Cant make my mind up if this is just scatterbrained behaviour or something else. Just seems to me that I am becoming more prone to call people by the wrong name. I cant believe how often this happens! I have two sons and it seems to me that I mix up their names something approaching 50% of the time when calling them, which irritates them both. Also, being a teacher, it doesnt help to get on the right side of a pupil by calling him by the wrong name. Even the rabbit’s name gets confused for the cat’s. How can the brain be so inefficient? makes you wonder how it manages to do anything right.
You’re not alone - I forget words and the people’s names - with the words, I kind of know the shape, and what the word means, but the actual word just escapes me completely. With people’s names, there’s just a blank, most often with a celebrity, but more and more with people I’ve known for years which isn’t good. A few people described similar experiences on here, I think it might be an MS thing. I have two cats and a dog, and often it’s 3rd time lucky when I’m using their names, and I have a bad habit of calling my stepson by my brother’s name, but I think that this type of forgetfulness is quite natural - my parents quite often muddled round my name with my brother’s and sometimes the dog’s.
Luisa
isnt that normal for women? ha
you are not allone. with me it does not stop at humans either these 2 cats I’m forever getting their name the wrong way around,
when I call son by my husbands and vice versa they think I’m doing it on perpous
Al x
I forget a word mid sentence sometimes and just have to leave it hanging. Very annoying especially when I am delivering a workshop in my job.
More bothersome is my new habit of calling my Husband (BOB) - John.
I dont even know anyone called John, so its not like I am mixing up names with someone else. I mean whats all that about!?
Yes it is so weird that the brain can do the most complex tasks yet can struggle to come up with the right response in a 50:50 situation.
Same here!
Tracy x
I love your description of knowing the ‘shape’ of the missing word - that is such a good way of putting a feeling I know well!
Alison
x
yes, i’m another person with creeping ‘name blindness’, i was pretty bad before ms but now it’s ridiculous! funnily enough though, when i have to tell off one of my cats, the only name that pops out is amy… that’s my daughter, not sure what that says about me but i bet it isn’t good. a bad memory for names runs in my family though, when i was growing up as the third of three daughters, i was completely used to being called janetelainewendy by my mother, as the youngest, i got all three names (in age order) because she didn’t stop until she ‘found’ the right name . i’ve always been great at recognising faces though, i’m just going to have to get better at bluffing, or wear a sign round my neck explaining myself.
wendy x
Before my name memory got worse I always assumed I’d inherited the name problem from my Mum’s Dad’s family.
I was ‘Susan Elaine Ellen’ which is my aunt’s name, my Mum’s name and then mine!
Mum was ‘Dorothy Susan Elaine’ which is my Grandma, Mum’s sister and finally Grandpa remembered her name!
My memory now just can’t remember names a lot of the time. Anyone’s name!
I take so many pills for my epilepsy, neuropathic pain and depression I suspect that the tablets have a lot to do with my memory problems!