Aspie special talent more harmful then helpful

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Ai_Ling
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06 Oct 2011, 6:34 pm

My aspie special talent is my ability to recall events, conversations, things that happened in my life with quite a bit of detail. My long term memory is pretty good, but Im not at the savant level of talent by any means nor do I ever want to. I used to always remember things people would forget. My sister would accuse me of making false claims.

I read in a book that humans remember 50% of an event 8 hrs following it, and over the span of 2 months they only remember 25% of it. For me I retain 50% of a memory a week later. And it probably drops down to 25% about 6 months to a yr. Highschool was 5 yrs ago for me and I still retain probably 10-30% of certain memories.

But the problem is I tend to obsess over the past too much. I think this is highly attributed to my abilities to remember the past. If I just forgot it as much as other people did, I dont think I would be quite as obsessive about things in the past, where I can take bits and pieces, reframe memories that happened in high school with things I know now.



BTDT
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06 Oct 2011, 6:56 pm

I've run into this problem as well.

One way around it is to work on a special interest, so my mind gets focused on that instead.



Ai_Ling
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06 Oct 2011, 9:30 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia: this is what I have, I have a very good autobiography memory. Well not like a complete autobiography but somewhat close on a lower level. But you get the idea.



dyingofpoetry
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06 Oct 2011, 10:07 pm

Yes. It is a problem that I very often don't want to let go of memories. I will retain a conversation from ten years ago word-for-word, even though it serves no good purpose to remember it. It seems to be wasted internal process.


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07 Oct 2011, 5:27 pm

My long term memory is similar to what the original posted said.

My long term/remembering past things memory is pretty good, but not at an elite or savant level. It has come naturally to me.

This can lead to being obsessive, or not being able to forget bad memories.