What’s it like living with a phenomenal memory and can it be learned?

Re:What’s it like living with a phenomenal memory and can it... by curation on Sunday August 15, 2021 @01:08AM (#28186407)

Similar story; was tested in Grade 5. Question: Did anyone else in your family have it? My mother and grandfather did. I had a very weird, one might have said traumatic childhood (kidnapped; lived in truck; orphanage; bizarre family) so I can also so vividly remember these painful times. I thus got really into horror (made a feature film; wrote a book) for catharsis. Each detail in my work - from what I wore, the art in the room, the people I met - writing it out helped soothe? maybe is the word, the images. I also did years of therapy. The hardest part for me has been accepting that others cannot do this. I spent the first half of my life getting enraged at how careless everyone is. Further, raised in the 80s in traditional gender roles aka housekeeper/cleaner, I am tyrannized by disorder/mess/everything where it should be. I now realize that needing lists and forgetting each detail of a special event isn't cruel/selfishness. I am ashamed of how cruel I was to partners due to my solipsism. How has this effected your relationships? I can't say I'm grateful but more I respect what it is and how it can be useful and not detrimental to my relationships and all of our struggle to survive.

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Re:What’s it like living with a phenomenal memory and can it... by calciphus on Sunday August 15, 2021 @02:06AM (#28186573)

I definitely had a similar experience of not realizing my memory and recall was uncommon - and assuming the people in my life didn't care, rather than didn't recall. A number of times in my head the same experience played out:

"Of course I know what you wore on our third date and what you ordered. How couldn't I? It's important! Am I not as important to you as you are to me?"

Only after spending time and putting in the work with a partner who had their own memory issues did I actually bring this up to them and a therapist. I recall a conversation where I told them it was OK that they had forgotten what we ate on our first date or what I was wearing, because I didn't want to be resentful over unimportant things. The therapist asked me if I remembered most of our dates - where we went, what we wore, what we ordered, movies or shows we saw, etc. I remember being confused - of course I did! Who wouldn't?

My therapist explained that this was really uncommon, especially in the scale of years and decades. I had never considered it before that. It changed how I interacted with the world and I wish I had known sooner.

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