Childhood memories (or lack of)

Originally posted by iSeeKEnlightenment8o5Yeah, I know how you feel. It bothers me too that I can't seem to remember some things about my childhood. I do however remember the things that had the most impact on me. I hate that. I can't seem to remember the good things. And I don't know why.

It's a protective mechanism that you remember bad things more than the good so that you don't repeat them. I am sure there is some science behind it but I am heading to bed...

Any major pain (metal and physical) producing event will be remembered, while good things might not.

However this is only true up to a point then when an event is so bad that the mind loses its ability to deal with it then that memory will be repressed (another protective measure) so that you don't relive it over and over and can get on with the business of survival and procreation which are your biological goals.

I was 26 when i had my first dose of therapy, it was then that i first was asked to speak about my childhood. It was then that i realized that i had very little memory of the whole experience. The memories i did have were of bad times, abusive and terrifying. I still can not find my mother there, a ghost at most. My mother had been on tranquillizers and my father was a very angry man, both with OCD (though this was not recognized until much later). I see now that my mother tolerated my father because she was doped up, however my brother and myself were left to cope with him raw. My mother didn't see the distress me and my brother were in, she was not present, although her physical body appeared before us, there was no one in.
My brother ended up in alcoholic counselling a few years back and asked me if we could discuss our childhood, i asked what he wanted to know. He asked me what had happened because he said he couldn't remember anything. All i could say was neither can i, he asked why that is, i said cause it was so bad.

The life that we are is strong and will survive almost anything. The spirit that is me had to hide while i was a child, i grew to hate myself for not fitting in. I had no choice but to survive, but the real me shrivelled up to a tiny thing inside. If we didn't fit in when we were children, we think that if anything goes wrong it will be our fault as adults.

It can take many years to find that one inside and nurture it.
It can only be found when we stop listening to 'out there' telling us what we are.
Do not neglect the self.

Originally posted by warbird03
A couple days ago I had a conversation with my girlfriend and her family that at one point turned to a discussion about our early years of school. The thing is, I realized I could remember very little about it. I can remember small, vague pieces but that's about as far as it goes. I can't seem to really remember much before I was about 12 years old. I don't even have any memory of my girlfriend before our freshman year of high school, even though she and her family remember me from even further back than that.

It's kind of bothering me to realize there's this chunk of my life that I can't really remember anything from. What about you, fellow ATS members? Can you remember your childhood?

I remember the period from 3-4 years old, then from 8-10 then 12-16 and the rest is all in patches! I have fewer memories of the time from when I was 17-27 than of the early parts I mentioned..
It doesn't mean the period from 8-16 is accurate mind... Our parents both died very young, but my sisters and I still argue about what happened when - and when my brother was alive (he died 7 years back) we disagreed about some things - mind you, he wasn't born until I was 8..
V.

You sound like my son. It kind of comforts me actually to know that it isn't so unusual for someone to forget so much. He says the same thing, and it bothers him a little too. I don't have a great memory at all, but the memories I do have are vivid. Some seem mundane and others are bad from being raised in an emotionally neglectful home with alcoholic parents. Honestly I seem to have forgotten most of those times.

Someone asked me recently what good memories I have from childhood. I racked my brain, and I was sad to say I couldn't remember any really happy ones, except for one when I was very little, like 5 years old I think, and that was just a peaceful feeling I had and felt really content looking at the sky while laying in the grass. The other good ones I have are only when I got older and they are generic happy times like swimming and seeing beautiful things.

edit: I'm actually not an unhappy person. I enjoy life and always have. For some reason though, I can't remember being genuinely happy in life when I was a kid. I just played and whatever. I smile easily, because I see the beauty in so much that others may overlook. Ok now I guess I don't know where I wanted to go with this.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


This is such a good post. I didn't realize that's what happened to me kind of. I hid who I was, or didnt' really find out who I was because of the way I had to cope with the bad stuff. My brother remembers more than me though. I always figure I must have blocked it out or something. I mentioned in my other post about neglect, but I also had a physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive step father in later childhood. He was only physical with my mom, but my brother and I got the rest of it too.

reply to post by Ellie Sagan


Animals in the wild only experience fear as a passing 'thing'. It runs and gets away or it is killed and eaten, fear for them is fleeting. A terrifying childhood can not be escaped, we are trapped because they are our carers, without them we die. What happens is we become small, we have no place, no space.

The fear though continues even when the family home is no more, it's like post traumatic stress syndrome. What can happen is when we leave the family home, we continue the victim and the abuse mentality. These are the patterns we have learned and are generally the only system implanted in us. If this is not recognized we can have a pretty lousy time and think it is our fault and beat up on ourselves. A vicious circle.

The earliest memory that I have is from about the age of three. Usually crawling underneath things, playing with toys, and eating. There are times when I can't remember, and then there are other times when the memories start flooding back. I don't know really, the self that I am seems to have memories starting from early childhood, and sometimes I feel as if another "me" had temporarily taken over, and has now left, and as if there was another me that has since died, and there is still another me that is on the borderline of death. Even still, there is another me that has "grown" and since "left". From what I can tell, I am the oldest "me" that inhabits my body. Its strange, really.

Shame i'm late to this thread, a good question this. I have as many memories of my dreams as waking memories. Childhood, strange snips, standing in a lightning storm comforting a teddy bear (3 yrs old?), the wounded chick i rescued with my father and nursed to health (6 yrs?) The first time i felt genuine sadness over the loss of a loved one when my dog died. Memories of bullying, fear.
Strange pseudo memories from the holidays at my grandparents house here in ireland that i'm positive are not dreams, that no-one can confirm. Following a white rabbit through the fields to the orchard, watching men on motorbikes appear from holes in the fields, and the beach covered in bones as far as the eye could see. The dog corpse, the rotting donkey. I collected some bones and treasured them, dogs teeth and others.

Imagine if it was possible to dream
And there to recieve a flower as a pledge that your soul had been
And to awake with that flower in the palm of your hand
Aye, and what then

I don't expect to be believed at all, but when I was a child I foresaw my entire life up until I graduated from highschool when I was 7, and everything was consistent up until that exact point when I graduated. It was scary, bizzare, and I took extensive notes over it.

My visions ended in 2005, the year I graduated Highschool. Yet nowadays I can hardly remember more detailed events in my childhood, and sometimes think my own brain has come up with false memories to replace what I have lost. strange..

originally posted by: warbird03
Can you remember your childhood?

I can't remember anything before I was in the third grade. I only have one memory of a time I was in kindergarten, and a vague recollection of a house I lived in at the time.
It's like my brain didn't store any memories before third grade.