I am driving to the ATM yesterday, then I have to pick up my daughter in school. On the way to the ATM I am thinking how fantastically different things look when I have my glasses on. I am thinking how when I was 24 and after not using my prescription glasses for nearly 20 years I had grown accustomed to how the world looked, I thought it was normal, and then I get my glasses and the world looks cleaner, more colorful and sharp.
When I get to the ATM I stand in front of it and enter the card…
By Jove, I forgot the PIN!
“Let me see. I am sure there is a 9, a 7, a 0 and a 6. I just can’t remember in which order. I’ll try 6079. Darn! I think I’ll take the card out before the machine keeps it if I keep entering wrong PINs. What the hell? I’ve known that number for years!”
Off I go to pick up my daughter. I am thinking about all the combinations and try to remember my PIN, and I drive pass the school and get home.
“Oh fuck. I forgot the kid!”
That is the story of my life. I must be one of the most absent-minded people in the world. My parents are just as bad. So I grew up thinking that not being able to concentrate, doing things and forgetting about them a second later, not being able to remember things, locking myself out of cars, homes and going to school on Sundays was normal. I mean normal in myself.
Is it possible that like my glasses I’ve just come to see myself as normal? Or is there anyone with similar symptoms that fit my own and have been diagnosed with something?
To the mods: I am 37. Too late to seek help or medication, I kind of like my myopic brain so this is not seeking medical advice. I am not going to see a doctor about it.
My mom had similar problems. Forgetting everythng, asking the same questions over and over (“Mom, you asked me if I put my laundry away 20 minutes ago!”). We all thought she had really early onset dementia, it was so bad. Turns out she had pernicious anemia, which is a B-12 deficiency. Once she started getting B-12 injections, she was fine.
Of course, now she’s stopped getting them for one reason or another, and she’s batshit insane again.
You were too busy making sure you thought “ATM” and “PIN,” and not “ATM machine” and “PIN number.”
The Dope has made you so paranoid about how stupid you might seem if you even THINK improper grammar, that you are losing other useful bits of info like the actual numbers and when to pick up your kid.
I think we all get distracted like that from time to time. I have forgotten my PIN number on occasions and if it wasn’t for speed dial I would forget phone numbers all the time. I used to remember everyone’s birthday but I have a hard time remembering them all now.
I don’t think that 37 is “too late” to try to make changes. Do you take vitamins? There are vitamins and supplements that do help enhance memory, they are worth a shot.
If you can remember to take them every day, that is!!
That happened to me one day in a store, so I even had to squirm under the gaze of a cashier. That was the day I gave up on remembering which numbers made up my PIN and memorized a word the keys spelled.
Yeah, I thought about that too. But that is an old tumor (about 31 yo) so I don’t worry about it.
Would you believe me if I tell you I do have those memory-enhancing vitamins and only took one the day I opened the bottle?
That is the second reason why I never used oral contraception. Heck, most times I don’t even remember how old I am! Luckily I was born in 1970, so it’s an easy calculation.
Lord knows I’m no expert but it sounds like it could be ADD to me. I understand it can get worse with age.
There are a lot of sites out there that deal with ADD in adults. You might want to poke around and see if the descriptions remind you of yourself, or of your parents.
There is no cure but it can be managed to some degree, even at your age.
We have spin dials (digital combination locks) on our doors at work. The vast majority of them are set using 6-letter words or phrases, and they’re generally set by whoever happens to be closest when Security comes through to change them. Our badges have a phone keypad representation on the back as a memory aid.
They’re also indicative of the mood of the person who picks it - one time, ours was BITE ME.
