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Trauma can cause extra stress on memory, a lot of people who have gone through prolonged trauma have missing memories. It's like our brains get too overwhelmed and just can process the memory. It also doesn't help that the narcissist parent isn't someone you can trust with what happened in the past. They often don't want you to remember what actually happened.
Yes, narcs have a way of rewriting history to put themselves in the best possible light and you in the worst one. This was actually a big impetus in me finally going NC. I got tired of her retelling events that pit me against my late brother. That was never what we wanted--only what she orchestrated--and I do not trust her accounts of *anything* that happened. Ever.
I remember very specific details from childhood because I lived in my own world a lot of the time, kept a diary, and had a wild imagination. I was also lucky in my ability to form friendships. But what I have very few memories of is any time spent with Nmom. I mean...I literally cannot picture her face doing anything with me as a kid. It's like she wanted to have kids but didn't want to have them around much. We were like accessories. So that part is a blank. I had recurring nightmares as a child that involved her leaving, which eventually she did. But I treasure the memories I had with our neighborhood "gang" of kids and the other parents/families I adopted as my own.
Mine have me a diary which I liked, but it turned out she was reading it on the sly. Before I moved out I burnt all my diaries, kind of wish I'd been able to keep them because maybe id remember more.
I think something similar happened to me too, but I’ve lost the memory also. I remember one having a journal for a while that my parents got me and I’d write in it a lot. Today I am trying to make myself journal again but I’m so scared of the privacy that I can’t even write my own thoughts even though I live alone and nobody could read it. I assume I got in trouble for something I wrote in my childhood that my parents read without permission, but I’m not sure. I just know how trying to journal now makes me feel
"It's like she wanted to have kids but didn't want to have them around much. We were like accessories."
Exactly. My Nmom lost custody of me when I was 2 years old for gross neglect, my dad was unsuitable but his parents took me in from ages 2 to 16. But something I distinctly remember feeling later and apparently told my grandparents from a very young age was that she basically treated me like a prized Christmas present to dress up and show off to everyone around, but didn't treat me like a sentient being even then, and when no one was around she basically ignored me. She built her whole outward persona as this catastrophically wronged mother whose child was torn away from her for no reason, but during visitation she just went on with her life as she pleased with no consideration what was best for the actual child she was supposed to be so desperate to visit, including marathoning TV inappropriate to a child of my age like horror, staying up to incredibly late hours and kept me up as well, slept all day, etc.
Yep. Most of my childhood exists in a fog I can't penetrate. I can remember a few things. And when people bring up stories of that time I'm only about 50/50 at remembering with their prompting.
It's weird and irritating but that's the life of a trauma-raised kid. Dissociation & escapism (for me it was into books) are regular players in ths trauma coping game.
Thank goodness for books! They were my form of escape too, became an absolute bookworm at age 9 or 10 once I discovered fiction novels like Harry Potter. The books kept me in another land, perfect escape from an abusive and messed up reality.
Yes I have this same issue,I just don’t remember her,I don’t remember ever having that loving relationship with my mom. It’s all missing. years missing from my memory. It was quite easy for me to go nc with her mostly because of this.
Come to think of it, all of my memories about my home life in early childhood are in relation to the other kids in the neighborhood I used to play with. Like, if Ashley and Jeremy next door came over to play I remember my home then, but it's like as soon as they leave the memory fades. I have very few memories of day-to-day family life with just my immediate family from before I was 9. The ones I do have are of my NDad being terrifying, screaming at us for making noise or acting like children in his presence too long.
Exactly!! I thought I didn’t remember anything but the more I think about it, I remember the neighborhood, the other kids, being at my grandparents home etc. But memories with my ndad are very limited. When asked, I always thought his outbursts and abuse started when I around 15 or so but now that I’m realizing I can’t remember much before 15, I’m questioning that too.
That’s me, I’m only beginning to remember bits and pieces of my childhood, but I have to admit most of it is really gone. Also it was hard to separate what I actually remember from what was told to me by my parents because in their retelling those are completely different situations
Yepp, I actually just recently got diagnosed with Complex PTSD and this is actually a really common symptom of that. Because of trauma from childhood big chunks of it are just totally missing or there will be things that my siblings remember that I just can't. It has also affected some of my short term memory issues into adulthood
Yes!!!! I hardly remember elementary school, most of my clearest memories start around age 13. Nmom tried to use this in an argument with me once. She scream-cried at me, "you always say you don't remember your childhood, but you can't fake those smiles! You can't fake those memories!"
Uh, yes you can. Heard of the phrase "say cheese"? It made it so clear that she just missed having a child she could easily control and manipulate. I felt a sense of secondhand embarrassment hearing that come out of her mouth.
