Lack of memory capacities... anyone have this?

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No one around me will recognize it, but my memory, long-term, short-term, episodic, semantic, declarative, procedural memory, is completely lacking. I can't remember anything, barely at all, not much of childhood, nothing beyond fragments of what I read and learn, and my brain processes seem bloated with sticky tar. I have trouble thinking, to say the least, reasoning, processing information, comprehension, understanding, and sometimes it takes a long time to get it through. I don't understand what's wrong, but it ruins my life, quite frankly. I love to learn and read and create things, and this just saps that away, destroy it, which is one of few sources of happiness in my life. I'm baffled because it's the brain, I'm sure, and I can't really do anything about that.

I was reading an article a while ago (and it's a miracle I remember it), which was about an experiment performed on people with Bipolar disorder while in the manic state and the "normal" state. This results were that people with Bipolar had delays in processing and thought, thinking disruption, and tested lower than the average people. What I am wondering is if this, combined with the memory and processing issues of Asperger's Syndrome and the attention deficits of ADHD, could account for what I'm experiencing? I'm at the end of my rope. Every time I find meaning in life, I hit the same roadblock, time and time ago.

My capacity is great. It's my front side bus that is impaired.

Attention seems to be a huge part of learning. If you can't give full attention to your experiences then they won't lodge in the brain.

Are you taking an ADD medication?

I used to, but medication is a very complicated thing for me. I don't react well to most of them, and some of them have such negative side-effects with my other issues that I just can't take them. Medication always affects me differently than it does most people. Becoming resistent to the meds, thus rendering them less effective, has always been a problem for me.

Specifically, the medication I have taken before seems to set off mania in me, for some reason. I go too high and can't come back down. I become reckless. For that matter, I can't take antidepressants for the same reason. It's like a puzzle; you can't treat one symptom without intensifying another.

I have issues with short term memory. I am known to ask the same question every 5 minutes and for some reason I never remember the answer or that I have already asked it. However, once something makes it to long term memory, I'm good. I remember things from ages ago that no one else seems to remember.

I wish I had something more helpful to say.

My long term memory is my greatest gift in life. Some people say i have a photographic memory, but i personally don't really believe that.

Try making memory associations. Making associations helps greatly with memory. This is often used by those carnival types of people you sometimes see on TV remembering names and details of large numbers of strangers in the audience. Here is an example that I used a year ago. I was applying to move into a new apartment complex (I never did though) and wanted to remember the name of the manager, an Asian woman named Nofi. So I reminded myself that the last thing any apartment complex would ever say to you was "No Fee". Now I will remember her name until the day that I die whether I want to or not.

I sympathise - my own memory lets me down a lot, mostly on short-term stuff, probably down to my not paying enough attention in the first place. My memory feels kind of shallow. I find it difficult to keep the info about more than a couple of things in my head, and if people ask me to take too much on board, I become anxious because I expect to forget a lot of it.

Have you tried taking any memory tests? I was surprised to find that I scored quite well with "working memory" - initial scores were mediocre, but after a couple of shots I got into the swing of it, and ended up with 100%. Which makes me think that the cause of my memory problems in everyday life isn't simply down to a rotten memory as such. When I look at the problem, it seems that I'm just not interested enough to focus properly on the subject matter.

Sometimes I catch myself condemning my retention powers without a fair trial - the other night I saw a film, and towards the end I felt my brain had dumped most of the plot, if it had ever understood it in the first place. But I took a break, and tried to recall what I'd seen - the result was a fairly complete synopsis, the only important missing details being people's names and faces. The hard part was putting it into words without straying from the brief. Often I get into this state where I feel strongly that I don't have a clear overview of a subject, yet when I'm asked specific questions, it's surprising how much I can remember. So I'm wondering whether you really do forget so much, or whether you just think you've forgotten.

There are coping strategies for memory defecit, of course. Usually writing stuff down, setting alarms, putting post-it stickers all over the place, developing some kind of routine. I use them here and there, but I suspect executive disfunction keeps me from getting a really good memory-jogging system.

