The versions of me I can’t remember: autism and autobiographical memory

Why creating a written archive may be my only option for preserving my life story

Photo by Sebastian Pociecha on Unsplash

I hadn’t planned to begin with this journal entry. I found it by accident while searching my Evernote archive for the word “memory.” What turned up was uncanny.

I wrote it eight years ago, in 2017, while getting a pedicure—something I only know because I left an abrupt note to my future self at the end. At the time, I had no idea I was autistic. I was just trying to process an unusual feeling of loss after divorce.

What follows is that entry, nearly in full.

I've always had trouble with memory. I noticed it first with movies. Friends quoted entertaining or witty lines with precision. On the other hand, I forgot critical turning points of films, entire plot points. Recently a friend asked if I remembered an apparently critical scene in Pulp Fiction. I did not, even though I did remember that I’d had to watch the film at least a dozen times for a college research assistantship. Yet I had no memory of a pivotal scene.

But that’s a harmless example. Comparing notes with my brother about our childhoods is more alarming. He remembers where we went and what we did, even who said what to whom. I remember decapitated feelings and free-floating impressions. I remember catastrophic events, but very few of the quieter moments that make up a life.

And so I rely on others to remember those things, and in doing so to reveal, in a way, who I was then. (Because who can say they are the same person over time—or that they would even want to be?)

My longest romantic relationship was with my ex-husband. We met when I was 23, he was 30. I left when I was 29, he was 36. We were miserable and suffered from an inability to connect for sustained lengths of time. But he knew me better than anyone in the world, and he probably still does.

When I think of the rare moments when I felt connected with him, it often involved his ability to tie the present to my unremembered past. “I know this look,” he’d say. “The way you're resting your elbow on the table with your palm up, the way you're lowering your chin and raising your eyes, it's just like that time we had dinner at your law professor’s house. Just before you started arguing with him.” In this way he would teasingly recall so-called “classic” moments. In his recitations and remembrances, I felt seen and loved.

After we divorced, I started having him over for dinners on Sunday. This was over a year after we had separated; I had begun and ended two new relationships in the meantime. We drank the bottle of wine he always brought and talked about our past. And without being fully aware I had missed them, I regained six lost years of my life through his ability to testify to their contents.

Prompted by these engaging dinners and the unusual connection they entailed, we got back together. And then broke up again, for good.

And so I lost access once more to that period of my life I had regained, and to the more complete sense of myself he offered. It’s as if a library holding rare volumes, the only copies in the world, burned to ashes. The volumes mattered only to me and so it’s a personal tragedy, but a tragedy nonetheless.

Without a witness who has paid close and curious attention to the way I was and am, I feel erased.

As it pertains to my memories (or lack thereof), this all feels true still and I’m grateful to my past self for writing it down. But it leaves something out.

In certain ways, my memory is excellent. As a lawyer, I can recall the minutiae of a case—names, dates, document details—on the spot, without notes. It’s served me especially well in court. If an opposing counsel fudges a fact, I can tick through the rebuttal in real time, citing specific evidence from specific documents. I well, actually the hell out of them. Once, in a long case against a particularly misogynistic attorney, I did it so thoroughly the judge ordered that the other side pay my attorney’s fees—twice!—because I’d shown, line by line and in real time, just how unsupported his claims were.

So my recall is inconsistent: excellent for facts that don’t involve me; terrible for events from my own life.

What is autobiographical memory?

Until recently, I hadn’t encountered the term autobiographical memory. But according to a 2022 comprehensive review, it describes what I wrestle with: the ability to remember the events of your own life, including what happened, where, when, and how you felt.

Autobiographical memory weaves together different types of memory—facts, emotions, sensory details—into coherent scenes.

Researchers often describe autobiographical memory as a form of “mental time travel.” It’s not just recalling facts; it’s reliving personal moments as if you were there once more.

For everyone—neurodivergent and neurotypical alike—these memories serve three core functions:

1. Self-identity. Remembering your past helps you understand who you are over time.

2. Social connection. Shared memories create continuity and bonds in relationships.

3. Directive use. Drawing on past experiences guides us in making decisions and imagining (and preparing for) the future.

Even the perspective from which we recall autobiographical memories has been studied. We revisit these memories in either field mode (through our own eyes) or observer mode (watching ourselves as if we’re a character in a film).

When I read that, I realized that I almost always remember in observer mode.

Other firsthand autistic accounts

The struggle I described back in 2017 isn’t unique to me.

Reddit provides the richest trove of firsthand autistic experiences to be found online, and there are countless posts and comments on this topic.

