What's the worst thing you have ever forgotten?

[Anonymous]

“The worst thing I’ve ever forgotten is someone’s name. Now, I do that all the time. But this was a famous singer. And I was onstage introducing this person. In front of three or four thousand spectators.

The longest 30 seconds of my life.”

I had something similar happen. I was supposed to introduce the next panel at a convention I was working at for the company, and I couldn’t remember what was next on stage. The crowd was kind enough to shout out the answer when I stopped talking, I repeated it laughed, and moved on.

I am always in awe of people who can be on mic and in bright lights and not have it throw them.

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[nellie]

I forgot where I parked my car once and called the police because I was convinced it was stolen. A very nice policeman spent an hour taking my report. He asked me several times if I was absolutely sure and that it wasn’t a block further away maybe but I insisted it was stolen. When he finished all the paperwork he asked me to get in the cruiser with him to drive to where I thought I left it and then a block further on. Of course there it was! Needless to say I was pretty embarrassed but greatly relieved that I hadn’t lied about the contents of the car because he checked them out pretty closely to compare with the police report!

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[Anonymous]

Any time I have an interview, I always put everything on one chair the night before. Keys, wallet, everything. After getting ready, I was heading out the door when I realized I didn’t have my keys. I just had them.. they were on the chair.. but I couldn’t find them, and of course I procrastinated getting a second set before it was too late. After frantically searching, I found them in my silverware drawer. I put them in there and shut it when going for a knife for my morning bagel.

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[Robbo]

This was tons of fun to read, but at the same time it makes it a little easier to stop working at getting better. Some of these stories brought up some painful memories. Unfortunately there are some things I don’t want to remember.

A couple years ago when I first tried Marinol, That’s synthetic THC pills. It was for chronic pain, so I had to take a very high dosage, extremely bad for an already poor short term memory. I got much much more forgetful. So I came up with tons of different ways to exercise my brain, weird stuff like typing text messages with my phone sideways. Writing with my non-dominant hand, anything that really made me focus, brain sweat. I was in the hospital at the time, so I started writing down every persons name that came into my room. That’s a ton of people!, each one I would assign a native american name for, based on the most obvious things I noticed or just sensed about them, was great when I would be able to call them by name the next time they came in, and I was on tons of other painkillers at the same time. A few years ago I heard that keeping any random thought in my head longer than 30 seconds will help the chemistry of short term memory work better. I got some of the brain exercise ideas from the new Neuroplasticity research, and discovery. The time I spent thinking up Native American names (Dances with Wolves, Stands with a Fist) in the hospital kept me thinking about the subject longer than thirty seconds. The extra time some of us need for the chemistry of memory to happen. Open mindedness is a magical, powerful phenomena.

Do yourself an excellent favor. Look up (run a search) Neuroplasticity. This link’s pretty good, http://memoryzine.com/2010/07/02/introduction-to-neuroplasticity/ Some of you guys know I got hit by a truck about 15 years ago, I had a helmet on, and up until a few months ago I didn’t think I had any kind of brain injury. That’s because they didn’t do much testing for me. I probably have a very high IQ, I think way different. So when they asked me about my memory after the accident I honestly could not tell if my memory was affected because I had always been very forgetful, real bad. So I spent the next 15 years not knowing I actually did have a brain injury, a very minor one. I was still able to figure things out relatively quickly, like my first computer… even after going back to smoking pot after about 9 years complete abstinence, it does actually work for Neuropathic pain. So during the ADHD testing process I found out being knocked out at all, and not remembering what happened directly after was a textbook definition of brain injury/concussion. I don’t remember the first 10 days after that accident. This new insight encouraged me to work even harder on the Neuroplasticity. It applies to stroke survivors, TBI, Alziemers, (dang, spell check can’t figure out what I’m trying to spell, Altzeimers?) and of course it applies to ADD forgetfulness. I’m kind-of stubborn about accepting my own limitations. There’s always a new way to get stuff done. That’s how I’ve survived becoming a wheelchair user at the age of 31, without ending up in a psyche ward. I always carry tongs with me in my power chair cuz when my butterfingers let go of something, I can’t still reach the ground without tongs. The power chair makes me about 8 or 10 inches taller than when I’m in the manual wheelchair.

