So my boyfriend has some weird memory issues. Like he can remember events but not when they happened. The past is a blurry lump to him. Even things that just happened. For example Me: "Did you feed the dog recently?" Bf: "Probably?" He knows he feed the dog today based around other events that had to be today, but when today is a mystery. So we have to piece together when it was. Was it before I went to work? If not can you guess how long before I got home? Because he can't remember when things happened he'll say it happened "the other day" which for him is anywhere from yesterday to last month, generally because of how the memories "feel". He also gets like hyper focused on things (which I also do) like if he's playing a video game and I need him to do something he gets irritated even if it's a game with a pause button. (Not like mad at me but annoyed because his focus was broken. Can also be achieved by dog barking or knock at the door.) And if his focus is broken he kinds forgets what he was doing? Basically managing his memory issues is pretty difficult and he doesn't have insurance so we can't afford to see a doctor about it. So thoughts? Tips on managing memory issues? Tips on not feeling frustrated that neither of us remembers important things??
Sounds kinda ADHD to me? Time blindness and the hyperfocus thing. I also get grumpy about being interrupted, i think it's because if focus is hard in general, when I get really into something and then get interrupted it's frustrating because there's no guarantee I'll get the focus back. if that makes sense. Maybe a calendar might help? Or a list posted somewhere he can check off tasks as they're done, maybe write the time? It may take a little bit to form the habit of remembering to note things down, but. My therapist has also suggested placing a clock in each room at home so it's easier to keep track of time.
You know as I was writing I was thinking "wow this is starting to sound like a deficit disorder" but I wasn't sure because I only kinda remembered the symtoms. We do have a big dry erase calender on the wall we could use. It even has a to do list on it. I'll try making a check list there. As far as a clock goes, I could see if any family members might donate some? We're living paycheck to paycheck atm so if not it'll have to wait. I'll try to remember that. He also has these little notebooks he uses to write down adresses/receipts from thinga he sells on his Tcgplayer account. Maybe we could use that too, since they are easy to carry around?
That sounds really familar, and thus ADHDish, to me. What's helped me - even on medication - has been to write absolutely everything down, and set a lot of timers. Having something he can carry around and make a note of whatever the moment he finds out about it (or does the thing) can help a lot.
So I made a checklist and I made sure he knows it's not just for him, we both have to use it. (Honestly it's gonna help us both) The checklist includes: feeding the dog 3 times a day feeding the cats twice a day feeding ourselves 3 times a day (I'm gonna be more lenient on this one cuz we both forget to eat, and sometimes he doesn't eat breakfast cuz his acid reflux is making him feel sick so he waits until lunch.) Is there anything else that would be good to put on the checklist? I'm a bad judge of what people usually do in a day cuz my days are a blur of work, cook dinner, play video games, sleep, with important things sprinkled in like laundry and dog tug of war.
Apologies if I'm stating the obvious, but make sure your items are divided up - have each feeding as its own separate item. As for list items, it really depends on what you need to do daily and what gets forgotten or delayed. If one of you forgets to brush your teeth often enough, for example, that's a valid list item. Also, don't overload yourself with lists from the getgo! It's easy to get overwhelmed. You may want to stick with just those most necessary things until you get used to keeping and referring to the checklist, and then add on a bit at a time from there. Does your boyfriend consume caffeine at all? For some people it can be really helpful in self-medicating for ADHD, although of course he wouldn't want to overdo it.
Yeah I set it up like Feed Dog Morning Afternoon Night Cuz that made sense to me, but I appreciate you suggesting it. But yeah that makes sense. I'll probably stick with that for now. I do have trouble remembering to do self care stuff but that would need to be it's own list I think. And he doesn't except for when we go out/people bring us soda cuz it hurts his tummy due to acid reflux. We mostly have juice/koolaid in the house. And we have a designated water cup shaped like a fish we carry around so we stay hydrated.
I also have ADHD, pretty badly, and it's compounded with dissociation bullshit that makes remembering stuff....really hard for me. the checklist is a really great idea as long as both of you remember to check it. items I might suggest adding are: put dog out (if your dog needs to be put out to go to the bathroom), and anything else you might need to do daily but struggle with--like walking the dog, for instance. it might also be useful to set out a checklist by days, and then put things that need to be done once a week on certain days, like laundry. you mentioned that sometimes you need to remember when the dog was fed--is that often the case? because if yes, I might suggest doing something like this when you check off an item on the checklist: "fed dog: (check) at (time when feeding happened)" just in case the exact time becomes important. oh, and question: do either of you have trouble remembering important things like appointments or passwords or the events of yesterday or when, specifically, something was done? because I also have helpful things for those! but generally, organization and writing down, like, everything ever that you need to do and when you need to do it is helpful. which is kind of funny, because people with ADHD also struggle a lot with organization....but that's what I've found to be useful. agendas, in particular, are good.
