Does anyone else remember so little about their life?

[Woodywasatwat]

It worries me sometimes.

I have hardly any memories especially of childhood.

An old school friend is currently cleaning out her parents loft and is tagging me in a sorts of childhood photos, things that look like school events and trips, plays.

I’m there, sometimes dressed up in costumes but I have no memory of the event at all. It could be someone else.

I have this all the time. Cleaning out my loft once I found old tickets for gigs. I saw Blur and Greenday in the 90s - cannot remember seeing them but when I asked the friend I would have gone with she looked at me like I was crazy and couldn’t believe I didn’t remember (I was 15, too young to have been out of it on anything!)

Why don’t I remember things?

Had exactly the same thing! I was thinking of going the doctors as I was worried about dementia too or that I had repressed memories.

I started intermittent fasting a few months ago. All of a sudden after a month of doing it I had significant memory improvement. It was freaking me out. Memories flooding back from childhood. I was even talking to my sister and started recalling a memory from primary school mid conversation. She was shocked as I normally have such a bad memory. I looked it up online and app fasting does really help the memory. I originally startedfasting to lose weight too 🤣 not improve memory.

@CockSpadget

That is absolutely awful, i cannot imagine the upset of losing those precious photos. I know nothing will ever make up for that loss in time, but hopefully you can seek some solace in memories you've made since then, and hopefully they're happy ones.
💐

@JustMyLuckItsHappened thankyou 🙂. She is 22 now, and thankfully our lives did a full 180 after we left. Plenty of good memories have been made.

Oh me. And my sibling. We comment frequently that we must have some memory chip missing. They forgot to put one in at the factory

Me too! I always blamed my shit memory on booze...which makes me sad.

Me too, tonnes of photos.

on Saturday I went to the theatre to see Titanic. It was only in the last five minutes I felt I must have seen it before. Turns out I have.

This is me!

I don't remember loads from my childhood, which frustrates me. For example DH can recall teachers names, classmates names etc and I can't. He's 5 years older than me too!
The only thing I can think is that we moved around a lot when I was young, so I had a lot of teachers/classmates to try and remember!

Interesting that someone said something about a link with ADHD/ASD, I've always suspected I am neurodiverse. DS is being assessed and he's very like me.

I also think it doesn't help that I have no childhood photos, my parents have never given me any (I know they exist!)

It made me determined to make up photo albums for my sons, so they can look back at the memories.

It's also disturbing to think how easily we can distort the past, and how my memory of a school fight, or a camping trip, or whatever it may be, can be totally different to yours.

I think a lot of people literally re-invent things. Often, their life was so boring, or unfulfilling, or shameful, that they have to. Many people couldn't live with the past if they didn't re-invent it somehow. If you've ever met a compulsive liar, you've probably noticed how often they believe their own lies, and how they'll take a mole hill and turn it into Mount Everest. I suspect many of us do the same with the past. For many of us, the past is no longer there. Not only do we forget huge amounts of it, but even the stuff we do remember has been twisted and distorted.

I could have written that !

I think I remember a lot. My suspicion is that it is a quirky greatest hits. Someone else will remember something we did, or I'll spot a book, image or whatever and only a hazy recollection resurfaces. Or it doesn't.

I’m the same. Find it frightening/quite sad. I didn’t even recognise a picture of the kitchen in the house I lived with my friends in for two years!

I think it could be because your mum died when you were a child. Maybe your brain has blocked things out to protect you?

Did it really have to block out seeing Damon Albarn 4 years later though?

I think that’s the one that stings the most!

I know! We watched a film about the 1996 Oasis shows at Knebworth recently (I was there) and DH was horrified that I had no recollection of John Squires coming on for Champagne Supernova. I never got to see Stone Roses so I feel gutted now, I genuinely don't remember him even being there ☹️

I think people are describing different things here. I do believe (although some don't) that trauma takes memories, so for some of you the explanation that you suffered trauma is correct. I can't remember the first few months of second DD's life its like someone has put a grey "smear" over the memories in my mind - that's due to a trauma that I experienced. All my other memories are vivid sometimes overwhelmingly so.

But what the OP and a few other posters are describing seems very different - I agree you should look into SDAM/aphantasia - its a spectrum but it really does sound like the OP is on it:

https://aphantasia.com/maybe-you-have-sdam/

The older I get (38) the more I forget from when I was younger. I also barely remember the first year of my older daughters life however I remember everything from my youngests life.

It's annoying but hey ho. Nothing I can do about it. I can remember dreams from when I was 4 but going to alton towers at 18? Barely remember that.

😆 true

@WhichPage my family can't understand how I don't know if I've seen a film before unless it's very distinctive/some reason I watched it twice. I often watch thing and can be 30 min in and a very faint bell rings and I think, oh perhaps I have seen this before! If I read a book 3 or more times like Agatha Christie novels eventually I'll learn who the killer is and then not read it again, but just once wouldn't be enough.

The good part of all this is you can know you enjoyed reading a particular book and then read it again having forgotten most of it! Even twists.

I can literally watch a film and dh could say about it the following day and i wouldn't remember what happened. I zone out.

I remember snippets of everything else.
I have odd memories i remember the things that have no importance

@HangerLaneGyratorySystem thanks for posting that, interesting to consider. I can visualise stuff and I don't think I have a massively disrupted story, I can see how it would be disturbing if you did. In my case, I have a demanding job, read a lot and am constantly busy in my brain, I think it's just more a case of being overloaded, I couldn't keep up remembering the past as well. My friends can't understand how I can't remember this guy or that night out. Being an in the moment type of person is great when things are going well, it's not great when you are down or having mental health problems though as you can't remember the time before when you were happy at all. So unhappiness can feel completely overwhelming. In those situations, I do find making lists of things accomplished or keeping a diary to show even small improvements really helps as you can see positive changes in a concrete way, I had a therapist suggest it and it helps me massively as an in the moment person.

I’m exactly the same, I remember very little. Going through photos recently and found some holiday pictures from the early 00’s that I don’t remember at all (and we didn’t go on that many holidays then).

I’ve also seen bands that I have no recollection of and remember very little from school or Uni.

Does anyone else do better remembering things people have said (useful) and numbers like old bank accounts and phone numbers (less so!)?

I do but not much detail for family or social stuff, and ‘memories’ of events or activities are propped up with photos.

I do think I have been in a daily high state or unnoticed and undiagnosed anxiety and hyper vigilance a lot of my life, suspect it is related.

I have taken anti psychotics (Aripiprazole 30mg) for 11 years which has definitely affected my memory, apparently this is normal.

But also I get concerned as all 4 of my grandparents had various forms of dementia..
I think Grandad John had Alzheimer's for a few years, Nan Rita had psychosis with Vascular Dementia & got sectioned; Nan Dorothy had a mix of Alzheimer's & Vascular Dementia, and my grandad Bill probably had Vascular Dementia, for over ten years.
I have to remind myself that their lifestyles were different to mine though, 3 of them smoked until middle age at least, 3 of them drank (1 very heavily). & I don't. They all ate very rich fatty foods all their adult lives.
My Nans Rita & Dorothy didn't get dementia until they were aged about 90 anyway which is very old.