I realize this thread is mostly for fun and self acceptance. That’s how it has served me for sure. But I like feeling grateful when I grow past what sometimes turns out to be self imposed limitations. It’s true, we have a real disability. Our brains are wired different. But without conforming to anyone else’s idea of “normal” we have to give ourselves freedom to reach almost any goal we set our minds to. Maybe the trick is knowing when we’ve done our absolute best. When to be satisfied and spend our energies on more productive goals, When to just take a break, and let out subconscious work out a problem. Many times a solution to a problem I took a break from just pops into my head. The same way I suddenly find something I lost when I quit looking for it, or suddenly remember something important I forgot. I got lucky, I have an open mind about faith.

I have to have faith in that subconscious part of my brain. Some Christians call this the Holy Spirit, I’m not sure labels matter as much as faith in whatever it is that’s helping us. For me it’s God, and I don’t have to understand God to be helped. Just trust.

I don’t want to stop the fun here, but I have a strong desire to bring a new perspective into things. There’s got to be some kind of balance between not being too hard on me, and also not letting myself become too flippant about important things. I wonder if I’ll ever find that balance. I won’t make it too urgent. I know that will help.

It was fun reading all these stories the second time this morning. One cool thing about being forgetful is being able to enjoy movies several times cuz we miss a large part of the story being distracted by fireflies, n smells, n daydreaming… :o)

I’m here because ADHD has caused me some real pain. All kinds of pain, especially the guilt kind. Thanks for helping me give myself a break as I recover.

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[Anonymous]

Being new here I’m spending some time poking around in old threads. I forget the usual stuff – appointments, things I’ve said I will do, things i’m supposed to take with me when I leave the house …. Recently I took the wrong car for an oil change. I was so proud of myself, not forgetting and being ON TIME.

But I forgot something that broke my heart. One cold night last winter I let my cat out “just for a few minutes”. In the space of a few minutes I forgot I’d let her out. The next morning my husband woke me asking “where’s Millie” and I remembered instantly. Her little tracks were in the snow at both doors and a trail burrowed through the deep snow. We never saw her again despite our massive search for months. One of the neighbours on the next street who backs onto a creek said she’d seen coyotes back there during that couple of days. My husband kept saying it wasn’t my fault but it was, and one night I forced him to say that it was. I think I’ve finally forgiven myself, almost anyway.

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[Anonymous]

My mom was in a nursinghome.

It was quite fare from where we live. But for about 2 months I had visited her once a week after work.

One weekend my husband and I were in the same area as the nursing home, and I thought it would be nice to look in on my morther.

I directed my husband to the small town where the nursinghome where. But I cut not find it! we drow bach and fouht this small town for a hour, and I was getting more and more irritated. I’m famous for my lack of direction sense, so it was’nt unusual that I cut’nt find the place… But after one hour had passed I suddently realised that we where in the wrong town!

We never got around to see my mom that day…

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[Babyjo]

At first I asked this of yahoo Answers but it occurred to me that you guys would get this better than any of them.

I’m a substitute teacher, and I forgot to go to work today. Just…forgot. I’m pretty open about the ADHD, and the district I work for is well aware of it. I get these one-day assignments day by day and I write them in my day planner, which I have been trying to train myself to use more regularly. Well, at some point last night I convinced myself that I didn’t have an assignment today. (I scheduled this assignment over two weeks ago.) So today I slept in, thinking the computer scheduling program that gives me assignments (www.aesopeducation.com) would alert me if something became available. One of the schools called me at about 8:30 but I ignored it since I had decided to spend the day doing chores. I don’t know how long it would have taken me to realize it, butat about 9:45 I saw an email notification saying my assignment had been cancelled for today! I was supposed to be there at 7:30. I immediately called the secretary and, despite having been advised to lie after the fact, told her the truth about simply having forgotten that I had a job assigned today. I know I completely screwed their morning. They have IED meetings (for parents of kids with various emotional or learning disabilities) and I was to supervise the lessons while the teacher was in the meeting. I don’t know if they had to cancel meetings, or… or what they had to do to compensate for my not showing up or even calling to let them know I wouldn’t be there. They found a replacement for me finally, but I feel just awful. To make matters worse, I came down with a bad cold Monday morning and had to call off that day, at the same school! So, I’ve stood them up twice in one week, although I was at least able to give them three hours’ warning the first time.

