Significant events of which you have absolutely no memory.

[JemAppelleLafayette]

Has anybody else experienced this (barring brain injury etc)?

I’m in my mid thirties. Both my parents have recently described something that happened when I would have been 18.
Apparently I became very very sick with a strep infection, so unwell that hospital was seriously considered. Happily, I didn’t need to be hospitalised and recovered at home over the uni holidays. My dad mentioned it today and spoke of choking up at a concert because they were so worried about me before the infection was diagnosed. I work with lymphoma patients now so can well understand the terror of having a teenage daughter describing unusual lumps at her lymph sites.

I do not remember any of this!! I remember the concert and large portions of the year in question (first break up- sob!) but absolutely nothing of this incident.
Curious to hear if any body else has had a similar experience.

After I had my hysterectomy, the bleeding wouldn't stop and I know I was sent to the hospital for them to do something about it, but I have no idea what they did. I don't think I was kept in, but I might have been. I must hunt out my diary for that period sometime and have a look.

DD2 has almost no memories of her childhood, which I find rather unsettling.

I've got a terrible memory. I remember very little about my childhood. My parents talk about old holidays and I'm half convinced they're making it up sometimes. I struggled to remember stuff that happened a few years ago. It's awful at times because people will say "do you remember when we went to X and did Y" and I don't!

Yeah op, my Mum is in her 70's. I have an excellent memory and always correct her false memories so I'm leaning towards her misremembering rather than lying.

She'll attribute stuff to my brothers that I did, exaggerate, change details, etc.

Funny to think that so much life goes by unremembered or misremembered.

I’m the opposite.

I have a strong memory of my whole past back to about age 2. Descriptions of things I saw then and can describe still today have been corroborated by family, friends and neighbours.

I can watch a film and there might be a scene in a country lane, or in a town square, or just on a simple pathway, and if I have been to that location - however obscure - I will name it. I used to accompany my father, aged about 7, during school holidays when he was at work. One day we visited a metal bashing factory in London and were there about an hour. Some 20 years later, I turned a corner on Pentonville Road and the image of the roof angle, the blue railings, the close-spacing of those railings, in a split second I got instant recall of the place I had been before.

It only works for me with visual things. Not sounds, words or discussions unless I had built a picture of that conversation in my mind.

I believe everything our eyes ever see, which is transmitted to our brain, is never lost forever. It may be archived and we may never recall that precise image again, probably because, like typing this very word, it is not going to be important to us. But it’s there in case it is.

Like a previous poster, I have no recollection of Christmas dinners when I was young. I have very strong memories of getting ready for Christmas, going for the turkey, Dad cooking the pork but nothing of the occasion of the actual dinner.
I hope my 2 DDs remember ours after all the effort that goes into it.

I think if you were very ill it would be normal to not necessarily remember it.

Although I had pneumonia very badly aged 3yo. Dm said she wasn't sure I would survive the drive into hospital (and I wonder why they didn't call an ambulance from the centre 10 minutes away rather than choosing to drive me 40 minutes at best to the hospital through rush hour traffic )

I remember it clearly. I remember asking to take my seat belt off so I could lie down because I was tired, and being really surprised when dm said "yes" as she was really strict about seatbelts. I talked about that a few years ago, which was when dm said they didn't think I'd survive the journey anyway.

I remember sitting on the high bed with them trying to persuade me to take the medicine. I refused, arms folded, shaking head. So they injected me. I felt that was cheating.

I remember the day they cleaned the ward, and the huge hoovers they used. And the fire alarm.

I remember deciding I would scream blue murder when it was time for dm to go in the evening so she'd be last to go. I also remember the feeling of relief when the door closed and I could just go to sleep without trying to keep her there any longer.

I remember taking medicine and vomiting it straight back up, and thinking "your fault for making me take it".

I remember them tipping the bed down to try and make me cough it up.

I remember the boy next to me. I gave him some biscuits that I had. Pity he was in for tonsil removal, and he had a sign saying "nil by mouth". 3yos can't read that. Oops.

I remember the boy who wouldn't stay in his cot, so they put him in with a lid on it.

I remember the little one who threw the jug of water from the bedside cabinet at the nurse to was trying (fairly nicely) to quieten her down.

That's just a selection. But, you know, I have absolutely no recollection of feeling ill at all. If I had been kept at home I doubt I would realise that was the time I'd been so ill. I can date it to then as I was in hospital and that was the only time.
It may be you do have some recollections from that time, but you're not associating them with that as there is nothing that marks it out to be that specific time.

Memory is a strange thing.

I don’t remember meal times at all.
My parents were very strict about sitting at the table to eat and asking to get down when I finished. But I can’t remember a single individual meal.

I have no memory of moving house when I was 9. Not a single thing.

My brother on the other hand has an excellent memory. He went on holiday to Majorca last year with his wife and sent a picture to the family WhatsApp group of him standing outside the apartment we’d stayed in as a family when he was 4 and I was 3! How in the whole island did he know where to go? And it wasn’t as though it was a big hotel with a memorable name or anything, it was just a random private apartment in a street!

