Would you worry about this?

[Strangebrainhappenings]

I don't know if I should do something about this or if it's just normal....

I was just weeding out some old emails (to make space) and I realise that I actually don't (at all) remember enormous chunks from more than twenty years of my life. With some things I have retained some very basic facts and a sort of 'aura' of unease but that's it. But most of it is completely gone. There are entire years that I remember nothing about.

I remember up to the end of the 90s pretty much as most people remember childhood stuff. But after the beginning of my teens, things are very hazy or just completely gone. I know that I was unhappy at school and that my mental health was terrible and that I spent the majority of my late teens, twenties and the start of my thirties on eating disorder wards. But when I try to get memories back, I get a sort of unpleasant 'aura' and nothing else.

From 2020 onwards, things are clearer. I moved back to take care of my mother whose dementia was declining. But ever since she died this May, I've been more aware that everything feels sort of dreamlike and unreal. I feel realest when I'm working but the periods in between feel like I'm watching a film of myself. It makes me sad that when I try to think of her before dementia I can't remember anything. I can't remember any conversations with her or happy times we spent together. All my memories are gone. When I try to push at that all I can remember is finding her body on the morning she died. I feel horrible about it: I've lost the person I loved most in the world and it's like she didn't matter to me.

I don't have any complaints about my life or my health right now. But when I try to connect with the past I feel uneasy and a bit sick. The feeling of loss of reality and kind of floating outside myself got much worse when I was reading the old emails.

Is this normal? Would you take action on this or think it's better not to rock the boat and just accept it and get on with my life?

Memory is very individual to people. It varies hugely.

I'm similar to you. In contrast, various friends have detailed memories of a lot of their lives.

Memory loss can also be (but isn't necessarily), a sign of trauma. So it might or might not be related to the time you spent dealing with poor mental health and eating disorders, and/or the root causes of those.

What you're describing about floating outside yourself and it being film-like sounds like dissociation, which is also a trauma response, to externalise things which might otherwise be overwhelming.

You might benefit from talking things through with a trauma specialist counsellor/psychologist.
Or, depending on your personal psychology, you might not, and it could be fine for you to just accept it and get on with your life.

There is no absolute right or wrong answer. What do you feel would make you happiest overall?

My memory is terrible, I put it down to CPTSD (my dad died suddenly and traumatically in front of me and my sibling when I was 11)

I try not to dwell on the lost memories because I can't do anything about it 😔

I have a snapshot memory.
Certain scenes from my life appear in my head unbidden. And actually unwanted. But the majority of it is, as you say, hazy.

I have worked very hard to forget as much of my life as possible. But it does worry me whether by doing this I am increasing my chances of developing dementia.