Any one else have this feeling? It's like I will be thinking of some thing like what I need at the store and I get interrupted. When I go back to pick up the thought where I left off it is gone. Like some one came in and erased it from my memory leaving only the blank space where the thought was three seconds ago.

it happens to me constantly, I am an "H" in the ADHD spectrum so I tend to have moment to moment memory with each thought and they tend to be less than a minute on average

me too :-( it's frustrating..

Oh yeah! Wish I had a dollar for every time it happens.

Oh YES! I can identify!

But for some reason I always think of that as something EVERYONE EXPERIENCES. (Maybe because many of my family members [father, grandmother] also have ADHD but aren't diagnosed???????)

Anyway - I know that feeling all too well.


Sue

Yes, it is annoying. I will be talking to my dh and just stop. And there is nothing.


Nothing at all. :confused:

Happens to me all the time, even in mid conversation. I awlays say the little trolls came and took my though away!

Yes, happens often. I'd do two things -

1. Try to back up one more step and retrigger the same thought.

2. Tell myself - "If it was important then I'll remember it." - and move on.

yup. that old working memory 'black hole'.

how do you store memories or ideas? I try to use tricks like alliteration ("A, B, C" for "remember to buy "apples, butter and cheese" or <chunking></chunking> or mnemonics or trying to "making pictures" in my head.

There IS a reason the Alphabet is set to music. laff So kids can LEARN it. (Songs and bodily movements are another type of memory: procedural memory. Stores differently than 'declarative [verbal] memory'. (You can 'double store', or back up, your brain's hard drive using multi-modal storage.)

Elaboration on an item or idea, really REALLY helps, too. (creates greater neural network connections.) Holy cognitive science Batman!

it happens to me constantly, I am an "H" in the ADHD spectrum so I tend to have moment to moment memory with each thought and they tend to be less than a minute on average


mspen1018 I come complete with “H:” factor myself, it is nice to know I am not the only one hanging around these parts. :)

I think that is why I get so mad when I am interrupted. I know once my thought are interrupted there is a chance they may never be recovered





Yes, it is annoying. I will be talking to my dh and just stop. And there is nothing.

Gary is worse about this one than I am. He will pause and I wait trying to be patient

Then it is like okay I am bored I ask "Did you forget it so I can move on or did ya just get stuck?".

Some times once I say some thing he will pick right back up like the space never happened other times the idea is gone completely and he just gives me this blank stare. This is the man who spent the first two years we were together asking me

“what makes you so sure I have ADHD?


I am like “ duh dude. “ :rolleyes:




Happens to me all the time, even in mid conversation. I always say the little trolls came and took my though away!

Oh man I call mine gone to “commercial “



Yes, happens often. I'd do two things -

1. Try to back up one more step and retrigger the same thought.

2. Tell myself - "If it was important then I'll remember it." - and move on.

Although I agree when this happens our choices are limited. I find #2 especially daunting when what I lost in my brain is what I need to be moving onto. I feel like AHHHHHH

It happened to me just now. I was reading a thread, then I had a thought about something I wanted to do online here and now, but I just had to read a couple more threads first. When I finished I remembered I wanted to do something, then I paused, there was that blank space you're talking about. Also, the fear of this blank space, causes me to interrupt or talk out of turn during some conversations, because I'm afraid if I don't, I'll forget what I wanted to say.

Limbo<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

It happened to me just now. I was reading a thread, then I had a thought about something I wanted to do online here and now, but I just had to read a couple more threads first. When I finished I remembered I wanted to do something, then I paused, there was that blank space you're talking about. Also, the fear of this blank space, causes me to interrupt or talk out of turn during some conversations, because I'm afraid if I don't, I'll forget what I wanted to say.

Limboffice:office" /><o>:p></o>:p>After reading all of your posts , I could have quoted many of them but this by far is closest to my own experiences.

Not so much when I'm reading but more if I don't say what I have to say " NOW " , I will possibly forget what I wanted to say and then I get sidetracked .

In one of the books

by Kate Romona

The ADDED Dimension

and

YOU MEAN IM NOT LAZY CRAZY OR STUPID,

I think it was " YOU MEAN I'M NOT LAZY CRAZY OR STUPID " there is a chapter on memory, and what she claims is

"that we don't have a poor memory"

more that

" We don't take the time to commit something to memory "

Memory is a chemical reaction in our brain and if we dont take the time to let the chemicals do their thing ...............

Then I guess they the "Initial Chemical "just gets poured down the drain and lost ............

Thats what I have read anyway

what was I talking about there ????????????

That can't remember what I was just thinking is very upsetting. Lately I've been getting angry again and noticed that it is related to how stupid and dumb I feel trying to learn things. Forgetting what someone has just said and asking them to repeat it a number of times would keep me from asking and then I wouldn't understand. Kinda off topic but related. It hurt so much in side. I am 38 and still feel stuck, unable to get over/through it.

Any one else have this feeling? It's like I will be thinking of some thing like what I need at the store and I get interrupted. When I go back to pick up the thought where I left off it is gone. Like some one came in and erased it from my memory leaving only the blank space where the thought was three seconds ago.
happens to me more than I want. That train of thought gets derailed way too often. this is proof as to why I believe in the here after. so many times I wll go someplace and then forgot what i was here after. as far as the store that is why I carry a list. If I dont i will get the wrong things.

ha ha ha. yes, this happens to me all the time as well... do you all find that medication helps with this? it's helped perhaps MARGINALLY but on the whole, my thoughts are often fleeting, nontheless. :confused:

re: not lazy, crazy stupid book

I don't get what she means.

Many ADDers seem to have poor auditory memory testing. (e.g. Teachers berating us for "not listening".)

