How to Tell if you've Forgotten Something

Hey!
I've been under the assumption that I experience little to no dissociative amnesia. However, I'm paying more and more attention to memory gaps.
The problem is, it's so difficult to remember if you've forgotten something. Your entire reality is based off of memories, and memories are incredibly fallible. At that, it's very hard to tell the difference between brain fog, dissociation, adhd spacing out, and ordinary forgetting.
The problem is, I suppose, that most of the time I don't need to call on my memories, but I notice that when I do it's often patchy in odd ways that I physically cannot think about (brain cuts the thought short).
How can I tell if I've forgotten something, an how can I distinguish between kinds of forgetting?

Thank you for your support

-Love from Logic (all pronouns), Passion (She/They) and Dark (She/Her)

For me, regular forgetting is "the farther back in time it is the foggier the memory becomes".

ADHD forgetting is all the micro-forgetting during the day especially tied to executive function (forgetting what I went into the kitchen for, starting making coffee and in the middle of the action, seeing something that needs be done, forgetting about coffee and doing the other thing, then another one, then another one... and fudge my coffee is cold again).

Dissociative amnesia is, for me, thematic-based and emotion-based. Whenever the memory is tied to a strong emotion, it explodes into puzzle pieces or gets hidden under a specific rug with all the other similar memories.
Puzzle pieces style: I realize that I remember only one aspect of an event (the emotions, the people here, what I heard, what I saw... just one or only a few types of information).
Shoved under the rug: I realize that I remember close to nothing about one specific thing. One place I went during the holidays, one person, a specific year, a specific school... while the memories right before or right after are untouched.

Most of the time I realize that the reason the memory is dissociated is because of the emotional value it held, not because of the objective violence of the memory. I can remember very violent events that left me unphazed and forget things that were not violent per se but the amount of emotions was enough to make my brain flip its shirt.

Because something is hidden or forgotten, does not mean it would scare you now: it means it scared you back then. It's a huge difference. Some of the things will still be scary now but sometimes you realize your brain flipped its shirt over something mundane. Example: I've had dissociative amnesia over a fireworks show. Because flash, boom, music, people, hot summer night, autistic brain, too much, brain out, now I have a trauma.

For us too specific alters held specific memories...we had many years where our external hosts at the time had no idea they were part of a system. Others who did would slip out when no-one was around they weren't interested in remembering college work, the people there etc or what someone at work said so no memories were shared before the other host disappeared for good.

Now we look back and there's no memories for that period except for the times when the insiders slipped out.

Yet the memories the insiders want and cherish can be crystal clear and from much further back in time, so we clearly had some that were aware of each other long before others and before any understanding of what DID was.

For us we go on body symptoms. When we realise we have forgotten something (or more usually it is pointed out to us) and we try to remember our body will warn us, now that we have learnt to listen.

If its dissociated simply because another alter was front but isn't that harmful we will either recieve a condensed giff like summary of event or be told to bugger off its non of our buisness.
If it was dissociated because it is triggering for someone else who is currently near front we get palpitations.
If it was dissociated because it was triggering for us we become sudenly and violently nauseous.
Attempting to remember an event despite the palpitation/nausea will cause migraines and split vision as the alter containing the memory resists blending.
If the memory is one stored in the landscape itself (our headspace is a living entity) then there is an impending sence of doom for the fronter and folk inside have to cope with/shelter from abnormal weather in the section that holds said memory.

If on the other hand the thing was forgotten because of normal human forgetfulness when we try to remember it just feels like brain fog or frustration or embarrassment.

For us, it depends on a lot of things. Because we have ADHD on top of our Autism (for the record, out therapist has stated that we have ADHD now), we tend to forget certain things as a normal part of our life, but when it comes to events and such...

One way is that we've gone back to notes and journals we've found. Despite our previous tendency to throw out journals, we have found some of them in the various papers the mosoleum of our rooms. Those have helped us track down not only certain memories, but certain parts who have been kind of hiding away.

This has also worked for items that we have bought and never gotten rid of. Looking at them might trigger an alter to come forward to claim it or give access to those memories.

We've also relied on family members as we try to piece things together. Our mom would constantly remind us of things that we might have forgotten and we check with our sister if she knows anything.

We have not looked through all the papers, btw, nor have we looked at the various photos we have largely because of the fact that those might trigger us.

Hope that helps some,
Violette