To not have any memories

[WhenSunnyGetsBlue]

Is it normal to not really have memories? I have lots of clear memories up to age 7 or 8 and then after that very few. Even the last year seems a blur. I find it strange how I can remember things from a long time ago but nothing recently. Interested to hear other people's experience.

The reason I'm asking is because my daughter is growing up so quick, I want to remember these times. Only then did it occur to me I don't really keep memories.

It's never a good sign to have no childhood memory, or gaps in childhood memory.

Me! And I had a very nice life all along. I can remember stuff if reminded of it. I am just terribly bad with it spontaneously.

My DH remembers our past, and I remember the future (what house we'd like to live in next, where we want to go on holidays, ...).

Not a sign of anything!

Are you or were you a weed user? My bil is similar to you and is completely blank on many things that should be memorable. He remembers parts of his early childhood but lots of his adulthood is blurry and he has a generally awful memory which he blames on the drugs.

(No weed ever!)

I don’t remember some parts of my childhood/teen years. I went through a really tough time with anxiety/trauma so maybe my mind blocked those out

My DP has blocked out quite a lot of his childhood due to trauma and has major gaps in memory of what happened.

Did something traumatic happen to you at around that age?

I'm quite upset because looking back over my daughter's first year, I don't have any memories as such. That is why I love looking back over photos

I have an appalling memory. I have bits and pieces all along, and no adverse experiences I’m aware of blocking out, but in general just don’t retain things. I could reread most of my favourite books from my 20s as 30 years later I remember so little about them. Been to lots of amazing gigs and theatre shows with my husband but can’t recall I’ve been to most them. I find it sad with the kids growing up, too, and take lots of pictures.

I'm the same and no drug use or trauma in my past! I have no mental images which I think it makes it hard to visually remember things. I have to look at photos to remember my kids when they were little. I can know that things happened objectively and I can remember odd things like random conversations but not really what I would call memories

You could be dissociating. I couldn’t remember much of my childhood before therapy and had thought it was a ‘normal’ childhood. (CPTSD) Turns out it wasn’t that normal at all.

Big life change at age 8, it was a pretty rough ride after that for a few years. I do have some clear memories of basic training age 19. That's about it. I have 10 years of blank during childhood, and then none after basic training (I don't even remember leaving the military!). I'm 30 years old btw.

I’m the same. I have the odd patchy memory of a specific event, like going to some event and my dad being sick in a bin, but not the event or anything about it. It was an angry house so maybe I blocked a bit. But I have very few memories of my own children’s childhoods, without photos I doubt I have any at all. I hate it when people tell me about things we did when my kids were small but I have no recollection of, but there’s a photo to prove it was there. I am very forgetful in general and much worse since menopause.

Over the years I have deliberately tried to forget my memories because they were, for the most part, not particularly good memories. I was helped in this by having a head injury some years ago which has permanently affected my brain .
Unfortunately I still can't erase some of the painful memories that I would dearly love to forget.
My ambition is to totally live in the present. But I don't think my outlook is very positive for good mental health

I’m the opposite - childhood trauma and I remember things too clearly. Even mundane crap like what shorts I wore to a playgroup picnic in 1994. Goodness knows why. I’m neurodivergent so I suspect it’s a part of that.

I've got so many very clear memories before the age 8. Like you, even the mundane what clothes clothes I was wearing, where I was positioned, what exactly was said, which pick and mix sweets I chose on a specific day etc. It's the contrast that gets me - those early ones are so vivid and there are so many of them, then radio silence.

FWIW I don’t have many memories of my children when they were tiny. I wonder if it’s because it’s impossible to keep a back of all the ages and stages because we are very absorbed by the actual child in front of us

Interesting!

I'm extremely over-cautious in my advice on this one but if you have any neurological symptoms alongside it, I would recommend the GP. I have a tumour affecting my temporal lobe and I've noticed that over the last few years my memory has become significantly bad.

I discussed this with old schoolfriends recently. We were discussing the past and, while most of the group remembered loads of things in detail, a couple of us didn't. She and I agreed our memories are like a collection of snapshots, so we have vivid and detailed memories of some situations, with blanks between whereas the others have videos.
The two of us with this lack of memory had ordinary childhoods and normal adult lives, nothing traumatic or out of the ordinary between us!

I don’t remember much about my kids being small in detail. My exh was a nightmare though and I spent more time trying to shield them from him than actually processing my own life and theirs. Even now I think I’m just too busy to be mindful and if I’m not focussed I don’t remember. If I’m able to concentrate however, I do

That might be due to sleep deprivation

My DP has this and it’s nothing to do with trauma. He’s got aphantasia so doesn’t have pictures in his head/a mind’s eye at all, and that extends to not creating visual memories, so everything he ‘remembers’ is just things he’s been told happened, not memories he’s storied himself. I think it’s called Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory. He didn’t realise until a few years ago that everyone didn’t think that way too. It doesn’t bother him too much and the main benefit is he’s very focused on the next thing so gets a lot done because he’s not dwelling on the past. Apparently it can help with grief for the same reason. He does love me and is a great partner but when I’m gone he won’t be fixating on moments we had because they’re not in his head like for most of us.

I have an awful memory. It really frustrates me. I had a happy childhood so it's not linked to that, for me. I take a lot of photos of my kids as photos really help me - I then kind of remember the photo, not the actual event as such, but it's something. I'm dyslexic and was tested as an adult, and the memory section bit was such an eye opener, as I couldn't remember a single thing. It's quite embarrassing forgetting info about friends etc and then just looking like you don't care. I do care.

The only bonus is I can read books lots of times and often forget major parts of the plot or often the ending. Same with films.

It is not normal at all. It could be a sign of underlying trauma that is causing you to block all memories.
Make an appointment with a psychologist as soon as possible.

Definitely relate - for example, if you were to ask me what I remembered about the week my parents announced they were separating, I'd say "Harold Bishop fell off the cliff in Neighbours", because that's my clearest memory of that week. But I've made my peace with that, because there was obviously a reason my mind chose to block that week out, and I don't really need to know, so I accept it.