Anyone else doesn’t remember their childhood?

[Aydahayda]

I remember enough to know my parents were bad news. Mostly emotional abuse.

but now knowing what happened and what led to such extensive dissociate amnesia has a real impact on me.

anyone else also experience this? Not having memories from before age 16???

I find it very disturbing. How can I not remember /what has lead tk o this coping mechanism ??

I don’t remember my mother barely at all. Yet I was an only child of a single parent. I do remember some aspects of my childhood playing etc though, but nothing related to her. I only remember two meals before the age of about 12! What I ate and where (apart from the grim food served by childminder I have no recollection of and is a mystery). It is a strange one … it’s not the same but I think I perhaps at least have some understanding of where you’re coming from …

It's a Defence Mechanism.

Childhood abuse becomes ingrained: it was my fault but I can change it. As people move into adulthood they excercise more autonomy and freedom and forget the abuse because it's beneficial to do so.

Unfortunately it rears its ugly head later on. Usually when they have children themselves.

@Aydahayda

Yes it's very disorienting i have been working out this piece by piece like an intricate and perplexing jigsaw puzzles at time,
such as talking to a friend watching a random TV series ect,
something will come up that somehow makes sense to me,
helps me to understand myself better,

Such as watching real life murder series they mention the victim who was adopted person,
that quite often it's common for adopted people to suffer depression not knowing enough of their families history,
and experincing shitty experinces,

Guess what i suffer depression myself,

I was transracially adopted as a child before that went through children's care system,
Losed my lovely adoptive mum whilst a mid teens,
When i look at essential important documents about my shit childhood experiences
I had a episode of dissociative,behaviour
the best way to describe things is it feels like it's not me it's happening to like i am bystander

I also used to be extremely socially arkward and very introverted would find it difficult to talk allmost mute

I didn't realise such thing as selective mutism can be caused by extreme trauma until i was a lot oder after reading about a book on Maya Angelous life story and her childhood trauma of rape or sexual molestions she experienced...

Typo mistake word old *

Same for me. Rough childhood, social services, siblings in care, hard drugs, rehab, parental suicide.

It's like a curtain has been pulled across almost everything upto age 10/11, there's barely any spontaneous memories. When those threads about 80's tv programmes / sweets / music etc and people commenting remembering. And I'm like 🤷‍♀️

My younger siblings (boys) aren't the same, they remember more than me but for the worst parts they were too young to be fully aware i think. Or just different people I guess.

Not quite the same for me, as I had a very happy home life, but school was miserable and I seem to have selectively obliterated most of my memories of school until I was in my teens. I know about things that happened because I have been told they did, but I don't actually remember them myself. Or if I can remember things it's all very vague, and almost like it happened to someone else.
But curiously I can recall other things that occurred outside school in minute detail. Like recently I visited somewhere that I went on holiday with my parents in 1976. I've never been to that town since but I could remember the way to the cottage we stayed in and details down to what I had to eat when we had a pub lunch. But I couldn't tell you the name of my teacher or any of the other pupils in my class that year. I know I did go to school and particated in things like plays etc as we have photos but looking at them still doesn't trigger any memories, even for things that I am told I enjoyed.
It's very strange. Obviously I am protecting itself from negative memories somehow but I find it quite frustrating.

Abusive childhood here too, and I also find it difficult to remember many things. Just snapshots of some of the worst instances, but I am sure I have forgotten most of them.

It's all there though, stored in the body, in my perceptions and reactions. Spent most of my adult life trying to repair the damage.

I’m missing chucks, psychologist said it’s a side effect of cptsd.

My SIl can’t remember school at all, it was horrible for her I think. She’s genuinely so lovely, it hurts my heart that anyone made her suffer so much.

I have some false memories which have been planted by my mother, I no longer know which ones are real to me. I do have some memory flashes but once I realised she had been planting them I began to doubt everything. It’s quite disconcerting. My DM has rewritten history and some of it doesn’t feel right.

@Aydahayda

Thank you for starting this mumsnet thread and thank you to other posters ubove too,

for giving me the safe space and opportunity to be able to speak about this as its isolating and bit tricky difficult in real life to know who to talk safe about stuff like this...

Wow. It will be your mind blocking out the trauma to protect itself.

I am sending you all hugs as I can't imagine what this is like. I remember so, so much from 3 to present day. My childhood was without ACEs. So fortunate.

