Since my main lemmy’s password is locked behind Bitwarden, I had to make a new account to post. Originally I started using passwords manager because I keep forgetting passwords. But my paranoid ass is so worried that someone saw me typing my Bitwarden master password so I feel the urge to change it. So now I forgot the new master password.
The password is a few word passphrase generated from a keyword. Like an acoustic poem, if you know what I mean. I know all the words except one word, and I know the starting letter of the word, just forgot the exact word. 🥲 Guess I’m gonna flip through the dictionary to find a word that feels right.
Um so… has anyone experienced memory issues? I’m a young adult (18-25 age range), so I feel so strange to be forgetting stuff so early. Like do young people normally forget things?
it doesn’t sound like anything abnormal to just completely forget a new password, let alone one part of it. I would not see anything to worry about in this instance. but if you’re worried about your memory more generally, how is your sleep? do you get enough, is it restful, do you snore, is your schedule consistent, do you eat before bed? there can also be lots of other common factors like unresolved emotional trauma or depression or neurodivergent traits. additionally, memory is a skill that can be trained if you want to have a good memory.
again, this incident is not something to worry about. if you feel like there’s a pattern, there are many things you can look into but start with your day-to-day state. investigate how your body and mind feel. I can’t even begin to get close to saying you may have a particular condition, just want to give some lines of thought you can investigate if you want.
I don’t really sleep well. I can’t really sleep so I just use my phone until I’m too tired to stay awake. And my parents say I snore very loudly. And I’m diagnosed with depression and I kinda get anxiety attacks recently. I can’t function enough to go to college so I had to withdrawl. Now I can’t even relax and log in to post memes on lemmy in peace 😟.
And um I’m not sure if this is relevent, but I recently just got so paranoid about my family shoulder snooping on my passwords so that’s why I changed my Bitwarden password in the first place.
Memory problems checks out for all that, yes
Been there with the depression and anxiety, had to drop out myself because of it and it sucks. Know that things will get better, if you’re willing to work on it!
🕵️ “It’s not paranoia if they’re actually out to get you” has always been my position on the topic, with the trick being in evaluating objectively if you have reasonable indications to believe your family wants to get into your accounts. Have they been snooping/inspecting your accounts in the past?
I use a yubikey with a static password set in slot 2. There’s a shorter mental password I add to the static password. Those combined mean my master password to my password manager is something I know and something I have.
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I’m 56 years old, have ADHD, and have noticed my memory slipping. I’ve started writing down stuff in notebooks, and not just relying on apps. I always recommend the old school little black book for writing down your main password/passphrase. Keep it in your nightstand, or somewhere that’s easily retrievable.
Don’t stress too much about it, we all forget things. From a very old story on Reddit I would recommend double checking your carbon monoxide detectors just to be safe. Guy was starting to lose huge chunks of time and it turned out his apartment had a leak in it, but beyond that it’s normal to forget passwords.
Um… about that… I live with my parents and I keep asking my dad to install a carbon monoxide detector, but he keep saying things like “I’ll get to it when I have time”… bruh it’s been years, I first asked when I heard of that reddit carbon monoxide story. 😬 Um… I don’t think he ever installed it, I mean there’s a smoke detector… and I just checked, there doesn’t seem to be a carbon monoxie detector… um… 😬 should I be worried? Now I’m getting worried…😟
Don’t be worried, but they don’t really need to be installed like it’s some big operation. Swing by a hardware store, or even target or Walmart, I have the simple Kidde brand ones in my house, they have ones that show the PPM of CO for like, 10 to 20 dollars or something. You can put it on the wall if you like, just a couple of screws, or 3m strips or whatever. It’ll come with a 9volt battery.
If it’s not this time then at least you have it going forward. Small CO leaks do have short term memory issues, (I believe) sleep issues, irritability, and headaches as symptoms, but the worry is if a little is leaking then what happens if a lot starts leaking. Knowing is half the battle. Your dad is plain lazy, they’re cheap and easy to install, and every house should have them. (I believe it’s even code that you must have them).
For reference, in my house my PPM has never been above zero. You’re more than likely fine, but it is alarming your house doesn’t have any.
If you turn it on and ppm is up and it starts going off then I’d jump to action, which is usually calling the fire department if it’s critical levels or just the gas company if it’s lower, and seeing your doctor. Again not saying all of this to panic you, don’t freak out, just good to know these things for your own safety.
You probably just forgot your password lol, but just to be safe pick up a CO alarm :). Maybe today if you don’t have any
Since you didn’t mention how they usually work, for OP, they literally just plug in to any power outlet. That’s it. They cost like $50 CAD. They’re just about the size of a smoke detector. They’ll display a number and beep if CO levels are dangerous (upon which you should immediately leave the house and call the fire department).
Oh interesting, no mine are 9volt batteries, but I have seen the fancy ones that you wire into your house, I’m waiting for a clear weekend to redo all of my alarms and do those fire/CO combos that wire in and will send alerts to your phone if you’re out of town too
I have some pretty severe memory issues, but weirdly it doesn’t apply to passwords. I use different passwords everywhere, but I don’t bother with password managers. I just type random letters, numbers, symbols, and randomly capitalize some letters, then I never forget any passwords I frequently use. They’re always really long, too. I do forget ones for sites I used like once and then like a year later decided to log in again.
However, when it comes to literally any other area of my life, I’m so shit at remembering things it’s basically a mental disorder. I’ve had moments where I’ve been talking to somebody, and couldn’t remember anything in the conversation past 2 sentances ago. Hell, typing this, I keep having to reread it to remember what I already said.
