PSA: “if it was important, you would have remembered it.” And “if you cared, you would have remembered.“
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PSA:
“if it was important, you would have remembered it.” And “if you cared, you would have remembered.“Neither of these claims have any basis in reality. Importance, and caring have no correlation to whether a memory is formed.
These sentences only serve to gaslight people about a chemical, process that they cannot control.
Please spread this knowledge.
Please stop gaslighting people with memory issues.
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@masukomi I find it helpful to apply it to small things (e.g., forgetting to start the dishwasher) because it helps me stress less, but I can see why it’s unhelpful or even harmful for other people.
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@julia
The human brain starts to believe things that we tell it again, and again.So while it may reduce your stress, when you forget to do some thing that is actually unimportant, or that you actually don’t care about you are also training yourself that when you forget some thing that is important to you and that you do care about that it is because you must not have actually believed it was important, or actually cared. Thus setting yourself up for self gaslighting.
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@julia I am not a psychologist, but I am someone with an objectively poor memory. Personally, I have found that learning to accept the reality that sometimes your body just does not form memories when you wish it would have is a much healthier approach which, if internalized will eventually spread compassion to those around you when they forget something.
It is a simple strategy with no blame, no falsehoods, no gaslighting, and it help others not feel like failures when you share it.
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Question:
Do you know why the use of memory aids is or is not advisable?For example, under stressful conditions, recording a note.
Using a calendar, stopwatch, daytimer, or a habit tracker.
Paper or notebook to record notes, tasks, & appointments.
Post-it notes in books
Check in with coworkers or family; ask if they have any outstanding requests, & they kindly remind.
Post-covid, many have reduced memory capacity so using memory aids is advised
Asking with empathy
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@Npars01 @julia Memory Aids are 100% advisable. I would strongly recommend reading Moonwalking With Einstein https://amzn.to/3Si2j32
it is totally possible (for most folks) to apply effort via specific techniques to increase the likelyhood that you will remember a specific thing.
The problem is that you can't do that for _everything_, and sometimes it doesn't occur to you that X thing should have that effort applied. Also we gaslight ourselves "I'll remember that".
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Samhain Night 4 Harrisreplied to Echedelle ⚧ on last edited by
@elr @masukomi @julia @Npars01 Writing things down only works if I remember:
That it was written down
To check the list when I can act on what is written
Don’t get distracted on the way to do the thingThat’s 3 points of failure that have to be overcome for a list to work.
What does help is putting things where I can’t miss them to overcome object impermanence, If I can’t see it I forget it exists), routine, and Ritalin.
And even with Ritalin, I only remember things about 80% of the time. -
Echedelle ⚧replied to Samhain Night 4 Harris on last edited by@samhainnight
Yeah. I also think i mispelled it a bit. I use to put obstables where i move at home so that acts somewhat good for some things.
However, it is true that I use to move through it and then I forget again x3
@masukomi @julia @Npars01 -
@elr @julia @Npars01 @samhainnight The "Oddly Influenced" podcast https://podcast.oddly-influenced.dev/ has a 5+ part series lately about "The offloaded brain". It's a very "thinky" series but the basic gist is that you can eliminate many memory items by setting up "affordances". Ex. You don't have to remember if a door is push or pull because the affordance of a flat plate, or a "pull handle" triggers the appropriate action when you reach it.