A sampling:

• “My memory is either very sharp or absolute garbage, it’s annoying.” (link)

• “My partner often expresses their worry for how bad my memory is, I don’t remember most of the things we’ve done together in the past, if I do remember it’s usually just the emotions surrounding them.” (link)

• “I had all kinds of problems in my last relationship because of this. They’d be mad at me for not remembering going to a specific store with them, or not remembering some small event that happened years ago.” (link)

• “I have this and am shocked by how bad it is. My best friend has a good memory and I'm amazed by how often she brings stuff up that I have no recollection of. It must get annoying for her.” (link)

• “My family brings up things I've done that I completely forgot. Like sewing by hand an entire eternal sailor Jupiter costume.” (link)

• “I essentially can’t remember my life at all. Apart from a few glimpse my childhood is complete gone for me. Eg. I went to boarding school for two years and can’t remember a single day. I went to university for 4 years and essentially can't remember any of it. I retain the knowledge, but can’t practically remember any of it.” (link)

• “I can tell you facts like ‘I went to school at whatever university, studied this major, worked at this agency, then moved to some city’ but a lot of memories of day to day experiences are just gone. Once in a while people will say ‘do you remember when we did xyz’ and I just won’t. Makes me kinda sad.” (link)

Commenters have also supplied their theories for these personal memory losses: burnout, trauma, masking, aphantasia. And many express anxiety over it. “I am really worried for myself. I don’t remember my life. It’s like I have Alzheimer’s,” a poster wrote.

Not everyone in these threads has memory deficits. Some say they remember too much, especially painful experiences. But at least according to these self-reports, profound disruptions to autobiographical memory appear to be more the rule than the exception.

Reddit comments aren’t scientific data, but they offer a kind of distributed anecdotal evidence. And in this case (as in many others), the research backs them up.

Autobiographical memory impairment and autism

There is resounding evidence that autobiographical memory is impaired in people with autism.

The aforementioned 2022 review by Carol Westby summarized the striking ways in which autobiographical memory is often impaired in autistic people. Research has found that we tend to:

• Recall fewer memories overall, especially specific, one-time events

• Retain less detail: fewer sights, sounds, emotions, and contextual cues

• Take longer to retrieve memories, or struggle to access them at all

• Recall general patterns more easily than specific episodes

• Struggle to place events in time or understand the sequence

• Have a reduced ability to describe our own past emotional states

• Remember from an outside perspective (observer mode) more often

• Show stronger memory for facts (semantic) than for lived experiences (episodic)

• Have a weaker connection between personal traits and personal memories

• Find it harder to use past experience to plan or problem-solve

• Construct less coherent life narratives—making it harder to feel like you have a stable identity over time

• Engage in less autobiographical reasoning (connecting the past to a larger sense of meaning or growth)

• Experience diminished mental time travel to both the past and future

• Recall actions performed by others more readily than actions performed by ourselves

While some researchers started mapping these impairments as early as 2006, the scope and depth are still coming into focus.

In fact, just last year a new compelling explanation was offered for why these deficits occur. That will be the focus of a future post. (Trying to keep a reasonable length here!)

Ed. note: That future post has been published!
Check out: Setting the scene: how visuals and memory intertwine in autism

Augmenting my mind with an external archive

What strikes me most, rereading my 2017 journal entry, is how closely I described what I now know is a distinctly autistic experience. I noticed the connection between memory and selfhood, and how my inability to recall the events of my life left me feeling “erased.”

I also now recognize the loss of the directive function described in the research. How memory helps us use the past to understand the present and predict the future. I have a gnawing suspicion that I’ve had the same insights multiple times in my life without realizing it. That I’ve arrived at personal truths, forgotten the paths that led me there, and then rediscovered them later, thinking they were new.

Finding the 2017 entry—having no memory of writing it—brought this suspicion home.

It’s become clear that I need help accessing my own life. I need to write things down not just to share them with others but to preserve them for myself.

I had already noticed this when it came to parenting. Other parents recall when their kids first crawled, or what they were like as babies. I struggle with this, and it’s painful. The vivid child in front of me elbows out any ability to picture how they were before. I’m lucky to have photos and videos, but I’m starting to see how important narrative is, too.

So I’ve begun writing down everyday occurrences: the funny phrases my kids invent, the obsessions of the week, other fleeting moments. These small things add up to something monumental that I don’t want to lose.

I don’t regularly keep up with it; something more pressing always comes up. But writing this piece is impressing on me just how important that practice is. When my kids are grown, I won’t be able to tell the story of their childhoods from memory. So I need to create an archive for us all to draw from.

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Looking for more to read? Check out these past posts:

• When you see yourself in your child—and start worrying for two

• My autistic special interests: the fire that burns itself out

Research cited in this post:

• Carol Westby. 2022. Nature and Effects of Autobiographical Memory Issues in Persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 2022:18 2279-2293. Read online.

Stay curious,

Laura