To keep worrying about everything that’s gone wrong…

[ColourFool]

If I live in the moment, I could have a happy life, but I can’t.

ill wake up literally sick with worry over mistakes or things that have gone wrong.

One of those things is that I lost a chunk of my daughter’s baby photos and videos, from age about 8 months to 14 months due to an issue with the cloud and then braking my phone. This happened a decade ago. I had just moved to a new area and my husband was working away so it was only me taking pictures of her. So there is no solution to this one.

Second one is that when I got married many years ago, family members opened all our wedding cards because apparently it was tradition. They handed us a bag full of all the contents - gifts and money, and then the bundle of opened cards.

Another one is that I’ve realised I have misplaced a memory stick with our wedding pictures on. We have moved house many times since we married, so I’m really afraid it’s lost. We do have a photo album and printed pictures. But I feel sick with worry about this. I have begun clearing out the house in order to find it (🤞🏼).

Another one is that I accidentally donated a pair of my daughters first shoes to a charity shop, as they ended up in the wrong bag.

There are more things I could add, but these things keep coming into my mind and I feel like the most useless human being. I feel like I’ve lost our precious family history and I feel physically ill when these thoughts surface.

Please help!

What's precious is your actual family, not physical objects associated with them. It's ok to feel a bit sad if you lost something you wish you still had, but there is no need to feel worried or guilty about it. There is no 'rule' or moral obligation to keep these things. If something is gone, it's ok to feel a bit sad or annoyed about it, then just mentally let it go.

Your family history isn't lost. History is the story of what happened, not physical objects. It makes no sense to waste time drowning yourself in negative feelings about family keepsakes instead of enjoying making new memories with your actual family members.

If you still have the phone/device take it to drivesavers. One of the BEST data recovery companies in the world.

I know it's trite, but I think "what's done is done" is useful in circumstances that you regret but can't change. I tell myself this if I'm stressing about something I've lost or done wrong.

This is from over a decade ago, and the phone was disposed of sadly. I didn’t realise for about 6 months that the cloud had missed about 6 months of content. Thanks for the suggestion, but I really have explored every option.

Kindly OP I think you'd benefit from some therapy. To be caught up over such minor issues isn't healthy

I'm sorry 😔

Ultimately things like photos of your child and their first shoes are lovely to have but don’t really matter in the long run. I bet you have beautiful pictures of your children in all other times of their lives and loads of other keepsakes such that those few photos and the first shoes don’t matter.

why are you anxious about not opening your own cards? With your wedding things, you have lovely memories printed out in an album, you also have your own memories of the day and I bet friends and family have more pictures.

You need to remind yourself that the value of memories and experiences is not in the number of photographs we have of them but in how they enriched and moulded our lives. Your husband and your wedding day and your children are not losing their history if there are only 20 rather than 200 photos of them!

cognitive behaviour therapy can work wonders for excessive worrying .
I suggest you try it .

Within short living memory people had way fewer photos of their childhood and survived the trauma. And people only had their printed out wedding photos, which they looked at once in a blue moon. On the wedding cards I’m not sure I understand the issue. Yes it seems an over reach by the family (though why they were in possession of the cards in the first place is unclear) but what it the issue ultimately? Is it that you didn’t know what gifts came from who? If so you could have just said to people “thank you so much for your gift. Unfortunately Dave’s useless family didn’t note who gave what and it was all muddled so can you please let me know so I can thank you properly?”. The shoes are a non event also. People can’t keep everything.

Excessive rumination is horrendous OP and really affects your current mood and life. Please seek some help - counselling or similar. Hope you feel better soon ❤️

I feel like I’ve lost our precious family history

You haven't. Your history is the memories you had your family share. The precious part it shared memories between people who live each other, not photos or shoes or cards.

And it's not precious to most people anyway. It's clutter. It's what hoarders keep. People who obsessed about keeping everything usually have unresolved trauma or loss that's making them feel this way

I think counselling might help you, OP, to gain a healthier perspective.

Have you been anxious about all these things continuously since they happened or has something recently brought them up?

I have also lost a chunk of photos when I had a phone stolen and hadn't realised it wasn't backing up, so sounds very similar. It felt like a form of grief and I had to keep reminding myself, as a pp said, that I had only lost photos not a child.

There are other ways in which we sound similar, both in the anxious ruminating and in the significance we attach to photos and keepsakes. So I do understand it's hard. I find things lessen with time and I can keep myself calm with little scripts and so on. I've had CBT and other forms of therapy to support me. Perhaps they would help you too?

You can't change the past. Accidental losses and mistakes happen. Accepting them or ruminating doesn't change the outcome.

Possessions don't hold the memories, you do. I don't want to invalidate how you feel but you are not a useless human being nor should you feel physically ill over these lost items.

My take from your post is...

You have printed photos and your wedding album.

A pair of keepsake shoes have now been worn by another child or many children.

You have a 6 month gap in photos - other people may have some of this time and if not, that's okay. You don't need to document every moment despite it seeming that way. The things you did in those 6 months still happened. You can recall them in your memories and add them to your oral history. Generations have told each other stories of the past. Photos may capture the image but you can describe it.

If it is making you ill, consider asking your GP about talking therapies or Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.

Hope you feel better soon. 🥰

it shared memories between people who live each other

• should read "is shared memories between people who love each other"

Kindly, you need help. All of these are non-events.

I have lost almost all baby pictures up to 5 years old. What I do have is my children. I worry about their future; health, work and the world we live in. Those are real concerns @ColourFool - your lost photos are just that- lost photos.

Are there other things going on in your life that are causing you anxiety, OP, because the things you list here are all minor upsets and annoyances really? I wonder if these worries are distractions from the bigger picture?

If, however, your life is otherwise fine and there is nothing else going on but you are truly fixated on these minor issues, then you need to speak to your GP & seek some therapy because it's not really normal to be so anxious about things like lost photos.

I hope you find the peace you are seeking.

Let’s break this down @ColourFool

1. no one but you will be interested in seeing the photos of your DD from 8 months to 14 months - not even your DD. As long as you have some baby pictures those missing 6 months are irrelevant.

2. not sure what the issue is, a) you wanted to experience this with your DH? b) you didn’t know who to thank for which gift? Why didn’t you know about the ‘tradition’? Either way, it was taken out of your hands, so there isn’t much you can do about this, so let-it-go.

3. the missing wedding memory stick would only be a ‘real’ issue if you hadn’t already printed your wedding album - but you have!

4. yes, it would have been a nice ‘keep sake’ for you but you’ve actually helped another family provide a lovely pair of shoes for their little one that they wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy new. That’s better than shoes in a box, untouched, for life.

Your memories are what's important. For various reasons, I don't have a single photo of me from birth to adolescence and it hasn't affected my life at all.