Memory and timeline issues

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this also become problem to me..
Anyone can give suggestion for this??

sjamaan,

You just described ME!! !! !! !! Bad at names! Bad at numbers! May remember friday on monday as yesterday. Slow to remember. Often remember great detail. And I ALSO am a programmer! HERE is an example of how my memory works....

1:00 Someone asks me a VAGUE incomplete question about how something is done. I have NO idea WHAT they are talking about!
1:01 I remember it, relate everything to them, give them all the details, and THEN tell them what is likely wrong! I am usually RIGHT! At this is without looking ANYTHING up.

Sometimes it is SCARY what I remember.

I have often described my memory as a little dinky computer with a slow link to the sides of the room that seems almost empty, but all along the walls are FAR larger systems. It isn't like there is really a problem with my memory, but the interface to it is just clunky. It may even been seen as that situation on meteor man. One of his powers was to instantly learn everything in a book by touching it. Sometimes I can think of something I learned and, though I seem to know NOTHING about it, a few seconds or minutes later I seem to be an EXPERT.
BTW HE only knew it for like 30 or 60 seconds. With ME, eventually it gets kind of offloaded. Maybe I should have described it using the matrix as an example. THAT is closer.

sjamaan & 2ukenkerl, another member of the IT Professionals with Wonky Memories club here. I don't have much issue with memory itself - in fact, in general I learn and remember very quickly, particularly factual information that can be "filed away" systemically. Also, having number-form synaesthesia, I can remember a lot of numbers very easily. My long-term memory is very good - I can, for example, remember exact details of a complex program I wrote in the mid-1980s today, having not looked at it or even thought about it for at least 15 years, and can recall large collections of numbers I remembered as a pre-teen. My short-term memory is somewhat less reliable, as I need to be in a particular receptive frame of mind and in an environment without distractions to register "working memory" details.

However, the recall mechanism is quite a different story. Similar to what you described, I can read a story (a rare occurrence, as concentrating on a story is immensely challenging), watch a movie, attend a social gathering (some can't be avoided, you know) or go to a business meeting and when initially asked something along the lines of "What happened?" I am completely at a loss to give more than pitiful alogic answers. Even specific questions are initially met with blank stares. However, over the following minutes, hours, days, more details spring to the surface, and subsequent discussions become increasingly vivid and informative.

In the case of a movie, I simply watch it again (and again and again) so that I can finally follow everything. I've never read a book twice (a story, that is; not an informational book), and obviously you can't repeat in-person gatherings (imagine if we could!) People who are impatient give up quickly on asking me about what happened, and usually resort to finding out someone else's version of it. The rare, patient person knows to bring up the subject in small doses over time, and is rewarded by the eventual recollection of exact quotes, sequences of exchanges, etc. Unless two people were talking at the same time or the communication was nonverbal - no way I can be expected to decode that kind of gibberish!

sjamaan posted: I was wondering if this is typically ASD or if it's just me:
My memory acts kinda weird, both my short-term and long-term memory. For example, when I just finished reading a book or seen a film, you can ask me what I just read or saw and often I will have troubles just repeating the main storyline! When I try really hard, it usually comes back to me. Same happens when I try to recall what happened during the day; often I will even forget major things that have happened. It's not just bad memory, though. For example, I can sometimes remember some of the tiniest details very well. If I tell people, they just have to trust me because they can't remember themselves, even if they were present at the event we're recalling. They keep looking at me strange, though At work I continually surprise people because I keep telling them how bad my memory is, but quite often I know exactly how a piece of program code works and even very precisely where an error is located, when I'm shown a particular manifestation of a bug. Other times, I read back a piece of code I wrote with my own hands, but don't even remember writing. If you tell me it was written by someone else, I'd believe it. My memory also has a way of imposing continuity. Example: At work, when I have to recall something I was working on on friday but it's now monday, I often refer to it as "yesterday, I was doing this and that", and as soon as I say it I catch myself and say "friday". It's like I view "work-time" as a distinctly different timeline from realtime in which there's a weekend in between. If I refer back to the weekend, it takes me some effort to relate back the day to the weekday we're in now. I also have trouble remembering on sundays that stores are closed, which others tend to find amusing I'm not sure if I really experience time differently from other people, or if it's just my memory warping my sense of time.
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You're describing how memory works for you. There are many kinds of memory difficulties (well over a dozen). When memory difficulties are very clear, sometimes they fall within categories such as ADHD Inattentive, central auditory processing disorder, TLE/complex partial, or consequences of concussions (cars, sports, etc.). When they are as subtle as you report, they are often not much talked about (often ignored). Recall reading a book on this topic of subtle memory, a How To (understand) Hyperactivity book (1981) about ADHD Inattentive by C. Thomas Wild, because the book reported a clear, temporary improvement (not a cure) to various kinds of memory difficulties due to taking a FDA approved medicine called Tirend. It's the only book I recall which directly addressed the topic of memory including what was in the Tirend medicine which accounted for the temporary memory improvements. Most books about memory only talk about memory as a theme and never mention the idea of the right medicine being able to help a few users with some small aspects of memory. Connections in the brain can be strong, medium, weak, or missing (simplified). When a medicine works for memory a little (not a cure), there is a temporary strengthening of connections between neurons. That's my understanding/part of my understanding.