So weird I opened this thread and then No Memory by Scarlet Fantastic came on TOTP 1987

I have very little memory of DD3's childhood. My memories of DD1 & 2 growing up are like it all happened yesterday yet I can barely recall anything about DD3. I know birth weight of DD1 & 2 but have no idea what DD3 weighed. I have to really think hard when someone asks me how old she is - once, to my absolute horror at an outpatient appointment at hospital I couldn't even tell them her date of birth - I just couldn't remember it. I have no recollection of her first steps or first day at school or birthday parties. She is an adult now but it makes me feel very sad when I think about it because we actually are very close and have always been.

@Witchend I loved reading your memories. Did they/do they still really have lids for hospital cots?

I have a terrible memory - I can’t remember so much that I wish I could.

Sometimes I’ll be enjoying a lovely moment in the present and think ‘I hope this is one that I can hold on to’. I wonder how many of those I’ve lost.

I experienced a number of very traumatic events in close succession some time back. There's a period of about 5 years following that where my memory is a haze, even for some very significant events. Just one of many examples - we had a 2 week holiday abroad which itself is quite a rare event for us. I know it definitely happened because I have seen the photos but I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of the place, friends we made or any of the things we did some of which should be highly memorable. During that period I also found I often could not recall people's names and not just casual acquaintances but people I had known well (colleagues etc) for years. Emotional trauma can IME seriously screw with your memory.

I remember everything. First memory is Christmas when I was one and a half. My gran died afterwards and I remember her. I remember everything about that meal.

I also traveled around with my engineer dad to his places of work on holidays and can remember it all. Smells, textures, light, sounds, of all the industrial structures. My dad and I talked all the time- he’d explain what the industrial structures were and how they worked. Im in STEM.

I’ve a very visual memory. Really can place where everyone stood for every single conversation I’ve had, and what they said, and where the sun was, if outside, in every convo.

I can learn off huge quantities of prose, plays, poetry, anatomy, structures. I wrote a detailed diary for years.

I always felt that people who don’t remember everything are sleep walking through their lives, with their eyes shut.

Couldn’t bear to be that way.

Feel sorry for those who don’t remember things.... how do you make sense of your lives if you don’t know how you got to where you are, if you have no memory of all the factors influencing your decisions?

That’s an interesting point TooTrue, there is one traumatic event I experienced.
I cannot place it in time at all... I’ve just a vague feeling it happened in April / spring.. but I could be wrong... it could have been late Autumn. Either Equinox time.

So you were never admitted to hospital? And you were actually at the concert in question when your dad got choked up? Honestly, it sounds as though you weren't actually that ill, so didn't seem particularly significant to you, but your parents have built up a narrative between them that you were at death's door.

I have a memory of an elephant but when I mention things we did backpacking to my best friend, she has absolutely no recollection! I have photographic evidence so it’s not me losing the plot

I have no recollection of my twins first birthday. I can’t find any photos either! I think I was just in a state of shock after their first year 😳.

My 19th birthday after about 8pm... it was a Wednesday at a rugby-playing welsh university and they’d walloped the opposition. Many, many people bought me drinks....

Yeah op, my Mum is in her 70's. I have an excellent memory and always correct her false memories so I'm leaning towards her misremembering rather than lying.

A lot of memoirs and autobiographies are written by people in their 70s. It makes one wonder how much they write is what really happened. I mean I’m not accusing them of deliberately lying, but as posters have commented, elderly folks’ memories can get muddled up.

I have no recollection of the moon landings. I would have been nine years old. It would have been all over the news. We would have covered it in school too.

reallybad I didn’t mean to give the impression that I was at death’s door. I believe I was unwell over several weeks, not recovering well, and there was suspicion that something more sinister was going on. The concert is a big deal in our home city, and we had excellent seats through a contact. I’ve always hated missing out, and unless I was housebound, would have wanted to go. My mum’s a nurse, and not prone to dramatics. I really have no reason to disbelieve that it was a worrying time.

Interesting post Bond. Ironically I’ve usually got quite a good memory and can remember things in detail. Sometimes that has made it difficult to forget things like hurtful things said in arguments etc. Have you ever found this?

I can't remember any holidays as a child, I remember significant place names from the distant past but can't remember going. I wonder if I did go or I just heard them being mentioned.

Dh always say that I remember nothing from childhood and it's true, I hardly remember school either.
Maybe I was born aged 18?

I was quite little and we went to the seaside on holiday with DGPs - I know because of pics, but all I remember is walking down a road when it was so hot the heat came up from the road, then I stood on some thorn or similar, or a wasp and howling in pain.
That's it.
All those meals DM cooked and I don't remember them. But I was staying with my DGF once with DB and GF cooked egg and chips and I put my own pepper on (from one of those green bakelite cruets) and put far too much on but didn't like to say so ate it anyway. The smell of white pepper still takes me back there.
Other than odd snippets I don't remember much before 12, do remember the school bully though.

I think it is partly to do with how busy you are and how much is happening in your life.

At 18, life is throwing all sorts of new things at you, as you are now an adult.

By late 50's, life can be very samey year to year. unless you are going through a specific trauma of any sort.
'
You had your first serious break up that year. That was far more important to you at that time than 'being a bit ill' especially if you didn't realise your illness was potentially.

Maybe you started university or a new job. You very likely had other boyfriends, crushes and exciting nights out. Maybe keeping up with fashion or makeup was important; just lots going on in general

Maybe your parents were living in the same place and doing the same jobs as they were a year before.

I remember certain things about certain times with long time friends. They will remember things I don't and I remember things that they have no idea about.

I also remember things about my kids when they were teens that they have totally forgotten (they're in their 40s now)