How unusual is it to not remember anything from your primary years

[Seaberries]

My dh doesn’t seem to remember a single thing, no faces no places, nothing. I find this really strange. He did move houses a lot and went to two primary schools but so did we with our dc so now and they remember everything. He acts like he never went and says he just can’t remember anything at all. His mum will tell him stories about people he was friends with and he doesn’t remember anything.

I have exactly the same. And I went to a therapist.

My problem which seems small, is that I had a pushy mother with extremely high expectations, and it created a really stressful and pressured environment for young child. Apparently that’s traumatic enough to pretty much wipe my primary school memory. I do have some vague memories of a few little things, and some nice things I did with my friends, but not a lot really.

I have a family member (married in, not blood) who always thought it was odd they had no memories before 12. In their 50s they randomly connected with a former neighbour who told them very tearfully how worried she had been for them and how often she had heard them screaming and crying, but no one would take her seriously. It probably explains a lot.

I don't remember much either but had a traumatic childhood.

I dont actually remember much from school, but it was ages ago.

I have a vividly acute memory from about aged two (was in a car crash and remember every detail). Remember the majority of my school friends' birthdays and various "moments" throughout my childhood very clearly. I experienced a lot of trauma during those years and I think I turned to my skill of remembering "stuff" to help - I can still remember my best friend's phone number 40 years on! Spoke to her recently and she had forgotten it!
DH claims to remember nothing. Been with him over 30 years and his memory for anything is shocking so I do believe him. He vaguely remembers sixth form but that's possibly only because I met him then and can remind him about his friends etc

I have some very limited memories of experiences and people but on the whole I don’t remember anything. I thought we had a pretty normal childhood until I recounted a few things to people who looked shocked. I then realised that it was pretty traumatic and wondered if it was connected with that. But I do feel pissed that I may have lost or hidden a lot of memories with family that are now dead that I would like to have.

I remember nothing. Neither does my husband. Our siblings remember everything!

I remember very little. I come from a small town where ever6knew everyone else. I am on the Facebook group for the town and I am constantly astonished by how much other people seem to remember. Not me. Anyway, my understanding is that as well as being due to trauma, it can be due to an avoidant attachment style. My parents were avoidant and so am I. My mum had a terrible memory - she had a difficult childhood with a pretty neglectful mother. It doesn't have to be traumatic incidents as such - low level stuff like being ignored, being teased, feeling ashamed or anxious all the time can do it too.

My husband and I adopted two children. One of them has a dreadful memory - even worse than mine. In her case it seems to be due to the early neglect and being avoidant too. She also has speech and language issues and poor working memory is part of that as well.

I can still remember the brand of cigarettes my primary school teacher smoked as she used to leave the pack on her desk. I think I was 7 at the time.

I must be abit weird, I swear I only remember the traumatic stuff from early childhood!😂

I remember loads of stuff from nursery/ primary school onwards. I'm 54. My parents rely on me to 'remember' things, because 9/10 , and I do. I remember lots.

Nothing traumatic happened to me at all in my childhood. It was all very mundane.

I know the songs that were in the charts when I left primary, I know the names of my grandparents neighbours in the 70 s. I have a very odd memory.

Don't ask me where my key are (I have a tile on them that i have to ring fro my phone. if I can findmy phone ).

This is so fascinating. I wonder how much of it runs in families: I have lots of really vivid memories from around the age of 3. My grandma swears that she remembers things from before she was a year old (her older relatives corroborated certain events she said she remembers, including what she was wearing etc).

I think I remember my primary years so clearly that if you asked me to I could recreate a week in the life of me as a 7 year old with no problem. I could tell you the names and surnames of almost my entire class, all the teachers and TAs I had in school. I can even remember the entire school layout of the very large and quite spooky Victorian building.... A few months ago I had recurring dreams of being in the building again, and I got out of it by remembering exactly the route between classrooms.

I do have a very strong "minds eye" as a PP put it so maybe that's related? It's not just remembering details though, it also comes with a strong sense of nostalgia even when I was a child... Sometimes it was so strong that it scared me. This feeling of mourning for a time that hadn't even long gone, but I could remember every detail and all the sensations: smell, touch, lighting, how I felt, all of it. Sometimes I feel as though I'm making memories before the time has even passed. It can be exhausting but honestly, I don't think there's a phase of my life I don't remember as though it was yesterday.

A very interesting thread. I had a traumatic childhood and have very few memories of my childhood years and none of them positive so this is a god thing for me but I also have no sense of direction and I have lived in my local, area for the last twenty years or so but unless I am following road signs, sat nav or Google maps I would get lost on roads I have been up and down hundreds of times. I feel like my brain just cannot hold onto certain types of information, yet history, music and general knowledge type things I recall easily. The brain is very weird.

