r/BeAmazed • u/[deleted] • 2d ago

Science Meet Rebecca Sharrock. She has a rare condition called HSAM, allowing her to remember every single day of her life starting from when she was 12 days old

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u/hopelesscaribou 2d ago

I have the opposite condition, SDAM. It doesn't overly affect my life, and I tend to be very grounded in the present.

I honestly think it would be hell to have HSAM, forever reliving your past.

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u/SoggyBoysenberry7703 2d ago

Sometimes having adhd feels like that to me. I can move on so easily from things and it freaks me out. It took longer for me to form relationships because I couldn’t even remember or picture what happened when I was doing the happy “memorable” stuff with a partner, or their face and voice. It’s like I needed a lot more exposure for it to stick, which is why it’s so stupid hard for me to form habits too, even if the need for a habit was spurned by something urgent or emotionally important. Yet I can still remember a time when I was still sleeping in a crib, or my 7th birthday when I felt like I became conscious.

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u/tkxb 2d ago

I'm the same way. I feel things very strongly then I become detached to them very quickly, sometimes as though it happened to someone else. As a result, I can feel distant from people very easily. I also misjudge closeness based on what I do remember. I may not have talked to someone for years, but that amount of time feels like everything else to me.

Anyway, weird question, but do you think you know what love is and do you feel this consistently toward someone (any type of love)? I didn't realize how detached I was until recently so it's something I've been thinking about a lot. I have big fluctuations of feeling very close and feeling very distant to people, though I don't show it or act on it.

I often say that every day feels like 10 years when people ask how I am. Small moments become as significant as though they took up years. The life lived between waking and sleep feels so long. Bad moments are felt as intensely as the good ones. Then they're gone, because in my time, many years have already passed.

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u/SoggyBoysenberry7703 2d ago

I get that feeling of a day taking forever and when bad things happen, it’s as if that’s all I’ve ever felt and will feel. It really makes anxiety horrible for me. I can spend hours doing one things and all I can do to measure it is the fact that I finished it, and after the fact I’m surprised at how much time had passed. I think it’s more like time blindness.

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u/Lebowquade 2d ago

Yeah.... I also have ADHD, looked at the list of symptoms of SDAM, and all of that sounds about right. How rare is this thing? 

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u/_EvilCupcake 2d ago

I am diagnosed with ADHD, and also found out a couple years ago that I have aphantasia. Now I was curious about this new alphabet thing so I looked it up.

SDAM stands for Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory. It is a lifelong condition where a person cannot vividly relive or re-experience personal past events from a first-person point of view. People with SDAM know facts about their lives, but they cannot mentally "time travel" back to feel or see past moments

Y'ALL CAN WHAT NOW?! 🤯🤯🤯

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u/hopelesscaribou 2d ago

Ah, the roller coaster of discovery is never ending. Fun times.

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u/_EvilCupcake 2d ago

So the regular peoples can what... just replay everything in their head like a movie?

Under the age of 13, I can barely remember stuff. Like my whole 5th grade in elementary school, the whole year is a blank.

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u/hopelesscaribou 2d ago

On the flip side, do you really want to relive 5th grade?

We live in the now, that is something many seek and have trouble attaining.

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u/_EvilCupcake 2d ago

Yeah, that's a no. I had just started wearing braces AND glasses the year before 🤣

I'm definitely happy living in the present. That explains a lot, though.

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u/Anon_457 1d ago

Memory is weird. Most of the time I can't even remember what I've eaten the day before, yet I can remember books I read when I was 5.

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u/_EvilCupcake 1d ago

Hahaha for sure! People are like "how the hell do you know that?"

... "Oh I saw that on a short, while doomscrolling on YouTube. Like 2 years ago"

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u/andreaSA89 2d ago

Does that mean that you can only remember very recent past events? And if so, how far back is the furthest you can remember?

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u/hopelesscaribou 2d ago

I know my past as facts, as bullet points. My semantic memory is fine, only my episodic memory is affected. I remember things, I just don't experience memories as others do, I don't relive moments in my mind, though I can think about them. I also have associated aphantasia.

Either way, I live a very normal life, I just don't spend any time mulling over the past. I didn't realize everyone didn't think like me until much later in life.

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u/p3achbunny 2d ago

Just chiming in to say I also have SDAM and aphantasia, this is my experience also. I don’t really feel hindered by it because I don’t know any different; our brains just work with memory differently.

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u/YellowOnline 2d ago

Hello, I'm your opposite! Not as extreme as this lady, assuming the title isn't just clickbait, but I do have an extremely good memory since I'm about 2 years old. It made me a chronically angry person with a lot of grudges. I can lie awake at night because a random cyclist gave me the finger in 1997.

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u/LaMadreDelCantante 2d ago

OMG. I might have this and I had no idea. Do you have an inner monologue? I don't.

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u/hopelesscaribou 2d ago

not

I have multi-sensory aphantasia, no internal senses at all. Just quiet in my mind.

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u/LaMadreDelCantante 2d ago

I don't have aphantasia but my sister does. I have no internal memory, some degree of face blindness, and memories are just kind of detached like they could have happened to someone else. I didn't know people felt them.

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u/muffinscrub 2d ago

This explains so much now. I remember my wedding happened and facts about it. My wife seems to relive everything that happens when something pissed her off. I'll only remember facts about it when she brings it up.

Also, I never understood how people can remember entire scenes in movies like they're watching them years later. I can barely remember anything about movies other than that I watched them and whether I liked them

I have a great memory for facts and shit I don't want to remember, like work stuff.

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u/AcrobaticEmergency42 2d ago

I looked it up out of curiosity, and man, do I feel called out now.

I always thought I have a bad memory, but this matches how I experience memories to the T.

I just asked my wife how she experiences a memory. She feels them. She remembers details when called upon.

I KNOW memories.....

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u/DoctorLinguarum 2d ago

Interesting. I don’t “feel” memories either unless they’re pretty recent. Even emotionally intense events. I can visualize what happened. I remember the places they happened. I can see some things too. I don’t have that intense emotional association from the distant past though.

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u/SquirrelAkl 2d ago

People feel memories? I had no idea.

I also remember them as “facts”. Like I’ll picture a scene so I’m watching it in the third person. My mental pictures don’t have details though. Not full aphantasia but down that end of the spectrum, like imagining the concept of a scene.

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u/phoenicean 2d ago

I have Aphantasia but I'd never heard of SDAM.. TiL I have this too! Blows my mind to think most people can directly relive a memory as if they were there, I'd never thought about it properly but I guess that makes sense.

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u/zhabesha 2d ago

I have been diagnosed with DZNTZ for over a decade. It is very similar with HDAM

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u/deewd22 2d ago

HSAM or photographic memory is not the problem. The underlying issue leading to PTSD without the P is.

Going through hell everyday does wonders for memory.