A long time ago I was having particular trouble thinking and remembering, and the answer seemed to be to keep away from the stuff I had no natural interest in - at any rate, as soon as I stopped trying to do job-related courses, my mind became a lot clearer. In the bad old days I felt so confused that I couldn't even describe the problem - the nearest I could get was that I'd forget the first half of the sentence before I'd thought out the second half. I was no doubt under a lot of stress because of the unsuitability of the work, and I think stress messes with the brain a lot, and causes memory and thinking problems.

Have you ever read this link:

http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/?pageId=468

It explains a lot of my memory issues. There's a really brief table that basically says:

Difficulties in {starting, stopping, executing, continuing, combining, switching} may impede {postures, actions, speech, thoughts, perceptions, emotions, memories}.  So anything in the first group can impede anything in the second group. 

My deliberate conscious memory is terrible and tests below the first percentile.  That means that most of the time I am walking around in a constant state of now. Everything other than now and here is past these barriers in my head that feel like thick translucent rubbery stuff of some sort. It is very hard for me to pull anything through those barriers to remember, and what I can pull through gets distorted. 

The weird thing though is that for brief moments something will trigger a memory and then it will be crystal clear, until it goes back behind that weird rubber wall. So I seem to be storing stuff but my trouble is accessing it consciously. 

This voluntary vs triggered issue pervades every part of my life. Even physical movement. (I have a condition called autistic catatonia that causes the gap between voluntary and triggered/automatic to get wider all the time for every single issue on the list on that webpage. The author of the first real study of autistic catatonia likens it to the people in Awakenings except in my case less severe. It's also similar to some aspects of Parkinson's.)

As for comprehension I start out at a level that is like... I don't even recognize objects around me or put them into simple categories, and words are just sound or light. I have to climb up from there to get into language etc. at all. I liken it to hanging onto a cliff by my fingernails in that I will eventually fall back down to my regular level and have to start the climb over. 

I seem to do better with these things in an unconscious/triggered way, but of course I have no control over that and the effects are sporadic at best. A friend has said that her impressions of me are like I have giant caverns stored full of information but no way to get to them, and occasionally a light will shine on one tiny piece but there's no way to get to the whole thing. Even my words now are triggered by what you have said and have little to no place in my more conscious awareness. 

Also if my mind gets too much raw sensory data to process then other things can drop off too. I've sometimes been aware (not sure of what, but clearly aware) in what seems like... as if there's no sense of memory or time, little to no awareness of sensory input but clearly aware of something, else I wouldn't be describing it. That's not all the time, just when my brain gets more overwhelmed than usual. 

For some reason though I am less bothered by all this than a lot of people with similar issues. I'm not unhappy overall. I enjoy life. The lack of conscious memory and the comprehension issues doesn't much affect that even at my least aware. I have little explanation for this. At least none I have words for. I just seem to lack much of the common mind thing that associates impairment (however severe) with unhappiness. 

My memory is funky - it is uneven. I have a pretty good long term memory for certain things; for instance, I can remember events that happened when I was a baby, I almost never forget people's names, and I can remember odd little facts that I've heard in passing. On the other hand, my working memory/short term memory SUCKS - I'm bad at those word list tests and verbal directions, and I am likely to forget instructions you might give me, five minutes after you give them to me. I am also really really bad at remembering faces. As for procedural things, it takes me much longer for me to learn something AND remember how to do it for the next time, but I do eventually learn.

I also have Asperger's and ADD. Have you ever been tested or treated for bipolar?

My memory is non-existent.

I only have a very vague idea of things that have happened in my life, this is helpful in forgetting about childhood abuse, bullying and nasty relationships or painful break-ups - I'll occasionally remember something that happened, but normally it is lacking in the emotion I felt at the time so it's like odd flashes of someone else's life. I don't have any memory of some of my earlier 'special interests' - for example from primary school all the way to college I was heavily into geology, don't remember a single thing about it now. I also tend to forget what I've been doing during the day, by 2am last night I had forgotten most of yesterday.

But I couldn't confirm as to whether or not it is down to Asperger's. I have had 'attack's' which I suspect have been minor strokes which may have effected my memory, some of it may be down to my brain trying to shield me from bad memories - I remember once being told in my psychology lectures that this idea may be bunk, but can't remember if that's the case or not. HA!

My memory is horrible unless it is something that stands out...usually a negative or emotionally-high memory I can remember better.