I've never had great memory. And as I age (41) it feels like it's getting worse, which is kind of expected. For example, I've just watch a World Cup football match. 20 minutes later, talking to someone about it, I could only remember the winning country (South Korea), and wasn't sure who the opponent was (Portugal or Uruguai). Uruguai was playing another match at the same time, so I forgot who played against who a little after both matches ended.
I do generally have an OK working memory, have a decent paying job, but frequent lapses like that one worry me.
Does anyone else have a similar struggle and is there anything you think I could do about it?
I also barely have what they call an "autobiographical memory"—I remember that things happened, but any kind of timeline and about 90% of the specific images or details a normal person recalls, I don't, as in, I can know "we went to the beach last Summer, it was at city X, we went to such-and-such attractions" but barely any of what normal people would call memories. What month was it? No clue. Specific memories of what happened? Not really, a few disconnected images and all I can do is fill in the rest with guesswork that often ends up being a smear of all the times I did anything similar.
But that part's always been the case. You'd think it'd make it hard to live life but I made it to almost 30 before I learned that wasn't normal, and learned somewhat later that it's an actual disorder of some kind that's just barely starting to be understood.
It does make "tell me about a time that..." questions in interviews absolute hell. I either have to take extensive notes all the time and then study them before interviews, or basically make something up. I cannot come up with that kind of thing on the spot, from my actual memory. And "write about what you did this Summer" was always the very hardest assignment all year, through grade school. Hated those. And now I know why! Hahaha.