Hey all,

I wasn’t quite sure what to title this, so I gave up and just asked the question. I’ll be a bit vague, as the point is not the specific bit of code I’m stuck on, but moreso the general issue of an uncooperative brain.

How do you make any real progress learning if you deal with frequent brain fog and have terrible short term and long term memory?

For example, I finally learned how something works after months of trying to wrap my head around it. Didn’t end up using it for a few months more, and now I forgot it again. I’m back to square one, trying to relearn things I already learned. And that’s assuming I wake up and can actually focus on anything. Some days, brain fog rolls into the harbor and I just stare dumbly at the screen, barely able to concentrate on the task, much less think about the code or complexities. It’s impossible to make progress on days where I forget what I was doing before I even start.

Other days, my brain seems to be running on all cylinders, and I can storm through my work almost effortlessly, learning as I go and making more progress in a day than I did the week or two prior.

It seems like the only things I truly retain are mechanical. The basic nuts and bolts, the simple concepts like how variables work. It took me longer than I’d like to admit understanding calling and writing functions. Things that are more abstract or high level are easily forgotten. It’s a nightmare.

So, what do I do? How an I work around this problem-child brain of mine and actually LEARN?

I’d be interested to hear from anyone who dealt with something similar. I’m also eager to hear from any fellow neurodivergent folk, who might have a similar problem wrangling their grey and white matter into shape.

UPDATE: Thanks for the ideas and encouragement, everyone. I’m a bit busy, but I’ll get around to some individual replies soon. As a general note, seeing a doctor would be a good idea, but without insurance and a well paying job, I couldn’t afford to see any kind of specialist, or even make frequent appointments with a GP. I appreciate the well wishes though.

  • robinm@programming.dev
    4·
    1 year ago

    You seems to have a severe issue so I’m not sure what I’m going to say may help.

    Learning something and then forgeting it is absolutely normal. Repetition over and exponentially long time and sleep in between helps a lot. Some people use flashcards to helps with memorisation. The idea is simple, when you learn something you write question + answers on a piece on paper (usually bristol for easy manipulation) and put it in a box. This box has multiple compartment: every day, every second day, once a week, once every second week, once every second month for example. When you add a card you add it to the “every day” compartment. Then each day you open all the compartment of the current day and ask yourself all the questions. If you correctly remember the answer you put it in the next compartment, and if you don’t you put it back to the “every day” one.

    Another way to helps you understand and rembembering things is to explain them to others. If you don’t have someone to explain what you just learn you can create youtube video (even if noone will watch them but you do as if you had an audience). As bonus you now have a video that explains using your language something you just learn if you ever forget it!