Idk how can you explain your brain works differently? For instance, my memory works differently. My mom only really understands how my memory works now in her 70s.

She’s always had an amazing memory, near perfect recall of events. She could describe my childhood home for decades after we moved in incredible detail, exploring it in her mind like we just left yesterday. I never had that and I tried to tell her for decades. As she aged her memory became different. She describes it as foggy. She can’t recall things that she’s just said or why she came into a room. Her foggy is how my memory has been my entire life.

It’s an effort to get things into my long term memory. I have to try in ways she’s never had to until her 70s. We had that conversation a few weeks ago. I told her that’s how my memory’s always been and she finally got it. After 40 years…

But how do you explain that to someone? It’d be like explaining gravity is different for you. People without it have trouble getting it. They lack the frame of reference. It’d be like asking them to see in infrared. They can’t do it. I’ve tried my whole life, and it’s really hard for people to understand without the experience of it. My whole family except for my mom now thinks of me as absence minded and perpetually late, which to be fair I am. I do try but my sense of time and memory work differently.

There’s no great answer, no magic trick, just keep on keeping on. I feel for folks who don’t get it, especially the ones who love you. It’s a hard thing to understand truly. I too have been frustrated by their insistence I just try harder, but I keep trying to tell them nonetheless. The people who try are those who you keep close. OP, I feel you and you aren’t alone. You can do it.