The working memory is poor on testing. Are the tests wrong? ;)

I can read it over or hear it repeatedly -- and it doesn't make it better.

Seems like the author's statements are confusing. We don't need longer or more repetitions (we aren't 'slow'), rather, I think we need "multi modal" learning [input] for memory to best occur. And things that make it relevant learning.

YMMV.

I say "I lost my train" when that happens (train of thought)

Also, my kids automatically fill in my blanks when I can't think of the right word or forget where I was.

I also have to check with them (my kids) to see if I've actually gotten them that glass of milk they asked for a couple of minutes back.....but they don't seem to mind.

do you all find that medication helps with this? it's helped perhaps MARGINALLY but on the whole, my thoughts are often fleeting, nontheless

I find the medication does help me moderately well. I am able to hold onto my thoughts longer with conscious effort. I do have to make a conscious choice to remember though.

Before medications the thoughts would go racing through so fast by the time I realized I needed to remember that thought it would be lost in space - that multi=dimensional space between my ears.

If I ever figure out where all those previous thoughts are hiding my head may explode,I have lost so many over my life time.

as far as the store that is why I carry a list. If I dont i will get the wrong things.


I write the stuff we need down on a list I have hanging on the frig because if I don't I will never remember what we need. Gary normally does our shopping because I hate stores. Gary normally forgets the list some where between frig and store so he calls me on the cell phone to see what we need.If I am lucky the list has not made it off the frig so I can just look at the list. If I am not so lucky and the list is in that multi-dimensional vortex out side of my head then I get to go running around the house seeing if we need this or that. Which frustrates me because I hate doing that which is why I make a darn list.



We don't take the time to commit something to memory

I can relate because if I bother looking to see which row I parked my car on I can normally remember the row number when I come back out. I will even remember parking lot information at the air port after I have been gone a week.The trick is to remember to look at the row number. It only took once at the air post for me to learn to look at the lot letter and row. Nothing like looking for a single car parked some where in a three mile parking lot full of cars.



I can read it over or hear it repeatedly -- and it doesn't make it better.


I have word problems some times if I can not remember after reading some thing over and over. I will read it out loud to myself, some times this helps. I notice Gary does it too. Hearing memory convert to visual and "see" what is said.

Some times I repeat what I hear in my own words and take a picture of it as I say it. I normally use more than one form of memory when trying to learn some thing. If I convert sound to sight or sight to motion ect I find I remember random information better. Random meaning information that does not connect to other information previous known.

I think it was " YOU MEAN I'M NOT LAZY CRAZY OR STUPID " there is a chapter on memory, and what she claims is

"that we don't have a poor memory"

more that

" We don't take the time to commit something to memory "

Memory is a chemical reaction in our brain and if we dont take the time to let the chemicals do their thing ...............


I have an excellent memory if i take the time to actually try to learn something.

I also agree that I read several posts in this thread and wanted to respond to them but all I can remember now is that I wanted to make a response, not what the response was.

... do you all find that medication helps with this? it's helped perhaps MARGINALLY but on the whole, my thoughts are often fleeting, nontheless. :confused:
I was hoping the meds would help particularly with this, but I can't say it has.

Right now I'm hoping two things I'm doing that are actually unrelated to ADHD will help. I've begun using a CPAP machine to treat sleep apnea, having been pointed to sleep testing passed on the results of some of the executive function test results I took as part of the ADHD testing. It's incredible what a difference this has made to alertness and energy. I no longer come home from work and collapse on the bed for half an hour before I can do anything.

The second is I am weaning myself off my sleeping pills and the Seroquel I was taking also for sleep during a bad period of depression. Both of them affect my short term memory, particularly the Seroquel.

Perhaps the message here is that many things other than ADHD can cause or worsen memory issues. Add them TO ADHD and....what was it I was just saying? :eyebrow:

Nightwing

those drive me nuts. the worse is when i go on vacation. im always afraid that one of those blank spots have happened and i didnt notice. i believe im wearing out the stairs in my house. my wife laughs about how many times am i going to go up and down the steps in the morning. the worse is when its something rather important. like forgetting to wipe your butt, ive forgot to rinse the conditioner out of my hair, forgot to rinse the soap out of my crack more than once (that results in a nasty rash). forget to put on deoderant or brush teeth. its always at least one hygene thing per day. the forgotten butt wiping has only happened once that i can remember.

ill have a list and still forget. wife sent me shopping and i forgot two things on the list. i know i stood there at the checkout and made sure that i had everything on the list. those are minor things. the important things im able to deal with better.

i always get the feeling, to me its kinda like dejavue. but it usually results in why am i standing in the hallway or the middle of the stairs. like i was some robot being contolled by someone else. i will get up from my desk and start heading towards accouting with out really any idea why. thats the dejavue feeling, why am i doing this.

at that point i will stop and take a deep breath. then i will clear my mind of all thoughts that are related to trying to remember what it was that i forgot. that will usually put me into some other thought, at which point when i suddenly remember that i was trying to remember something the thought that i forgot is back.

the worse is when im trying to figure out a problem. suddenly ill go "aha ive got the answer" then like so many ill think something like "i wonder where that spot on the wall came from" and its gone.....

or these stupid posts, ill have this great idea and ill get three sentences in and poof the idea is gone.

this is an excellent example were people with add can be stygmatised with laziness. you will suddenly remember and say "well forget about doing it now". people will think that its being lazy. but if i only saved it (just forgot my point again)...... ahh... nope...gone.


but if i didnt only save doing what i forgot for the most important things, i would be getting in and out of my car at least three time every morning. its not laziness its eficiency.

btw this is a favorite quote of mine. "when a poor man trys to get the most for the least amount of work they call him lazy. when a rich man trys to get the most for the least amount of work they call him a financial genius"