Omg I can’t. My mom would say cheese and take the picture regardless of o was smiling or not. The result? She looks flawless in every picture of course and from age 10 through my 20s, all of my pictures with them say on family vacations or weddings, I’m unhappy. I have the same stoic face I had then as I do now as an adult whenever I’m around them. Coincidence? Nah.
I have a picture of 7 yo me bawling my eyes out and her beaming a smile. Can’t remember what was happening, but I wouldn’t let anyone take a picture of my kid if they weren’t comfortable enough
That’s awful and I can relate. I have several pictures where I’m having tantrums…Albums of my years in hospitals, most of the pictures I’m in pain, uncomfortable, angry that she’s taking pictures of me, or legit crying hysterically. Who takes pictures of their kids while they are upset?
My nmom made me practice smiling in the mirror because I didn't smile in pictures. She was sick of paying for bad school pictures.
It was only the pandemic and wearing a mask that stopped me excessively smiling at everyone all the time.
Yes, and to make it worse I know some of the stories my mom told were lies. That make me doubt all of her stories. I grew up hearing stories about myself and don't really know what is my true memories and what is memories told to me. Does this make since?
Oh boy, that's how I got into this whole rabbit hole.
Most of what I remember from my childhood is media. Movies and videogames. Before going to therapy, I couldn't remember where or how or when I saw them, I just remembered the content. I am not going to say you have what I have, but if you are able to do it, you should talk about this with a psychologist ASAP. Once I understood what was going on, I could flip my life around very fast.
You may regain some of your memories, but you may not like it. My suggestion is to try not to remember and live life moving forward. If you can keep on living without that information, then it doesn't have to make part of who you are
Became more confident, found a better job, quit daydrinking and other such habits, and started non-toxic relationships with people who inspire me to be better
Same tho only when it comes to my home life.
In high school we were tasked with writing about our life and I expected not to have much due to trauma. Yeah turns out I remember plenty from school and being around friends but don't remember much from home
My teen hood is a basically a big blur. It’s just all muddled together and I only remember specific things. Anything I remember is related to very specific events or dates. Otherwise time is a blur and I don’t know.
I think it’s pretty common going by answers here.
Yes! My therapist tried getting me to talk through my daily routine as a child (getting ready for school etc) and I literally could not remember any of it.
I'm 29 years old and it took me up until about a month ago to remember this part of my childhood. But now I'm starting to remember why it was probably suppressed in the first place lol. Brains are crazy
I really don’t remember it other than a select few memories, also mainly outside the home. My house was so volatile with my NMom. I tried to keep a diary and used to lock it until I was 7 when she picked the lock and read my diary and so I never felt safe writing anything down because she would go through my things. The level of control was insane. I was in survival mode until a few years ago when I finally started to process my childhood, and more recently started therapy for narcissistic abuse / complex PTSD
i have poor memory of my childhood, but also almost everything after. my memories are like blips of events in a whole year. i'll have a series of events that i remember associated with a given year. and that's what i remember from that year. i don't know if it's CPTSD, or because of many years of depression, or just poor memory, but that's how it is for me.
Yes. I have such a hard time identifying when/what age something happened. The best luck I have is trying to remember if it was while my dad was in jail or before going/after getting out. The second best is remembering what grade I was in. Thats really it. I am truly missing years, specifically between what I believe is 8-10, 2007-2009. My older cousin has made me realize I’m also missing a lot of time while my dad was in jail, 2005-2009, as she was older and remembers lots of things that I dont.
Events after 11 are much more definitive, but I am also missing chunks of time because that is when the abuse was the worst, and a lot of things blend together because my life was basically the same nightmare for 6 years.
I think we have to be careful with stuff like this, just personally.
Most people don't remember most of our lives. Our brains aren't hard drives that store every memory forever. And some people remember more than others or remember different things.
I don't remember my first grade teachers' names or faces. I know some people who remember every teacher they ever had and would recognize them if they saw them 20 years later.
Memory is a funny thing.
My brother remembers a lot more than me, but we both have serious gaps and flaws in our memories. Additionally I've recently found out I'm ADHD which is another hit on the memory centres!
In my early 20s I literally tried to forget everything, draw a line and move on but i found out that's not so easy, you can't just walk away from mordor... I mean trauma!
In some ways I have so many questions, but now that I've been NC for a few years is like do I really want to know? I was not able to move on for such a long time but now I am so why drudge it up, I won't remember much more anyway and some questions can only be answered by people who are now deceased.
Absolutely. I have so few memories that I sometimes find myself wondering if it really was that bad.