@Seaberriesask your husband if he has aphantasia. Ill explain what it is in a minute. I was in my 50s before I found out I had it.

If there is no trauma in childhood this is the only other explanation I know of.

I do have trauma in childhood, and I'm on the spectrum so that makes it more common.

However you don't need to be on the spectrum to have aphantasia. Link to it is below.

Aphantasia is to experience reduced, fragmented, or, no visual memory recall of their childhood.

Aphantasia is the inability to create mental images, often resulting in a "fact-based" memory system, where individuals know what happened but cannot "re-experience" or visualize scenes, leading to fewer, less vivid autobiographical memories. My memory is built by a filing system, narative

It is certainly what I have. It's little known, however about 3% of the population here in The U.K have it. Most don't actually know there is a different way of remembering.

I am very factual. I have a razor sharp memory, storing memories as concepts.

For example. I can't shut my eyes and conjur up a picture of my adult children, grandchildren, family anyone, anything. It's simply black/grey. Hence now I understand why my home is covered in family photos.

I think in words. I talk things out and need a narrative. If the narrative gets disruptive I need to rewrite it out to make sense of..

I can't just rejig film/photos in my head. Though I do know who people are etc when I see them. It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't have it.

It maybe that, however I hope this is useful for you or anyone else reading.

I know my mind has learnt to overcompensate for no mental imagery by having an extremely strong spoken linear narrative though no visual pictures

https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/people-no-minds-eye-have-less-vivid-and-detailed-memorie

@Sidgei have just posted about this, as I have aphantasia too. I looked it up and there is a link.

I also had trauma, and am on the spectrum, however neither need to be the case to have it, and lack of memories. My post on it just up from this. The link I posted on is below

www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/people-no-minds-eye-have-less-vivid-and-detailed-memories

I remember a lot about primary school- teacher names, friends (even though I went to a different secondary school to them and didn’t see them again after age 11), things that happened like swimming lessons and tests, games we played in the playground, the naughty boys. Just loads of stuff.

Not to be alarmist but just sharing as it sounds familiar - my DH had a stroke last October even though he’s still in his early 40s, and lost a lot of his memories. Most of primary school, some of our life together, most music he listens to etc. He had no face drooping or mobility issues - it just hit his memory, executive functioning, planning and his word finding (a bit).

My mum had a minor stroke around a decade ago and now doesn’t remember bringing us up at all. Nothing about holidays or daily life or what we were like as kids. Just all gone. Again, no other effects of the stroke, just her memories of a couple of decades.

Probably not at all what is affecting your husband but I never realised you could have a stroke, lose a bunch of memories and never know until someone asked you about things you’d forgotten. Worth maybe checking his blood pressure, at least?

Depends how old he is and whether he suffered any kind of trauma

I too, have aphantasia but still remember things from childhood. No mind’s eye but there’s stuff I know happened. I can remember what it felt like to lie on the beach in Spain with my eyes shut, the sounds of the people around us and from the bar/kitchen melding with the waves, the heat of the sun and the relief from the slight breeze on my skin. My mum getting me up to ask me whether she was too old for her bikini yet 😂. I remember my friends and my teachers from primary school. I can’t see them in my mind’s eye but I know them, have data on what they look like and, if shown a photo, could access that data to work out who it was. I know events that happened. I can’t remember everything - no-one can - but I have memories. Having aphantasia doesn’t take it away, it just means you experience them differently and store different info than you would if you had the ability to visualise.

Same here. I know where I was & I remember particular episodes but it's all a bit vague. I'm always a bit suspicious of people who claim to remember everything about their childhood.

Editing as I was posting on aphantasia and hadn’t read the more recent posts! This article is interesting:

https://news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-health-and-life-sciences/a-decade-of-aphantasia-research-what-weve-learned-about-people-who-cant-visualise/

I have loads of memories from primary school, but some of my friends say they can't remember much. However, I can't picture the faces of the adults or children who I only knew when I was in the earlier years. For example, I can remember my reception teacher's name and that she had short grey hair, but her face is a complete blank.

My old primary school recently celebrated a big anniversary and displayed lots of old photos on its website. I really wish they'd named the teachers in the captions. But I managed to recognise my Year 1 teacher by her shoes!

Google "SDAM - Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory". I'm pretty sure I have this, l remember extremely little from primary school, more from secondary school but suspect my memory skills became more developed. A high percentage of people with SDAM also have aphantasia (l do) but by no means all. I certainly don't think your

Whoops - certainly don't think your partner is lying - why would he?

It does seems very unusual. I remember snippets of my first day in reception standing in the playground waiting to go in as it was such a big deal/new thing. I also remember snippets of nursery school (so, around age 3)....