Inattention to people - can't remember who I talked to...mixing people up - is it an ADHD thing or something else? Can anyone relate?

[Chickadee1]

Here are a few examples of my problem (for back ground I work in a hospital and interact both with my PT, OT, and speech therapy colleagues but also nurses and others)

From yesterday:

I did it again - I had trouble recognizing someone I should know - I have trouble distinguishing one person from another...

I saw A... - one of my PT coworkers - she is somewhat new but has been here for awhile now - maybe 6 months? Plenty of time I should clearly know who she is. I don't see her a ton as I come late and she leaves early and I eat lunch at odd times - but still..

We also have new PRN PT, S...

Yesterday I saw someone come out of a patient room - she had PT stuff with her (walker and belt) - and I was thinking - is that S...? I thought S... only works on Thursdays and this is Friday... Thankfully I did not call her by name but I said - "I didn't know you worked on Fridays" - to which she replied I work every day but Monday... oh - can't be S... - she doesn't work that many days - S... only works on Thursdays plus 1 weekend/month - so I realized it was A... but I hadn't recognized who she was...

This is not an isolated one-time incident - I do this fairly often...

Other experiences:

I have also had other coworkers from my department that I get mixed up on ... even 2 people that do NOT look the same - one has short hair and the other long - I know what they look like - and have worked with them a long time - but to this day sometimes I will see and talk to one of them in person and later I can't remember which one of them I talked to... I forget...it is silly...

I have the same trouble with nurses - Some of them I have worked with off and on for a long time - it is dumb... I will be afraid to call them by name for fear I will call them the wrong name - and it is a nurse I "should" know... Or I'll recognize them and be trying to remember which nurse it is... I'll try to peak at their name tag (but sometimes it is flipped over so their name isn't visible) - or I'll try to go up behind them and try to read their name on the computer screen if they are logged into the charting program- it has their name in the corner... and I try to do it without them knowing I am secretly trying to figure out who they are...

Or I will ask a nurse about seeing a patient - physically see the nurse - then go see the patient come back out - want to tell the nurse something and can't remember who the nurse was - I write their name on my paper - but I can't remember what they looked like well enough to distinguish which person at the desk is them - or if maybe they are not at the desk... but I hate to ask the wrong person in case it is them and have them realize I don't remember them when I JUST talked to them... Before seeing a patient I'll need to call a nurse to ask if I can see their patient but if I don't remember for sure what they looked like I'm afraid I will call only to find out they are a few feat away from me...

It is weird - I don't pay enough attention to people to be able to distinguish them from each other... and I forget too fast..

Sometimes I recognize people but don't remember their name or have more than one name in mind and can't sort out which one it is I am seeing - they look similar to each other to me - maybe if I could see them side by side I could sort it out better...

Once I needed to talk to a nurse and made the mistake of asking the nurse I saw which one was A... - and she said "I'm A... - you should know me - you come here all the time..." I said "I'm sorry A... I'm bad with names" and she said OK... (I think I had been away from that unit for awhile...but still she remembered me and thought I should remember her...

I have had people come up to me and "know me" and I can't remember who they are and have to just play along while trying to remember them...

Another incident that stands out - there was a very friendly dietitian that used to work at my hospital - she would greet everyone she saw by name - I appreciated it about her - but I had a terrible time remembering her name and she called me by name all the time... I remembered her but not her name...

I also have this problem with some people at church that I have seen there for a long time - one asked me to do something - I agreed then she left and I couldn't remember who it was that asked me couldn't remember for sure what she looked like so as to distinguish her from others - so if I had a question I didn't know which one to ask...and would be afraid to ask the wrong person...

Is this an ADHD inattention thing - or is it more Autism like or a combination of both? My counselor says she is sure I have ADHD - she says I also have some autistic like traits but not enough to be comfortable saying I have it...

I have difficulty paying attention to what people look like - trouble remembering them - it goes "in one eye and out the other" (if I can create a new expression similar to "in one ear and out the other" which is the more common expression...) my brain latches onto silly details and I can hyper focus or be hyper vigilant about little details that other people don't notice or care about while I forget big obvious stuff like who I just talked to...I don't remember what they looked like well enough to distinguish them from someone else that maybe looks a little similar (or maybe not so similar)... it doesn't happen with every person I talk to - and it is more common with people I interact with at work but don't know very well - but I think it happens beyond the point which could be expected of the average person...

[STEM_Dad]

I don't know if this is an Inattentive trait, but my ADHD diagnosis is the Inattentive presentation, and I also struggle with this.

All my life, I have been bad at names. At some point in my adulthood, I realized that I usually have to learn someone's name 3 or 4 times for it to stick.

Some people are naturally gifted with learning others' names quickly and easily. (I'll admit that I envy them.)

Sometime in the last ten years, I had a realization about myself. My memory of people is context-based (associated with a location or with a particular event). I recognize the faces of people I interact with, but if I meet someone at the grocery store or farmers market, but I know them from work, I can't remember their name 9 out of 10 times. (At work, I might remember their name half the time.)

I used to work in computer support at a university, which had many buildings. If I was used to seeing someone in one particular building, but crossed paths with them at another, my brain might literally tell me that "they are in the wrong place".

Now, I work in computer support at a hospital. Much fewer buildings, but still a lot of departments, which are different "locations" in my mind. They are both older than me, and similar height to each other, but have different names, work for different departments, but they sound exactly the same to me on the phone.

I got a call from one who needed computer help, and I showed up in the office of the other one. I only realized my mistake when I asked for the person who called me, and realized the name of the woman I was standing in front of was different.

How did I handle this situation? I simply admitted my mistake, and went to the office of the lady who called for help. When I got there, I apologized for my delay, and admitted that I went to the wrong office.

