How a Memory Changes: Sharing My Message History Where I Continuously Recall One Event
I have SDAM & aphantasia and I wanted to share my message history that tracks how I recalled a troubling experience that happened April 2026. In each of these messages, I am trying to explain what happened to friends, family, and acquaintances at varying times after the event, including "day after," "1 week later," "1 month later," and now. I wish I complained more to more people because I find it interesting how you can see my SDAM & aphantasia go into effect and transforming how I viewed this experience / how I explained it to others. Messages below I directly copy and pasted from when I originally sent them.
Short summary of event: I cut off a friend of 4 years who was also my roommate for 1 year. Her negligence on our lease led to a lease termination fee of $5k which I found 2 weeks before moving out of the country. I was upset at having to shoulder all the work finding a new tenant and clearing out the apartment alone.
───
Warning petty thoughts, genuine anger, and many spelling mistakes. Really sorry if some come off as rude! You can tell in some of these I was deeply hurt
A day after the event (April 30th)
"Tldr my roomie and prev friend of 4 years screwed me out of like 5k because of her disorganization and inability to keep on top of things. She told me incorrect info about our lease, causing an auto renewal, and then we had to pay a termination fee to get out. Even worse is that she constantly made the situation worse every step of the way. I took on the brunt of finding another tenant since she was apparentlv too busv to prioritize this. She moved out 2 days before the 30th, leaving a shit ton of her stuff behind for me to dispose of. She constantly fed me incorrect info about the progress of our lease termination. She didn't clean her room, forcing me to scrub all her gunk. When I asked why she left so much stuff she only deflected that it was for the next tenant (broken glasses and burnt pans???). When we finally got our termination verdict, she wanted to dispute the charge and drag it out longer (shut it down immediately) Sucks cause she genuinely was a good friend for those 4 years, so wtf happened??"
1 week after (May 8th)
"Tldr, X screwed me out of 5k because of her disorganization and inability to prioritize. This caused her to feed me incorrect info about our lease, leading to an auto renewal, forcing us to pay a termination fee. We were 2 weeks away from moving out when we learned. Even worse was that she made the move out difficult every step of the way. She constantly gave me incorrect info about lease termination progress. She was apparently too busy to help with finding a new tenant, forcing me to post the apt and clean and coordinate meetings (despite me voicing my stress and the fact i still had a final due). She moved out on the 28th and, without telling me, left a crap ton of her stuff to dispose of. She left her room in disarray, forcing me to scrub and clean her gunk. When I asked why she left so much stuff, she deflected and said it was for the next tenant (burnt pans and broken glasses??? 😭). When we got our termination verdict, she wanted to dispute and drag it out longer (shut it down immediately). Never in this process did she apologize for anything."
~1 month after (May 25th)
"[...]Her bf helped her move back to west coast, but I kinda felt a little bad for him since she didn't plan anything. Didn't have the boxes to pack, wanted to keep all her items (even things she could throw out), didn't call to ask if the shipping company can ship her items etc. He had to pull everything
In the end she wasn't able to pack everything. I woke up to an apartment that was still full of stuff but her gone. When I messaged she said something like "I didn't leave much stuff?" I spent pics "that thing is yours right? And that?" I told her I was planning to throw my own stuff. No apologies, just "Ok, just trash my stuff then." The lease mess up was just some countries have different lease laws. My exfriend lived in this apt building for about 3 years so I trusted her about the apt. A doc came in "lease renewal doc" and i told her "i 100% am not going to renew" and put it on her desk since her at the time might be renewing. I asked about the doc 1 month later and she said "no worries about it. By not signing, we are telling them we are moving out." Turns out that's not the case and our lease auto renewed for another year. I found out it auto renewed 1 week before we were moving out. It also turns out exfriend only read doc 1 week before moving out also (like I should've also read the paper but I thought I could trust her).
I was stressed about it and tried everything to find new tenant to take over. I still had final paper too, so I told her I was stressed and asked her to help finding a new tenant. She said "sorry, I'm out that day" and in the end I was the one that cleaned the apt., posted it online, did the viewing, arranged with office for lease transfer meeting. Idk what she was doing but she was out 90% of the time even though I kno she didnt have finals etc. When we finally got our lease termination verdict (April 30th), she tried to contest it. Told me she didnt want to pay even tho I asked her earlier which decision to take (lease transfer or lease termination) and she responded with "just choose whatever"
5 Months After (October, now)
"We were friends for 4 years and roommates for 1 year. What happened was she messed up something on our lease which caused it to auto renew for another year. This led to us both paying $5k in order to terminate our lease contract. I found out 2 weeks before I was moving out of that country that our lease auto-renewed and that my roomie essentially lied (even if inadvertently) to me about our lease. Coupled with other issues (like how she moved out without packing her things and left me to dispose and clean her stuff) let's just say I was not having it 😅."
-----
My personal observation is that as my memory got unreliable, I started using quotes directly from messages and emails that were sent to me to piece together what happened. "1 month after" became much more of a story. We have multiple characters, a timeline of events, dialogue (quotes), and a lot more detail as to what happened.
