#SDAM

[copperbadge]

i was thinking of you the other day and your discussions of your ability or lack thereof to visualize things in your mind, because someone asked me who all had been at a gathering, and i answered them by calling up the room in my memory and looking around it to see who was there. and it occurred to me after the fact that i suppose probably not everyone can do that? but i could even tell you at least approximately what everyone was wearing (color, cut, maybe not precise pattern, but the general style, sure). and while i can’t swear to you that it’s 100% accurate because i don’t have a picture to compare it to, i think it’s pretty close.

but now i’m curious - what would your thought process be if you were asked the same question? if you can’t just look around the room in your mind, is the memory interaction-based? or like… voices you remember hearing? or something else?

Well, bear in mind that I haven't got a great memory to begin with -- possibly the ADHD at work, but also there's a condition that's frequently comorbid with aphantasia called Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory -- people with SDAM have trouble recalling huge chunks of their lives and when they do have recall they often remember it as if they'd been told it, they have no emotional sense attached. For example, I remember a trip I took where I had to do some hard shit and it was really scary, but I don't remember the feeling of being scared, I just remember that I was. I have no idea how long the trip was, no memory of the hotel room, very little memory of doing the scary thing. I know I did it, but there's not a lot of attachment there.

This is not ALWAYS the case -- for example I have extremely fond memories of certain other trips -- but I don't really seem to be able to switch it on or off. Like when I was in Europe, I stayed in an AirBNB in London, but by the time I got to Rome like, five days later, I couldn't remember what it was like. I ended up spending a little time one evening kind of calling up memories of where I stayed in London and in Paris to try and hard-code them into my memory, and that worked, but I also needed the help of photos and tumblr posts I'd made to achieve it. ("What did it even look like? Well -- wait, I cooked some pizzas in the microwave while I was there. The microwave was on the counter, opposite the bed, and -- oh, okay, I remember now.")

So like, I would have no goddamn idea of the majority of people at any given gathering where I attended, but is that SDAM, ADHD, a function of my anxiety in social situations, or the aphantasia? Difficult to say.

I hosted a get-together on Sunday and because I was host and there weren't that many people in attendance I could name them off, but I couldn't tell you what they wore. The last party I attended, a week or two previously, was at a friend's house and it was mostly folks I was at least passingly familiar with, but I am bad with names and so couldn't NAME a lot of the people there -- but for example I could say "Well, the hosts were there, and I spoke with X, Y, and Z, so they were definitely there, but I also spoke with like four other people whose names I didn't get. I dunno what any of them were wearing even though it was a costume party." But yeah to even come up with that I would have to think about when I arrived, walk myself through whatever I remember of the event in linear order, and just note down who I spoke with. If I didn't speak with them, or if I didn't know them well, they didn't exist for me.

So I guess the answer is that my memory isn't visual and also just kinda...isn't there a lot of the time. It's not like amnesia, or the profound brain damage you read about where the person only remembers the last ten minutes or doesn't remember anything past a certain date in their life, but I just haven't got much memory for things. It's why I use a lot of lists and spreadsheets and make yearly photobooks.

My photo archive on my computer goes back to about 1998, and it's sorted by year, but the top level folder all the years are stored in is simply titled "Where I've Been" 'cause I probably wouldn't remember, otherwise.

[mmmozzz]

post-amnesia sdam stan is the most specific projection headcanon ever but no one can stop me it's real to me now even if it makes no sense shut up

mmm stan getting frustrated trying to retell stories bc so much is just. missing. so many details and sensations and emotions are absent.

others assure him it'll come back, it's just a side-effect of the amnesia, and yeah that makes sense. he believes them. it'll come back. it has to.

except it doesn't. his memory just works like this now. it's not just things from before the memory wipe, it's affecting events coming after.

they'll be in the stan o' war II and ford will be retelling their adventures to their niblings from weeks ago and stan struggles to add to the conversation bc even the most exciting events that should be vivid to him have turned to mush.

but he has to add something bc he's stanley pines and stanley pines lived off of telling stories, not having much to say is out of character, and ford would turn that into a big deal and fuck does he hate unnecessarily worrying his brother, so yeah he bullshits. relying on semantic memory and what ford says and his own inferences. exaggerate it a shit ton so anything he gets wrong can be brushed off as embellishment, he's known for that, that's in-character.

it's fuckin difficult. ford will recall the weather, what they wore, what they ate that day. what the creatures they encountered looked like, sounded like, fuckin smelled like. all stan recalls is, "we encountered this monster. we defeated with it in this way." hours of what he factually knows was intense heart-pumping action reduced to a couple flat, vague sentences. it's not a lot to work with. it sucks.