I’m also fairly young, at least compared to people who’d usually be developing memory issues, but in my case it seems to be caused by the fact that I’m on 7 different meds right now, 4 of which can cause memory issues. Unfortunately unavoidable though. My doctors have tried switching me off and other meds didn’t work. The symptoms they prevent, let’s just say turned out to be a hell of a lot worse than a few memory issues.
On the bright side, my wife can keep explaining the same Warhammer lore to me over and over again and every time it’s just as new and interesting as the first time. And I can play games and read books and such for the first time multiple times. That’s something most people only wish they could do. Granted, if I do hear or see something over and over it eventually begins to stick in my head, so I can’t do it forever.
Not sure if it applies to you, but weed is bad for your memory.
I don’t use weed, any type of illegal drugs, alcohol, or tobacco or vape. But um… recently I’ve been eating take-out food from a Chinese restaurant and I drink a lot of soda. I’m feeling depressed af and just wanted to “live” a bit before the world gets fucked by climate change. Also, as an American, the 2024 election seems terrifying, some fascist might win again after the failed insurrection/auto-coup attempt in January 6 2021. Kinda feeling hopeless for the future.
Hey man, I’m not a professional at all, but maybe you should stay off social media for a bit (1-2 weeks) and just enjoy life without worrying about the climate, politics, news, etc. They heavily impacted my mental health, but once I took a good long break, started working out more, went on hikes on occasion, went outside and read in the nature, etc. You can also go and hang out with friends / partner more often (if you do not already live with them)
Social media itself is a constant negative loop (for better or for worse) and you need breaks sometimes. Hope you can get out of this hell hole, my friend.
I’m in the same age range and no, I don’t have memory problems. I think it’s not normal to have memory problems at this age. As for the passord… Maybe you should’ve written it down somewhere.
for Gmail and Bitwarden I use on basic password from my past, then every few years, I add something to the end of it so it’s like Password1password2P3###123 - so it’s really long, but I only ever have to ‘learn’ the last little bit added
every other p.word in my life is random characters (but I also keep a hint of both gmail and bitwarden’s passwords - like - a description of each password (the one from dial-up) (that one generated from that one website) (123)
Memory loss seems to be a side effect of depression. I know once I made efforts at coming out of it, my memory improved.
Yeah when my depression flares up my memory is awful. I have a reasonable adjustment at work for instructions to be given in writing when I’m feeling low because it will literally be like talking to a goldfish.
Embarrassing when I have a great long term memory
Oh god yes. I’ve always had short term memory issues, particularly exacerbated by anxiety and stress. My brain fills with static when there’s too much going on - i would never rely on my brain alone to remember something like a password. As far as i know this is fairly normal, especially if your brain is also trying to process some kind of stress or distraction at the same time. I write things down in physical notebooks, generally, as a failsafe, and automate pretty much everything with phone reminders. I’m around 30, but I’ve had these memory issues since childhood. If you’re super worried about security, you could maybe come up with some kind of personal story or internal symbolism that means something to you to remember it by? That way it wouldn’t be just a phrase, but something more relevant to you that might be easier to remember but also wouldn’t make sense to those who don’t also live in your head.
Get a notebook just for passwords. Gotta update it every time you change pass’
If you have a memory problem or not kinda depends on how easy it would have been to forget it 😅
I’ve forgotten a very important passwords once because I had changed it, typed it maybe three times, then didn’t have to log in for months afterwards. Never did figure out what I had set…
How long ago did you reset it? How often did you type in this new password before you forgot? When did you remember it last?
I changed the password like 2 days ago. I made sure to retype it after like 10 minutes after setting it to make sure I remember. Since then, I had been using a pin for Bitwarden but I had set it to ask for the master password upon restart. And I restarted the phone today and it prompts for the master password. Whoops. I haven’t typed the password for 2 days, but I thought I could remember it because I only have to not forget the one word that I use as a hint and I can rebuild the passphrase from that word as in an acoustic poem. I thought that knowing the starting letter of each word and the number of words would be good enough to remember the whole phrase.
So now I’ll have to search a dictionary online and I haven’t come across the word that looks familiar. Each attempt requires a captcha so it’s gonna take a while.
I’d say that falls into the “reasonable to forget” category, considering you still remember most of it, only typed it twice two days ago and aren’t sleeping well (etc.)
What might help jog your memory is ‘reliving’ the moment you reset it, e.g. re-reading or watching what you were doing before, whatever you were thinking about, listening to or doing at the time and right before it. It might help you to reconstruct the train of thought that led you to choosing said passphrase.
Honestly 2 days is entirely understandable to forget.
When I change such an important password (which is very, very rarely), I keep a hidden hard copy for a short while, until I’m confident I have it memorized (usually a couple of weeks). While this has some risks, obviously so does losing access to your data. It depends on your living situation and threat model.
I don’t rely on myself remembering anything before repeating it like 100 times, over a month or so. 2 times, then 0 for 2 days, is almost guaranteed “puff” and it’s gone.
Think of memory like this: how many times back, do you remember taking a piss? The last one? the one before that? what about 10 times ago?.. but I bet you know by heart which side of the toilet you keep the toilet paper, don’t you?
We are primed to forget “irrelevant” things, and keep only what matters. Something you only did 2 times 2 days ago, tends to fall into the “irrelevant” pile. Repeat it 3 times a day for 30 days, and it will stay in the “relevant” side. Keep repeating it for a year, and it will end up in your involuntary muscle memory.
For important password changes, either write it down at the beginning, or practice remembering the new password a few times every day, for a week or two before actually changing it.
Bitwarden has other options alongside the master password. I just started using bitwarden last week, so I’m not too familiar with the specifics. But, you can set up login with biometrics and also mfa
I know keepass has an xml exploit to get it to dump passwords. Maybe butearden has a similar vulnerability?
Can you elaborate, this seems unlikely.