Yes! I'm in my 50's & having therapy which has made me realise I can't remember a lot of my childhood, especially under the age of 12.
No abuse,but felt very disconnected & lonely as a child (I was an only child),no affection or attention. Its lead to a lot of mental health issues over my life,so have had to have therapy for it,but I am still struggling with the massive chunks of my life that I cannot remember.
I meditate & am currently doing quite a few inner child meditations,one involves going back to your childhood home to visit yourself as a child & I,for the life of me,cannot remember anything about that house (we moved when I was 11)& I find it very strange. My dd can remember so much from when she was a little girl but me,not much at all.

Someone I'm close to has this.

It's apparently related to high levels of cortisol over a long period, which impairs memory formation.

It's a well researched area.

Sorry to all those of you who went through enough to make this happen.

When i reflect about my certain aspects of my childhood which was an extreme mix of Crappy experinces and some good times memories with my family who adopted me

I feel resentful of my birth family that i experinced such a deeply neglectful childhood ect,
I met them i get on surface OK well with them but deeper level there is something psychological fundamental that's missing and what connects us and we have in common is the dysfunctional nature the separation of our childhoods,
weirdly...

Gosh. I didn't realise this was a thing. But also - me too!

I have an occasional flash of memory from childhood but basically I have some memories of very traumatic things, and very little else and large gaps in memory . I have no memory of anything, like 'normal' or ok? I'm sure there must have been 'normal' times but I don't know what they are.

Anyway thank you for sharing. I'm sorry I don't have anything helpful to share. But I suspect others are right in that it's a defence mechanism by the brain to keep us alive and safe xx

I have huge gaps. My sister died when she was 17 and I was 20 so I don't know is it to do with this. I have no other siblings so almost all memories of childhood would involve her. I probably haven't dealt with that at all so maube that's why I have very little memories of her at all. Interesting! I never realised that before.
I wonder is there a way to unlock those memories again?

I don't really remember anything of my childhood.

I'll se photos and that will jog a memory but other than that basically nothing.

It's odd.

I remember 14 onwards very well as I got very seriously ill, and suffered medical neglect.

My ExH and I had couples therapy before we broke up and the therapist said that if I did EMDR I could get the memories back,

I don't really want the memories back.

The ones I have are unpleasant enough.

I have severely deficient autobiographical memory but I also have no “minds eye” so i presume they are related. Funnily enough my husband asked me last night if I have any vivid memories and those I do are not good. Am I blocking out a trauma? I guess I’ll never know.

Exactly the same for me!

I have no memories of most of my childhood.

Then just a few flashes when I was 7/8 and almost always in relation to what was happening outside the house: school, playing with neighbours kids.

Before that most of it is missing. If I could describe it it is like a black veil.

I remember when I was a teen maybe 14/15 bumping into someone who was telling me how we were at school together as kids and I did not even know who she was and had no recollection of what she was talking about...

It wasn't a happy childhood and I assume my brain has just erased most of it.

This continued in adulthood in my 20s and I have years that are again almost completely 'erased'.

I can recall back to my mid 30s and up to now. Same time I started having therapy and my life slowly got better.

I think before that I was literally not quite 'there' if that makes sense.

@chickensaresafehere

Looking at your post makes me think you experinced extreme emotional psychological childhood neglect that has obviously had a profound experince on you,

A child need to know and feel loved and have stability unfortunately that was lacking in your childhood

just like what happened with myself growing up and in the children's care system too...

I struggle at times too to look after myself properly
I know logically what i need to do,

but neglecting myself seems more natural to me,
and yet if a friend needed help or support i would be the first to come around for them

Doesn't make any sense really that i am like this

I wish i was more normal or had been,😕

not as messed up emotionally in the past as i used to be,

I didn't realise how much messed up i was ,

I have this as well. My mum died when I was 10 and I can remember very little about her/before then or my later childhood. I have always assumed it was a self-protection method and I have no wish to try and unlock any of it. It was harder when I had my own children, particularly when my eldest turned 10 and my heart just broke for 10 year old me and what I then had to endure with little support from my emotionally unavailable father who on reflection couldn’t cope with his own grief let alone ours. My mum was never mentioned again by anyone in our family (in front of us at least).

My dad mentioned her about 2 years ago, 35 years later, and seemed to not know he’d created this absence. Although he subsequently told me that my mum dying was much worse for him than me so I think he is self-involved and lacking in empathy to really be able to think about the impact it had on me and my brother.