The fact that some of the nursing staff work in two or three different clinical departments also causes me to get mixed up.

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I think that my ADHD has kept me humble, and I have found that most people respond well to humility. Most people accept me as I am, with only a few who seem to be put off by my traits and tendencies.

(I think that many people just accept computer geeks to have quirks, anyway. My experience is that over half of technology workers have ADHD, Asperger's or other mild autism, OCD, dyslexia, or other neurodiversities. I recently heard a statistic that 40% of the population is neurodivergent. In information technology, it seems to be over 60%.)

[Chickadee1 in reply to STEM_Dad]

Thanks STEM Dad for sharing your experience... the remembering people by context/location is interesting... It is harder to recognize people from work if you see them outside work unexpectedly... One thing at least in the hospital is you get used to seeing everyone in their scrub uniforms - and that's about all you see them in so they look really different in street clothes...

But it also makes sense that it could be the way the brain has associated them - like it has memory slots for work, or for location and when you are there your brain can retrieve the stuff you associate with that place/context but when you are elsewhere your brain is working out of a different file drawer so it is harder/more complicated to switch gears and remember which file drawer to full the memory of the name from...

For me, if someone tells me their name verbally - particularly if it is an uncommon name - it is hard to remember - but if I can see it written down it helps a lot - seeing stuff in writing makes it easier for me to remember... However at work my problem is I can write names down - but I can't always remember what face they go to - and I think I don't pay enough attention to faces which makes them harder to distinguish... It also doesn't help that there can be multiple people with the same (first) name - sometimes working at the same nurses station and sometimes from a different one - and sometimes they can get "floated" so you might find them at a different station - so you are looking for someone by a certain name - say "Jessica" but you have the wrong Jessica in mind...

I like your point about humility - it can go a long way to cover for mistakes...

[STEM_Dad in reply to Chickadee1]

I also get mixed up when a few people have the same first name, and even sometimes by last name.

In my role, I've found it helps to know one or two people in each department. They become my touchstone in that department.

(For instance, in the Same Day Surgery department, I know the charge nurse and her assistant. They are the two who call my team the most. There are a dozen others, but I can only remember the name of one of them because I've had several good conversations with her, and we both have ADHD.)

I find that having humility helps others accept me as a well-meaning person who makes some mistakes, instead of just seeing me as careless. I don't make very many careless mistakes, because I always try my best. I just have my limits.

For the longest time, the person I most needed to be accepting of me and my limitations was...ME! Once I became more accepting of myself, I found that most other people were, as well.

[sharkticon]

😂this is super true for me as well. It’s always bothered me. Seems like most people say they have a hard time remembering peoples names, but I know I take it to a whole new level. It’s one of the things medication seems to have no effect on for me either. And yes I get people that look entirely different all mixed up. It can sometimes take me months, or years to get someone’s names down.

I’ve read some stuff that explains how ADHD works like a short term memory loss. This could explain some of it.

You might also be known for interrupting people or bringing up things in conversation that people stopped talking about 5 min ago. ADHD brains have a harder time formulating what they want to say so they can spend more time thinking about it, not paying attention to the conversation, and then blurt it out at an inappropriate time because they are afraid they are going to loose the really important thing in their head they want to say. They do all this subconsciously of course.

I’m also terrible at remembering important things like birthdays, and verbal instructions I just received. I’ve naturally learned to cope by asking certain questions to get them to repeat what they said, and have gotten good at putting the pieces together about what they want done.

I’ve also learned that not everyone who has ADHD has the same symptoms. It was helpful for me to learn that ADHD is just a name for a group of symptoms. They do distinguish a bit between hyperactive and inattentive, but there are most likely several different types. Basically we don’t know the root cause of how the chemical imbalance happens in peoples brains, but have found some drugs that help to balance a number of them despite the root cause.

Also interesting, more and more research is finding a common link between autism, and adhd. Pretty much adhd and autism run in the same families and they have a lot overlapping symptoms. At some point we might find that they are the same thing but changed the brain in different ways. But with everything we currently know I would say what you are experiencing is definitely adhd.

My experience with autism is they don’t forget anything. More the opposite, they remember more details and names than most people. Incredible memories, but not great at social cues.

But some of that might be where they are on the spectrum. If they don’t remember peoples names it’s because they don’t find it relevant or important and their focus is on other things. It sounds like you genuinely want to remember peoples names and it bothers you that you can’t. That screams adhd to me. If an autistic person wanted to remember everyone’s names in the office they would know them all, their birthdays, their dislikes and likes. More facts about everyone in the office than anyone else.

[Boo0102]

As I read your post I remembered that their is an actual diagnosis that is similar to what you are describing. So after some googling, up popped prosopagnosia or Face Blindness. Seems it doesn’t have to be caused by some sort of medical event or trauma, but can be lifelong and it can somewhat be on a spectrum. Might be worth looking into.

Also, I remember reading an autobiography about someone on the Autism spectrum never remembering names nor wanting to use people’s given names. Rather, he would automatically come up with nicknames for them and use those (they were typically appropriate for use with the people directly).

I have difficulty if the person has a lot of physical similarities to others in the same group. It was very stressful when my kids were in public school and in my town about 70% of moms were all size 4 bleached blondes with yoga pants and ponytails. What a nightmare 😆.

[Hominid711]

Hi, I was diagnosed Nov 21 at 55 and my positive ADHD traits seem to make up for my inability to recognise people or having no memory for names or faces. I literally seem to get away with it whereby I also apologise profusely telling people it's my ADHD, not me. We mostly laugh about it as people realise I mean well and because the situation itself can be quite comical. One example are 2 ENPs who both are petit with dark pony tails. They are 10 years apart in age! I also work at a hospital.