I do not remember my life and it's fine

>it is a disabling disorder....they resulted from challenges with the processes and procedures inherent with formal education.

So it's not even a disabling disorder. You struggle with formal education (me too!), so maybe formal education is the problem. "Formal education" as we know it today is not a solved thing. We don't actually know the best way to spread knowledge, we just happen to be doing it this way at this moment in history.

If you want to take medication to be good at that, I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE you to do so, and I'm very happy for your current successes.

It is a terrible standard by which to create a medical diagnosis and feed children medications.

well, that's a pretty dramatic take on what GP said.

there's a world of difference between literally starving and being unable to break focus on something to feed yourself and maintain a healthy weight and ensure that you're getting all the vitamins and nutrients your body needs to operate beyond a minimal level (especially as you age). i've definitely skipped multiple meals before while caught up in something and it ruins the rest of my day, my sleep, and impacts me moving forward beyond that til i can reach more of an equilibrium.

edit: i see from your other comments that you're not really willing to accept that some people have issues with their brains that make them behave differently from the idealized version of yourself that you hold in your head. so whatever. i hope you grow some empathy for others.

I have come back from week long international trips, having arrived by plane on Monday or Tuesday, and by Thursday someone will ask me what I did last weekend, and I'll draw a blank, and the social pressure of not having an answer and not wanting to pause for a whole minute to exercise my memory to reconstruct the last week will make me say something like, "nothing much, you?". It's that by the second or third day of being back in my routine, I forget what it was like outside of that routine, feel so immersed in it day-to-day, so unless I remember that I did have a disruption I won't really remember anything...

i'm not interested in engaging with your weird pet project of slandering people with mental illness, but have a good weekend

For me, something like that is saved as a "data point" in the "facts folder", and thus is readily accessible. For example, I've got a big beard, and lots of people make compliments about it in public: at least once a month for over 5 years now. I know this as fact. But if you want me to recall a recent example of it happening, then nothing just springs to mind. As I probe my mind trying to find an example, one has come to mind, but it's not recent (from Jan this year). It occurred in the context of a notable event, so like other people have said elsewhere, it must be because I associated some importance with that event (and it was a novel event, which explains that), and that this beard-compliment has tagged along with it (the whole event has come to mind at this point too).

And just now in the process of writing all this, a quite recent example has come to mind, which may be the most recent, and it was when I was on walk and just crossed a corner when a car arrived at the corner to turn, and the male passenger already had their window down, and so he yelled out something like "cool beard", and the driver was female and didn't really pause turning or anything, and I didn't acknowledge the bloke at all (because fuck off, dont yell out at me from a car window). I'm not confident, but I think the car was a small-ish SUV. Anyway, apart from where it happened, I can't think of anything else. I don't know what clothes I was wearing, what they looked like (besides being ~30yo and white), what color their car was, what his voice sounded like, which direction they turned (it was a roundabout), etc.

* By probe my mind: in my case I am constantly "talking" in my head. It's as if someone is sitting over your shoulder going "uhh, you go to the shops often, maybe check that folder. nothing? uhh, what about ..." Eventually something will just pop-up. (I don't really say folder in my head, more like "maybe at the shops, maybe on the outside, maybe walking inside, whilst at the checkout? nothing? uhh..."

* By spring to mind: It's kind of like an email arrives in my inbox with all the details in it. All I can do is probe my mind a bit, then "check the inbox", then probe, etc. Whilst listening during conversation, events relevant to the conversation can just appear in the inbox. I don't know if the talkers words can trigger it, or if it's because my inner-voice is reviewing/breaking-down* what they are saying as they are saying it, and that's the trigger. This is also what happens when I am reading. Things can just appear whilst I am talking too, because my inner-voice is usually planning ahead in the conversation (and it also monitors tempo, audience response, etc), but I think it might be the same part of the brain that does speech, so it can only work at like half speed. Sometimes I will forget the word I was going to say or muddle a moment of speech, which is probably the inner-voice using too many resources. And of course, I can just "get distracted" and fork the convo at any moment (the classic "speaking of which"). My inner voice also plans ahead whilst I am writing, and it makes similar mistakes. Sometimes I will miss a word, or even just skip ahead a whole sentence (to the point where it was planning). It's particularly easy to "lose a sentence" if the word I'm typing is similar in letters to the one that's just been planned.

* Because my inner-voice is talking whilst they are talking, it can notice something interesting said in the conversation, or it could trigger an idea (I haven't pondered this before, but perhaps a 'new idea' notification just arrives in the inbox too...), and at the point my focus can drift as my mind explores that idea/topic (I think this is the ADHD "Predominately Inattentive" aspect at play).

* PS- Because I ponder so much, I have pondered something pretty "meta" before, like in the way that the universe could be a simulation. So yes, I have wondered if the voice in my head is me (it sounds like me), or if it's an entity that has "taken control of the wheel". On the rare occasion that it's not talking, I get the sense that it's still there, waiting. After a few moments there might be a "hmmm...".

Also my inner voice can do very accurate impressions, and sing just like the real singers it copies. There is a strange distinction between "singing lyrics" and "hearing a song with lyrics" in my head. It can even make sounds with my voice that are quite impressive, and I get the impression that it is possible for me to make those sounds. It tries for a moment to convince me to do it, before it chuckles and says "there's no way".

* PPS- As I was typing that last part, a memory popped up! I was at the strip club one time talking to a girl, and out the blue she goes "you've got a good voice, i reckon you would be a good singer", which made me think "fkn what". lol

* Update: I was just in the kitchen making a coffee, and thinking about how good this post was. A few things popped up; 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mj2fVcyVkU 2) https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/hurlburt-heavey-kelsey-201... — "The median inner speech frequency of the participants in the Heavey and Hurlburt (2008) and Mihelic (2010) studies was 20 percent." 3) On the last project I was on, I think the engineer I was working with ended up with PTSD from all my ideas, lol. But still, they all liked it when the reviews from construction came back as "this is the best ever!"

As I was gathering those links — 4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5bJvo_THvg When people without inner voices watch a scene like that, I wonder what they think is happening. The TV show Peep Show is another example. Do they think the person is "first person" is actually saying those things? It would make no sense!