project1enigma

LehtoriTuomo , 10 days ago to actuallyautistic

The other day, I finally read this academic paper on disrupted autobiographical memory in autistic people. (Sorry, forgot who linked to it in spring.) That resonated a lot.

While my semantic memory (basically, memory for facts) is quite alright, my episodic memory (memory of actual things happening) is absolute garbage. I've constructed a mental timeline of my life based on things that have happened, often anchored in certain events or years (semantic) but for the most part, have no recollection of experiencing those things (episodic). I might remember flashes but even those are more like photographs that don't include emotions.

Apparently neurotypicals are able to answer questions like "what did it feel like?" in detail. For me, such an answer would consist of basic emotions and even those might be based on reasoning -> "this event wasn't nice so I must've felt bad. I'm a sensitive person so I must've felt like crying." Since I'm very in touch with my current feelings, that helps, but the memory trace doesn't include emotional details.

The paper explains that this disruption may lead to a vague self-image (my wording) but that doesn't seem to be the case for me. It may be due to this timeline I explained. I've invested in this timeline of mine quite much, and complete with some key memories I have a very strong concept of myself.

At any rate, I've lost so much of my life. I simply don't remember. While for the most part, the journey of coming to grips with understanding I'm autistic has been more of "that makes sense" and "that's actually cool", this part really made me sad. I hate it that I have this garbage memory.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9586886/

#ActuallyAutistic #memory #AutobiographicalMemory @actuallyautistic