Dyspraxic Adults

Yeah I get this quite often, in my case I think its nerves it also tends to be worse if I haven't slept well.
But it can be so embarrassing and annoying at times .

I once, and I'm being quite serious, forgot my own name!!! Now, that was embarrassing. As Captain Ludd says it is worse when I am tired...but it happens. I just try to make light of it or answer something in a different way!

I was on the interviewing panel for a new teacher a few weeks ago. I got asked the name of the TA who had been in the lesson every week, all year. Could I remember it??

I wouldn't say that I have mental blackouts as such, but I do have a very poor short term memory, I can check the time on my watch and literally have to check again five seconds later because I've simply not taken it in.

I find it very difficult retaining information if anyone is speaking to me at any length of time as well.

My long term memory is better, although extremely selective. I'm especially appallingly bad with birthdays, although I'm slowly getting better.

Thinking about it I tend to find I have a lot of the "blackouts" when I'm trying to deal with someone is talking at me not to me.
Its almost as if in an attempt to retain whats being blasted at me my brain has to temporarily forget stuff its known for years.

i get them, its horrible. i once forgot when my birthday was and had the entire class laughing at me. yesterday my sister was something about jhon watson from sherlcok holmes (a show i absolutle love and adore) and i couldnt remember who he was. he is one of the mian characters. i also find that when i am watching a drama. i only fully manage to remeber peoples names when iv watched like 5 episodes. there was this one drama i watched. i had watched the entire season yet i couldnt remember what it was called

binaryfinery wrote:Sometimes someone will ask me a question with what should be an obvious answer: What's your next-door neighbour's name? What did you do last night? Have you been to X recently?

Unfortunately, I often get a "blackout" and my mind goes totally blank. I know this can happen to some extent with everyone, but with me it's extreme and almost comical sometimes. It's particularly bad when I'm asked a question in front of others, especially people I know (it's one of the reasons I'm often more comfortable around strangers than people I know. If I know people really well, I'm OK. If I only know them a little, that's when I get nervous.

That's SO me. Argh. I have tons of mind blackouts. I can scarcely be asked any question without my mind going blank for a few seconds or more! So this makes interviews all the more worrying (oh great, got one on Friday and only knew today...). I'm so, so glad I'm not the only one.

The thing with interviews is that...

Don't be afraid to go back and ask what the question was again if you've forgotten it half way through answering it.

You may think it's weak or exposes problems in you but...

What it actually does is display your attitude towards going back and clarifying information.

Clarifying and confirming information is important in any job, and if you can show that in a interview by asking questions when you're not entirely sure of something, it'll show that you're diligent to the method of your job.

So ultimately, you're taking a perceived weakness and turning it into a positive strength.

In the feedback of my last interview they highlighted my willingness to ask for the question again as something they were most impressed with, because it shows one of the qualities needed in the job role.

I've forgot my name once too, was at hospital visiting and someone asked me and I went blank for about 5-10 secs...

I get this a lot. Most of the time it's over quickly but I do sometimes have particularly bad episodes.

My worst one was a few years back when I was shopping with a friend a girl called my name and I turned round and saw someone that I knew I knew but couldn't place her or remember her name. The thing is though, I knew I really, really knew her and I was embarrassed at my own stupidity so I didn't ask her who she was in case she thought I was mental.

I had a very strange conversation with her and introduced my friend to her without introducing this stranger back to my friend simply because I could not do it. The strangest thing about the situation is how I still remember it to this day and how weird it was yet I couldn't remember who she was!

We finally made our farewells after about 5 minutes of awkwardness and went our separate ways. It took another 5 minutes for it to come back to me and my friend just laughed and laughed when I told her the girl was my cousin and I had only seen her the previous week!

to this day I have never mentioned that incident to my cousin. I've always been embarrassed.

Jim wrote:The thing with interviews is that...

Don't be afraid to go back and ask what the question was again if you've forgotten it half way through answering it.
You may think it's weak or exposes problems in you but...
What it actually does is display your attitude towards going back and clarifying information.

Clarifying and confirming information is important in any job, and if you can show that in a interview by asking questions when you're not entirely sure of something, it'll show that you're diligent to the method of your job.

So ultimately, you're taking a perceived weakness and turning it into a positive strength.

I certainly had to ask them to repeat parts of questions! I started answering some and then realised I wasn't even sure what I was answering about anymore. Heh heh. Somehow I have managed to get the role - woo! - however I was meant to get some info. sent through the post last week and have not yet, so boo to that!


Talking of Boo... gosh, Boo! that is pretty awful to forget a cousin who you'd only seen the previous week! Try not to keep thinkign about it, though - it's done now and will seem quite trivial before long.

I dunno though... I'm quite pleased to forget my cousins

Glad to know it's not just me! The worst times I found were during assessments and one of my lectures would ask a very obvious question and my mind just went blank. The best way to handle it is by writing things down I've taught myself to keep a journal where I just write stuff down. It helps me keep things in my memory.

I tend to get this a lot - generally at work: I think of something I need to ask a colleague walk over to their desk (10 seconds walk) and by the time I get there I've completely forgotten what I was going to ask. The good news is that I know non-dyspraxic people occasionally do this (clearly not to the same extent, but still reassuring). I use one of two methods:

- Start a conversion to give me some thinking time, so I either remember of or can say "oh now we've started talking about that, I've forgotten why I came over in the first place" - which is a bit more excusable than forgetting straight away.

- Fess up to forgetting and make a joke of it - something to the effect of "god job I'm not a goldfish, don't think my memory is up to it"

i didn't know this was part of dyspraxia, but it happens constantly to me. i am a teacher- i have taught this class since the begining of the school year and i can never remember their names, even though i know each child personally.
i never can retreive any small bits of info from my head even though i know them, so my friends just know i'm 'forgetful'.