I would love some advice from professionals out there, especially anyone in education. If you were a principal, would you totally lose respect for me? I’m pretty sure they know I have ADHD, I’m pretty open about it. I’ve done other silly stuff like forget which teacher I came to sub for, showing up at the wrong school or on the wrong day (before now, a day early instead of late), and they’ve rolled with it and I’ve understood myself to have a pretty positive reputation. I don’t “hide behind the desk”, I’m not afraid to get out there and teach, the kids know and respect me and generally a good time is had by all, and the work gets done. I leave detailed behavior reports to hold the kids accountable (I usually sub for grades 5 and up. plenty old enough to understand and respect consequences) and let the teachers know what happened when they were gone. I just feel like I would want to know. Plus I make copies for myself and it’s kind of like a journal. In fact, I am in grad school to get my teaching license. That’s the other part of this dilemma: I’ve been cultivating a relationship with this district for years, I did my FEEP there, I’ve subbed there for two years, ideally I’ll do my student teaching there and the best thing would be if I could eventually teach there. It’s a low-income district and I love the staff and the kids and consider many among the staff mentors. I feel so awful for letting them down.

What can I do now? Damage control ideas? I thought of literally sending a fruit basket with a note of apology to the principal and office staff, or even to the asst superintendent, who is essentially my supervisor and in charge of substitutes. I’m sure she’ll hear of it. Or, I just shut up and let it blow over and resolve to NEVER EVER do it again.

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[Anonymous]

I drove to school and took the bus home. People still remembered at my 20th reunion a few years ago.

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[kc5jck]

Babyjo – I’m really nobody, but I would say that if you discuss this with whomever is appropriate at the school and let them know that you are upset about your missing work and that you take it very seriously for all the reasons you listed above that they should be understanding. Let them know both what you plan to do so that it doesn’t happen in the future as well as what they can do to help, like maybe a phone call the night before to confirm their needs.

If they are not understanding, then you might want to rethink your desire to work for them in the future.

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[Anonymous]

i forget to eat all the time, and also, last semester, i forgot to go to class to take my math exam so i had to drop the class.

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[Robbo]

I forgot to pick up my daughter from her mom’s house one time, just once. I had tues, and Thurs, n every other weekend with her. I got back from an awesome surf session, her mom called me, fuming. I felt like less than a dirt clod.

I Beat the heck outa me for that one… She was only about 7 I think. Brutal guilt. Sometimes we feel guilty because we are. Not even surging was more important than being the best Dad I could be. I have done the best I can, and still do.

She’s 23, and almost finished with her Internship now. BS in Nutrition and she will be a Dietician soon. She even learned how to surf on her vacation after graduation from University. It all turned out great for my lil punkinhead. As far as I know. I’ve always talked too much so she hasn’t been able to get many words in edgewise, mostly after she went to college. That was a very scary time for me. Regrets hurt. But I’m working hard on forgiving me. Fortunately I didn’t always talk too much, I was good at making her laugh.

Listening to me talk on and on on the phone has given her patience, I hope. Being a dad was the luckiest thing I can think of in my life. Ever…

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[Robbo]

Wow, reading through these again is freaky. What a strange problem to have. Bewildering is much less than what It makes me feel. kinda like doom with a glimmer of hope.

>>>That’s why I carry a little notepad and a pen. If it’s something important, I write it down.

If it’s REALLY important, I make a note on my hand, so I can’t miss seeing it! <<<

I do that a lot, the trick is to get it from my arm, hand, to the piece of paper before it gets washed off.

I may put a tatoo of a “to do list” on the inside of my arm. in a lighter color so it’s not too noticeable. Because more often than not I don’t want to fish around in the bag on the back of my chair for the planner, it’s full of notes taped on top of the pages that are full of reminders, and important paperwork. If I ever do give myself that tatoo, I’ll post a picture of it here in place of the squirrel. (for a while)

I hope the ink from regular pens isn’t poisonous, cuz I write on the inside of my arm all the dang time. It works great.

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[Babyjo]

Hey thanks kc5jck. I ended up taking the advice of some of the aforementioned mentors, most of whom said subs don’t show up for one reason or another all the time, and not to make a big deal out of it but to never ever do it again. So far, so good!

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[Babyjo]

Also, wow the was a hell of a babble. I tend to do that when I’m upset 😉 lol I so overdetailed there

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[jane1]

When dropping my 8 year old daughter at school, in the “Kiss and Drop” line, I’ve twice started to drive away BEFORE she has completely got out of the car and closed the door. No harm was done but I feel like total sh#t about it 🙁

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[Author]

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