@marialara Speaking of Seattle (where I've lived since 2009) and anomic aphasia, street names have been a recurring problem for me. But, after repeated practice, I finally have Union St. and Virginia Ave. down. Why those two, I have no idea. I recently tried a method of making sure I don't have problems with a neighbor's name, which is Beverly. Knowing that I have Hyperthymesia, I took advantage of this by looking at her face (okay, got the visual, there) while saying to her, "I won't forget this, Beverly," which, in my own voice, captured the auditory component. So, now I am able to see her face, hear my voice saying "Beverly" and I can recite her name any time I want to. It might not work for anyone who doesn't have Hyperthymesia, but it could be a way to train yourself to recall names or words you have trouble with. When I drill myself for "Union" and "Virginia," I visualize the street signs, or the marquee in the bus when either street is coming up next.

@marialara Seems like it’s a matter of waiting for the neural pathways to reroute themselves and tissue and that new 3rd variable to grow back. Much like the guy outside in the winter storm (see Blizzard of 96) manually directing traffic at the cross signal of the train tracks who took an extended vacation due to bad conditions or union rules. As soon as he returns to work, another injury occurs and no one to reroute traffic all over again, thus causing delays in word retrieval. That word sitting at the interchange may finally come minutes or days later or maybe months, and you blurt it out and get accused of interrupting, meanwhile the searching mid conversation and concentration and focus required to express a full thought an extra long time to deliver at times, or comes split in tiny packets, much like the internet, and requires multiple sentences to reassemble that thought. People around you pressure you are done or are impatient and interrupt you, then gas light and say uninterrupted them when you were mid sentence and they began hijacking your point into some other direction you were not headed. Or worse, taking your symptoms and applying some other armchair diagnosis of a mental health issue not the case at all, or misread your efforts if enthusiasm as some hostility not the case at all.

You get interrupted by the impatience of others, lose your train of thought, thought words that went through such an extra long route to make it around the “mountain”, then lose half the cars on the train that are your words/points, and being so very tired from all that efforting.

Not an intelligence issue, or memory per say, but poor training of the world around those with a TBI and lack of patience, empathy or knowledge base, meanwhile, an important conversation like a call to an insurance company, can be so resource-heavy that you need a nap. The spacing out your thought between other people’s thoughts makes you lose the entire train route entirely that was your one thought, or speaking fast to get out the words before your forget /lose retrieval ability for another lengthy time, you get accused of speaking to fast and lack of understanding by others whose brains don’t work so rapidly, or handle the complex cargo that your brain has to carry with fewer train routes making it out the other side per day, only the really important trans getting priority, making communication roadblocks with an undereducated family or dealing with poor listeners much more frequent. (No longer just a face to a name, but that there too). —My experience anyway, after more than one TBI, and years learning how this is the case and the ongoing, extended path to recovery. (In my case, I suddenly also cannot edit down words.)