[aphantimes]

me rn

[simplysebby]

I just found out some people remember things with vivid (or slight to mildly distorted) images, feelings, sights, smells, tastes and etc and not "I remember I was sad/happy/whatever" and like, logical phrases and stuff. That's so wild to me. Someone says "do you remember that time when..." and you conjure mental images and feelings with them as if it was happening to you in the present? For real? This isn't a collective prank? Deadass?

[anirritant]

ppl w aphantasia n sdam pls talk to me i am so lonely in my brain emptiness

[princessbubblegumandjustice]

Learning I have aphantasia, and then also learning I had no inner monologue and severely deficient autobiographical memory is wild.

Like you can see stuff in your mind? You talk to yourself? You can relive your life?

You guys got AV and 32 GB of RAM, but here I am. A damn abacus, if even.

[garbean]

I was recently wondering how other people's memories work because I had a relative tell me a memory from when they were 3, and I can barely remember anything from last year and I went down the rabbit hole and I'm fairly certain I have SDAM? Super cool to know it exists though

[toaster-77]

Aphantasia and SDAM

yo so I've known I had Aphantasia for a few years now, but only discovered I had SDAM last week.

If you don't know what these are there's a subreddit for both of these with FAQ and research papers.

anyways, I wanted to put this here to encourage/invite people to ask questions (@nihilisticraccoon I know you've had some) about Aphantasia and SDAM, so that you can understand it more and I can understand what exactly i'm missing lol. From the conversations I've had in the past week it turns out there's quite a lot. And literally anyone can ask, don't think you have to be a mutual or follower or smthng.

Anyways, Ima tag all my moots and ask that you ask anything you can think of! Already tagged nihilisticraccon, @atropus-belladonna, @catholickedd, and @lavender-bnhababe-bastet! Thanks in advance to you guys if you send me questions (tho don't feel pressure to)!

[yellowgnomeboots]

I gotta say, if you can't remember any of your life like I can't, writing down how you feel each day is really useful for understanding that no you don't "always" feel like this. You in fact did not even feel like this yesterday. Didn't make me feel better but stopped me from feeling worse.

[samwise-sandman]

Having sdam (severely deficient autobiographical memory) is so wild. I was telling my brother today that I am always very nervous riding my bike on gravel because I'm worried it will skid out and I'll get hurt.

His response: Yeah, because that happened to you at summer camp when we were kids. Remember?

Me: ...what?

Brother: You fell off your bike and skinned your knee on the gravel? And then it was improperly cleaned and there was still debris inside and you had to have surgery later to have it removed?

Me: That sounds familiar maybe?

Brother: And then your knee got infected after the surgery and that's why you have that big scar on your knee? Remember?

Me: Damn, that sounds crazy

[aphantimes]

problem w kinda wanting to see aphantasia and sdam rep is like. how do you go about that lol. it's literally so universally accepted in every form of media to represent imagination and memory with visuals. how would you even do it any other way? it'd just come off as bad, vague writing. one of the most basic writing rules is "show don't tell" but if you tried representing what goes on in the mind of someone w sdam when recalling memories there'd be nothing to show. it'd come off as an exposition dump. it'd be fucking boring.

[meggoreads]

fully convinced that I wouldn't need to be a master occlumens in the HP universe to survive legilimency bc I suffer from SDAM

[podcastgemist]

156 - JACK&JOZEF kunnen niet verder.

[toaster-77]

hiiiiii how are you doing today? I spent the day losing money watching horses race (but I won one!!!!)

welp I discovered another disorder I have so thats fun (not)

SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory) is a disorder in which someone cannot re-experience or re-live their own life. They can recall facts about something that happened in the past, but cannot re-live the experience in their head or recall specific details. This does not impede their day to day functuoning though, so people can go years without realizing their brain functions differently.

anywho, i've been having multiple revalations today 'bout that. 

[mad-pride]

can you please make one for SDAM, severely deficient autobiographical memory?

Sorry, requests are not open.

[clusterbungle]

Watch "Trying to reminisce, but I don't have a Memory" on YouTube

Oh, there's a word for it 😮

I've always said I have a shit memory and people go lol yeah me too, and I'll say no seriously I don't remember basically anything like my entire childhood (and uni and everthing else) is a total blank except the basic facts (I went to this school, my friends names were x y z, English was my favourite subject etc).

At that point the other person usually just raises an eyebrow then changes the subject which is super helpful.

She's so spot on as well when she mentions how difficult it is maintaining friendships when you don't remember these kind of details 😔