The Blessings and Struggles of Having a Photographic Memory

The Blessings and Struggles of Having a Photographic Memory

Having a photographic memory can be a blessing. You do not have to study for tests, because you retain a lot of information. You also remember things in vivid details as to when they happened, how they happened, what each person said word for word and things that you read. It is a great advantage when someone needs encouragement and you remember a verse in the Bible and where to find it fairly quickly. I have been blessed with advantages like this for years. When people tell me things that happened, I can remember them, and when someone tells me something that supposedly happened and I have no recollection of it, I have a good idea that what that person told me was false, and I am able to call them on it. You can also recall how you used to think as a small child. For example, when I hear the song “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker, I remember thinking that my uncle David sang that song when I was 4 years old. I also have vivid memories of the cars people drove when I was very young, and other songs that were on the radio that I used to think some aunts or uncles sang. I look back at that and laugh about it.

Some of the struggles that having a photographic memory has is that you remember the exact emotions that you felt when that event comes to your mind. Most people when they see a funny scene, they laugh for a while, then they get over it and when they think about it, it does not phase them. When I see a funny scene in a movie and laugh hard about it, and the memory of that scene comes up 15 years later, I would laugh just as hard as I did at that time because I remember how I felt and I feel how I felt at that time. In good times, that can be an advantage, but when you remember sad moments and bad moments in your life, you also feel what you felt then and that can be a big disadvantage. It makes it harder to cope with the bad things that happened or to get over it. Many people who do not have photographic memories do not understand this, but I talk about this to bring awareness to it. To overcome abuse and bad events in life in combination with a photographic memory, it takes a miracle from God to do it. It is a miracle when someone overcomes it without having a photographic memory, but it is much more a miracle when someone with a photographic memory overcomes it.

I am considering opening a group for those with photographic memories. It would not be necessarily an abuse group, but if I get enough interest, I may consider getting this group going.

God bless,

Rodney Calmes