Do you ever forget why you.......

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I do love your avatar

Yes I do this frequently. From what I understand we on the autistic spectrum frequently have challenges with short term memory. I would have to agree.

well thank you, it was my hallowed thing costume

i do this all the time. I think maybe it's related to routine. I've notice whenever I stray from my usual routine I get confused and forget what I was supposed to be doing, because it's not what I usually do. Anyone else think this theory could be true?

Yes. I've had thoughts go "poof" and I find myself standing somewhere holding something and not knowing why. Surely there was some reason I took butter into the laundry room, now what could that reason be?

I do this too.

And sometimes I will go to the store to get something and then after I get to the store and am walking to get what I need I suddenly forget what I needed. Or completely forget that there was a specific thing I needed and buy some other things, check out and go home and only remember that I was supposed to get a specific thing when I go into my home and see that I need it.

What's worse is when I am trying to bring one item into a room, and bring something back from that room:

For example if the timer goes off and tells me my food is ready in the kitchen, I might want to bring a cup to the kitchen to get some water and then bring the water and the food back to my room.

I know I should follow these steps:

1. Get up from chair.
2. Pick up cup.
3. Walk to kitchen.
4. Fill cup with ice.
5. Fill cup with water.
6. Scoop food into serving bowl.
7. Get silverware.
8. Walk back to bedroom with food bowl and glass of water.

What happens more frequently is more like this:

1. Get up from chair.
2. Walk to kitchen.
3. Forgot cup. Walk back to bedroom.
4. Pick up cup.
5. Walk to kitchen.
6. Put ice in cup.
7. Fill cup with water.
8. Take food out of oven and scoop food into serving bowl.
9. Walk back to bedroom with serving bowl.
10. Forgot water.
11. Walk back to kitchen.
12. Walk back to bedroom with cup and water.
13. Forgot silverware.
14. Start laughing at how funny it is that I can't even do this right.
15. Walk back to kitchen.
16. Get silverware.
17. Walk back to bedroom.

Last edited by matt on 02 Nov 2009, 1:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I do. I put down to my age.

Yeap. Quite often. I think it has to do with my routines.

When I need to smoke I do the following:

Get up, go to kitchen, put water in microwave (Yes, i love hot water not cold water), go outside, smoke, come back in, go to kitchen to get water, go back to what i was doing before having a cigarette.

Sometimes I'm not thirsty or I don't want hot water (think summer when its warm out). I still go to the kitchen before and after I go outside every single time. I sometimes even open the microwave to see.. nothing there. Then I realize "Why am I here?" I realize it is because I normally go there but this time had no reason to be there.

I often have similar events occur in the morning when dealing with my daily before-work routine. When I go up the stairs I go to my room. But in the morning I go upstairs to brush my teeth. Instead of going to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I find myself in my room standing around. Then I go downstairs because I forgot what I was going to do in the first place (brush my teeth). Now I'm downstairs and think to myself, "Oh yeah, brush my teeth". Go back upstairs, and often find myself back in my room instead of the bathroom.

Eventually I get to the bathroom and do brush my teeth.

I think it worsens with age but I've been like this as long as I can remember. I think it's because you're always thinking of other things so you're not attending to what you're actually doing. This is why I lose my keys because I don't notice where I'm putting them down. As far as losing a train of thought-maybe more complicated stuff going on there. But still I think it's because of not being fully engaged.

I present a whole range of these behaviours:

1) Walk into the supply room to pick up two things, return to my desk with one of them, and then have to go back for the other
2) Begin to say something (usually something a bit complex) and forget halfway through what I am talking about. (Pre-diagnosis, my phrase for this was, "my brain stopped." Post-dx, it's still my phrase for it!)
3) Mislay things
4) Walk out of the house without keys, wallet, cell phone, etc.
5) Make plans to do things (like getting a card for my in-laws 50th Anniversary ) and then forget all about it.

etc. etc. etc.

I do this frequently. Especially stopping halfway between walking to another room and wondering what I was going to get. If I'm wearing my coat or have a lot of pockets I have to always check each one to find my wallet or keys.

Yes...I have a memory like a sieve. For instance, when I go into one of my marathon talking-to-myself sessions, I usually digress from what I was talking about originally, then digress from there, and so on, and so on...and I almost always forget what I was talking about in the first place. If people who overhear me are going to think that I'm nuts, then I should at least get something out of it and work out whatever issue it was that got me started.

Got up from the dinner table yesterday, to get some paper napkins.

Got back to the table and noticed my fork was missing.

Wondered who could have taken it.................

Me!

It was in the kitchen next to the napkins

I thought that everyone did this from time to time, but my boyfriend pointed out that not everyone does it to that extent after we watched a video of someone trying to boil an egg, in which they kept leaving the room, having nothing done, then returning and searching for clues as to what they were doing.

I was laughing the entire time, because I do it so incredibly often that I could relate too well to that "lost" feeling when entering the room and trying to figure out what I was doing. My boyfriend just kept talking about how he wished he could go help her figure out what she was doing, and how horrible it must be to have that happen all of the time. When he tried to get the same responses out of me that he had, I just laughed even harder because it's every day life for me.

I'm sure routine has a lot to do with it. Routine things seem to almost do themselves, I'm sure the memories for it are much stronger than they are for anything new. I've also got a long learning curve and need frequent repetition more than the average person does, all of which points to a difficulty with forming new memories. Perhaps it's the way we think that is just less suitable for memory than neurotypical thought waves?

The other thing is that I often have a poor tolerance for any activities that I don't happen to be particularly fascinated with, and I'm sure that lack of interest in mundane things doesn't make it any easier to remember the details.

Maybe the room's entities are distracting our minds taking away focus from what our intents are.

That or 95% of us are suffering from Alzheimer's. I've seen people with Alzheimer's, and I don't think we relate to that. Watching someone with Alzheimer's is very sad. Watching somebody not know why they are in the kitchen - somewhat entertaining.