We do have a hard time remembering to take her for walks sometimes. We should probably agree on a laundry day instead of leaving it until we have no clothes left lol. I'll discuss a day and mark it on the calender. Yeah like, if I ask him to do something while I'm out, like feed the dog, if he remembers to do it he won't remember when he did it. So since the dog tends to eat at the same time everyday it becomes important when she was fed so we don't feed her too much. I usually remember appointments by setting an alarm as soon as I set it, or by writing it down. He usually remembers appointments, but not if he gets too engrossed in something else. So far we haven't missed anything because I try to keep track of his appointments too since he doesn't drive. But any advice is good! My boyfriend has like, sporadic organization? Like I organize by where things "feel" like they should go and if that happens to be "in a pile on the desk" then that's how they tend to be. But he will suddenly need to get organized and start having me sort stuff out with him. Other times things are in disarray and he is fine with it? It might just be that he doesn't have the energy to organize stuff except sometimes.
Sounds very ADHD to me as well. Seconding the organization and checklist thing! I do something similar on Habitica. Also, if he has a smartphone, I've found it helps to set alarms (labeled, of course) for important things I often forget to do otherwise. It especially helps if they're as loud and annoying as possible, IMO, since I find those way harder to ignore or tune out. (I also use different alarm tones for each alarm, which helps a lot in terms of associating them with their tasks as well.)
the thing Acey just said about phone alarms is what I was going to suggest for keeping track of appointments--I usually set an alarm for it for two hours before I have to go, and then a half hour before I have to go, and I make them as annoying and loud as humanly possible. it's irritating, but that's kind of the point, since it gets me to look at the phone and read what it's telling me. the reason I set two is that I have a tendency to read the first one and dismiss it and go "what-fucking-ever", and then the second one will pop up and I go "....okay, FINE, I'll go." and I mean, having your space in any kind of disorganized or organized state is fine if it works for you! I mean organization more in the sense of....keeping track of appointments, what time things have happened, what time things need to be done--i.e., if I know I have to feed my dog at 6:00am and put her out sometimes between 6:15 and 6:30am, I write on the checklist exactly when those things should be happening, and then when I check them off, I write when I did them, so anyone (including me) who forgets or needs to know can just look at the list. similarly, it can really help to plot future stuff out--it can be sort of draining while you are plotting, but it saves time and effort later. setting a laundry day and adding it and walking to the checklist seems like a good idea! you might want to look up your dog's breed's activity level--I mean, if you haven't been having a lot of trouble with her being destructive over not getting enough activity, it's probably not too big an issue, but with Hannah (my doggo), for instance, we had to compromise walks because we can't walk her every day, but her breed still needs exercise pretty much every day, so what we do now is when she's supposed to go to the bathroom, we hook her up on a long lead, and let her romp around for as long as she pleases! she'll go to the bathroom while she's out there, and then she barks when she's good and ready to come back in. so you might want to look up what your dog's activity level should be, and try to figure out ways to meet it.
+1 on having a set laundry time. I was always running out of stuff and having to do emergency loads of laundry when I did it whenever; then my washing machine broke and I had to start using the apartment complex's laundry room, which requires reserving the machines in advance. Even though it seemed like it'd be a huge pain in the ass having to tote laundry back and forth, it's actually relieved a lot of stress just by being at a set time on a set day, once a week. I never unexpectedly run out of clean clothes or towels anymore, and it's wonderful.
@chaoticArbiter Oh, yeah like I said he usually keeps track of that pretty well somehow? But with other important things he cannot. Like I'm pretty sure he still doesn't remember my birthday and we've been together 3 1/2 years. As he puts it "I can remember important stuff, it just depends on what my brain decides is important." And as for the dog (her name is Ripley) she's a pit mix and she is alternately energetic and really sleepy. She spends most of the day cuddled up to me on the couch when I'm home. But sometimes she gets excited and demands we throw her ball. She mostly gets destructive when she doesn't have enough toys. (When we were moving we lost some of her toys in the move so she only had like a ball and a tug rope so she ate my animal crossing amibos.) @Mercury That is my life atm. Our apartment doesn't have a washer/dryer setup (and even if we did we don't have a washer/dryer) so we lug two laundry baskets at a time down to the room across the parking lot. We probably should have set this up like months ago when we moved here but we are master procrastinaters. Everytime one of us is like "we need to do laundry" we both sigh and start collecting stuff like it's the end of the world.
your dog sounds cute!! that said, playing with her when she wants to is actually something that really helps to satisfy a dog's exercise need, so it sounds like you're good on that, imo, although you still may want to walk her once a week if you can. although if it's winter where you are and there is snow and ice melt and such, get a towel to rub her down when you get back, especially her paws--if you don't get ice melt and the like off a dog's paws, they might lick it off themselves, and it can make them sick.
She might need a little more exercise than we can give her sometimes but usually we try to walk her at least once a day. The bf usually walks her 2-3 times if he's here all day but he generally has more energy than me so if it's just me here she might get walked once and I throw her ball because that is low energy. But we live in Texas and we only got snow like once this year and it was in another part of town so we didn't even see it. I do need to get her some booties tho cuz the sidewalk is blisteringly hot in the summer and summer is most of the year here lol. And a sideways pic of Ripley after her bath for dog lovers. She has really unusual coloring so she always gets compliments when she goes to the pet store.
Oh I forgot the bf has one other thing I don't understand. He has a hard time with context. Like say I am mopping and he was doing some other kind of cleaning and stopped to text and has cleaning supplies at his feet. If I need to mop where he is and ask him to move out of the way he will move only himself, not taking into account that the cleaning supplies are also in the way. But other people I know would move themselves and their cleaning supplies because if they are in the way, so if their stuff. Is that common for deficit disorders or some other thing?
