Why is my memory terrible?

Stress and anxiety can cause memory “loss” and difficulty concentrating. Are you really having difficulty paying attention, or just remembering?

Well sometimes, I will admit, I daydream. Therefore sometimes its because I’m not paying attention, but other times, I honestly really cannot remember things.

Couldn’t hurt to discuss it with your doctor. They would probably want to rule out ADHD and may be able to provide you with some answers.
Do you suffer from anxiety? Are you under a lot of stress? There really are a lot of things that factor in as possible causes. I think that if it is causing a big problem for you, that it would be best to talk to your doctor.

What kind of memory are we talking about? You can’t remember things someone just told you? Stuff you’ve studied? Things that have happened to you? What kinds of things you’re having trouble remembering could be important. If you’re having long-term memory problems, that could be a sign of something serious, but short-term memory stuff can be thrown off by things as normal as hormone fluctuations (talk to pregnant women about how they lose their brains).

Are you getting enough sleep? That can affect things, too.

Sometimes I can’t remember what someone just told me, I can’t remember what I was going to say next, or do next.
Sleep could be a factor, since it is Winter break for me, and I have been going to bed very late, but my memory was like this before break and I went to sleep around 9:30–10:00

Have you ever had your thyroid tested? Hypo-thyroid can cause memory problems. It’s why I’m such a spazz. :P

make nemonics, write important things down, concentrate on whats important.

Do you text when people are talking to you. My sisters kid does and he is your age. That is why we hate him and he forgets everything.

Try to think of one thing at a time. Maybe you are thinking of something else every time someone is speaking to you and therefore you do not concentrate and loose information. This may sound like a simple thing but many people do not do this.

I would second talkng to your doctor and trying to find out what is going on. You should be able to get help with this.

You could have an auditory processing disability. My daughter has that; she cannot do well with remembering what she hears. Giving her multi-step directions verbally is a recipe for disaster. If I were to tell her “take the clothes out of the dryer, sort out the socks and match them, the fold the t-shirts, and put everyone’s clothes on their beds,” it would result in her bringing me the laundry basket of clothes and saying, “what was I supposed to do?”

It resulted in her being diagnosed as both ADHD and with an auditory processing problem. She was given a 504 Plan, which covers her under the Americans with Disabilities act. Accommodations include seating in the front of the class, being provided with a written outline of any lecture or notes, being able to record class lectures, and extra time to take tests, if she feels she needs it. She used this in high school and in college, and has enough adaptive behavior that it becomes less of an issue. It takes her longer to do everything, because she always checks her work, she works off of lists, and asks lots of questions.

Once she was able to get past “This is somehow my fault” to “I can’t help this, and must learn to manage it,” things improved dramatically. She’s had a really decent GPA, has a job, and is doing well.

@ BarnacleBill: Well I am also deaf and I wear hearing aids, so that could be a factor as well.

@NostalgicChills Have you had them checked recently to see if they are working as well as they should?

@BarnacleBill My son had a similar problem without the ADD componnet and also learned to cope well. I wish I had know more about it when he was growing up; it wasn’t that common a diagnosis then.

@NostalgicChills, I would assume that the information being thrown at you is more complex, and needs to be supplemented with written reinforcement, and, as @janbb suggested, perhaps your hearing aids need to be checked to make sure they are optimal for your hearing level.

It might be helpful for a few weeks to keep track of incidents where you seem to be forgetful. What you forgot, how it was communicated, time of day, location, who it was communicated by, to see if there’s some sort of pattern. Then figure out what the fix should be from that. If it’s school assignments, are you writing them down in a planner or on a calendar? Do you look at the planner? If it’s chores, do your parents verbally give you directions or do they leave you a list?

Hormones also play a part in forgetfulness, so it could just be your age. Cultivating good work habits in your teen years will serve you well the rest of your life, and it sounds like whatever the reason, you’ve hit a point where you are going to need to development a structured self-management system for yourself, because doing things off-the-cuff is not going to work for you. You are not alone; there are companies that make billions of dollars a year in helping people stay on top of their lives and everything they need to do.

I used to have this exact same problem. In my case it was due to everyday being the exact same. If you have a strict routine you follow on a daily basis without much variety in everyday tasking… your mind becomes mush. I used to manage a CD (remember those?) store where it was always the same music playing, same customers, same boss bitching. Eventually I couldn’t remember things as simple as what I just ate, or was wearing the day before. Try breaking up your routine a bit… example, go for a 15–30 minute walk everyday and choose a different path each time. Try waking up to music instead of an alarm clock (invest in something that let’s you wake up to random songs), and try to create more variety in life. Make a conscious effort to try something new each day so your brain can have something to associate as a separate event from the day/days before. At 15 this might be a little more difficult since you’re probably still in school and have parents to deal with on decision making… but even if you can try maybe switching up your class schedule a bit or walking through the school hallways a different way each day… anything you can do to make your brain alternate think a bit so it’s not just blending every event into the same block of memory. It’s not a disease, it’s boring people/places/things… and it’s up to you to get un-bored.