask a question, and the other person says "but we were just talking about that before. Didn't you hear?"
 
I often forget things, but not specific things that people have done.

My forgetfulness pertains to myriad things, such as names, faces, dates, things I am supposed to do, ext. It is quite frustrating and has lead some people to believe I am just being lazy or willfully negligent. I also have to write down directions and set reminders for myself all the time.

I think the worst situation is when I bump into somebody I know, but I don't recognize their face. This doesn't happen with friends, but it does happen with acquaintances with whom I have spent considerable time. Once it even happened with a date of mine. It was utterly mortifying.

This describes me exactly, I could have written it. Thank you for writing it.
 

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