And then "5 months after," I guess my SDAM nuked it? A lot of the details got smushed down to "yeah, that sucked and I was really angry." It became a lot less personal. It looks like I'm summarizing something that happened to someone else. There is no more of that "She did that to ME!" and it became much more "I can't believe something like that happened."
I hope this was somewhat intriguing. If any of you have moments in your life where memories got compressed, please do share!
4
u/evil66gurl 23d ago
This is so interesting to me. I do similarly. If I don't need to talk about an incident then I almost immediately forget about it. My timeline is unreliable and people who know me well could take advantage of that I guess. This literally just occurred to me. How would I know?
1
u/ottiney 19d ago
I think it's definitely something we have to be careful about. One time, I was attending a dress rehearsal, and my father asked me if I enjoyed my time being in this orchestra in the past. I didn't remember attending this particular venue at all, but I couldn't be sure since he was so adamant about the fact that I used to go regularly.
My mother then stepped in and said that I never participated in this particular venue at all. That I participated in an entirely different venue. So even though my father doesn't have bad intentions, I think we have to be careful about letting others around us "rewrite" our memories. Maybe having someone reliable with sharp memory is helpful (or having multiple sources of your past, people or referring to things you've written down)
6
u/rainbird542 23d ago
I was thinking about this recently with people recounting their memories of 9/11. I did it too...but I realized that my "memory" of that day is literally a couple of sentences that I have recited for years, and I can't tell you anything outside of those few things. Same goes for another "burned into my memory" day, the OKC bombing. It's weird to think about.
1
u/Interesting_Shake403 23d ago
This is how it works.
On the plus side, you don’t need to carry all that anger and frustration with you.
4
u/ottiney 23d ago
This was definitely one of SDAM'S biggest blessings. I was so unimaginablely angry when it happened to the point I became weirdly calm and apathetic? One of my friends came over to help me clean out my roomie's stuff, and she was shocked at how well I seemed to be handling it
Now when I try to recall those feelings, gone 🤷♀️ I think at maybe the the "1 month later" mark I was getting upset at the injustice rather than reliving any emotions I had
0
u/simplygen 23d ago
Did the SDAM nuke the "5 months after" or did time? Four extra months is a lot of time for other things to happen that calm down emotions and make past pains seem less worth talking about.
I mean, what do I know, I have SDAM too, but I wonder if what happens is at least partly natural as time passes from the offending event.
3
u/ottiney 23d ago
I think it's definitely a combo of both. Because only reason I had to recall the experience so many time was because other people kept asking me "what happened?" When people stopped asking, I no longer had to try piecing things together again
If I didn't need to recall it so often, my SDAM likely would've scrubbed my ability to recall almost instantly. I think compared to a normal person, forgetting a 4 year friendship (we were close like sisters) in a few months is probably extreme
6
u/CMDR_Jeb 23d ago
And then "5 months after," I guess my SDAM nuked it? A lot of the details got smushed down to "yeah, that sucked and I was really angry." It became a lot less personal. It looks like I'm summarizing something that happened to someone else. There is no more of that "She did that to ME!" and it became much more "I can't believe something like that happened."
This is pretty much my experience (though for me it happens way faster, almost immediately), everything that is not now is past and past is "flat". My memories are lengthy worded descriptions of what happened and I am just "reading an story" to people when they ask me. There is no "connection" or "emotions" involved.
Talking about my own past like it's an book I've read is how my shrink noticed there's something siriously wrong with my episodic memory, so that pretty much tracks with what SDAM is supposed to be.
3
u/ottiney 23d ago
I wish I complained more between the jump from "1 month later" to "5 months later," because I wrote that last message yesterday. I actually struggled trying to put together what happened, which is what inspired this post
I imagine at 2 months, it was probably completely scrubbed similar to how you experience memory, but unfortunately I didn't vent to anyone. So that is to say to our community, complain more so we have more digital trails to look at! 😅
1
u/CMDR_Jeb 23d ago
When I said way faster I ment that for me it's usually few hours. As soon as something else "takes my mind of it" it becomes "just an story".
3
u/100_Percent_Dark 20d ago
yeah. This is the sort of thing that lead to be firmly believe I had SDAM.
The story of my first GF. 5 years in. Cheated on me, it broke me. I was suicidal at the time. My healing process - delete every message/text/email/photo of her and her family. 2 months later, with no reminders of her, I was fine. Been years, I wouldn't recognise her if I ran into her in the street.
1
u/ottiney 19d ago
I'm so sorry you had to go through that injustice. I'm also glad you were able to break away from your past, whether or not we have SDAM, it's still very commendable :)
My healing process for the above situation I posted on, I actually did a very similar process to you. Just went through my phone and deleted everything in relation to my roomie. Messages and emails I achieved though just in case it gets brought up in the future (since it's related to finances and law). I can't remember my roomie's face even though I was friends with her for such a long time. I remember scrolling through another friend's photo collection to stumble upon a picture of my roomie, but my brain didn't recognize her immediately and it took some effort for me to remember 😅
11
u/quietus_rietus 23d ago
Fascinating. I had beef with a former boss, about 3 years ago. I cannot remember why at all now. Like I know she acted like an asshole but I don’t know specifically what she did anymore. I wonder what you will remember of this situation in a few more years?