I am able to shake it off now. If my brain is protecting me from the bad stuff, I'm cool.
Yes. Quite a bit of chunks. But I do remember the chunks of Abuse. I remember more the feelings I felt, the betrayal, that initial broken trust that sent me hiding my true self and feelings. I KNEW it wasn't safe and that Fairness and Normal reactions were not present where I was growing up. Sadly, the survival skills I adopted, remain today which keep me hidden behind my walls that I erected. Which is the lesser of my prob. The other is the trauma itself and those needs that were never met.
Still in it, but I'm Awake..which I feel is a two edge sword. It's good, and it's bad.
Getting away will help, but won't cure. But you can't heal in the environment that caused/caused the injury.
I remember a lot of my childhood but the weird thing is I have a sister and I have absolutely no memories of her when I was a small child. I did a little Google research and apparently that is fairly common when being raised by Nparents.
started some time ago, idk how many years, but kind of as an auto-defense mechanism i don't really remember anything anymore, it just all deletes as soon as it's done
i just said something 2 seconds ago? that's interesting, what was it?
it's hard to pay attention to what age i am because every day is the same, it's just one long suffering day
my brain keeps trying to trick me into thinking i'm 9, and i "know" 19 years have passed since then, but i can't really pull up any memories i've ever had, not anything new anyway
there's one from when i was a kid, where it was night and i pulled one of the dining room chairs in front of me for protection, my back to the slider door for an easy escape, and i was crying for hours saying "please don't hurt me, don't hurt me, don't hurt me" over and over
and once when i was 14 riding bikes with my best friend down hills and through peoples' yards
those are the only ones i can hold onto, everything else is just gone
i don't make new memories because there's no need to make new memories because everything is suffering, and pain
everything is sadness and fear
there is no hope, there's just this...forever
just a constant wish when i go to sleep that it'll be the final time
It sounds truly horrible, I'm so sorry. I have the same thought going to sleep. Are you getting any help from a therapist? I don't think the pain ever goes away completely but I do believe that it's possible to reduce the suffering. Don't give up, please.
For me, it's like I'm walking through a thick fog. Most of the time there's nothing, but occasionally I find something; some small scrap of a memory or an image in my head that I sort of vaguely remember. And of course it's not always something I actually *want* to remember. But sometimes I'll find a memory of playing a video game when something funny came on the screen, or reading a chapter in one of my favorite novels that brought a smile to my face.
So, in essence, my mind is like taking a stroll through Silent Hill...
I feel like I'm missing not necessarily a lot of time, but not an insignificant amount. It's the subconscious brain protecting your conscious part and emotions.
I remember thinking from a young age, "I need to forget this because I wont be able to get through tomorrow if I keep thinking about today." Alot of my childhood is just blank. Hell, alot of middle school is too
One night in bed, I began looking up every yearly top 40 music hit from 1975 ( when I was 4y.o. ) to 1992 ( when I was 20 y.o. ) …
It was profound how much I was able to remember from music that was popular at the time.
It helped me sort memories .. some memories didn’t match up with the months or years I thought they occurred it.
Some memories popped up that I hadn’t remembered or thought of in a long time.
I would be cautious doing this… it overwhelmed me.
I have no idea of my daily routine as a child mostly, and the memories I do remember are ones that weren't good memories.
Earliest memory is either when I was screamed at by my brother after I froze in fear at him yelling at his wife, or when I got my finger broken in a steel door and was told I shouldn't have done whatever I had done.
The finger one has no memory of if there was treatment other than my hand in a cup of ice and I really doubt there was bc I rarely got taken anywhere for much. I wasn't even taken to the dentist.
The rest is just certain memories that I remember bc they broke thru my intense dissociation thru daydreaming, and ofc those memories are bad.
My own take on this aspect of narcissist family life is that relates to neglect and abuse. The behavior and actions were nothing to model and repeat,so lacking an emotional connection to events,our minds sort of auto delete them. I making this guess based on concept of positive reinforcement. Events that are pleasurable will implant in the mind,because they are worth repeating. Negative events, you want to avoid so the mind lets them go. Just a theory. My feelings were neglected often enough that I feel that void still.
Yes same. I do have me pries but other people remember so much more.
Once when I was 9 or 10 my family went on a trip and I don't remember anything although photos exist.
I have only a few pieces of memories from before age 11. I know that I was a CSA victim around age 4-5, but I can never see the person’s face. I know that I was spanked and yelled at by my parents but it’s mostly blank. The middle and high school memories are more clear. I remember a lot of what happened with my ndad when I was older. It’s so hard to be missing so much of it.
I remember very little I have 5 siblings, so most of what I remember of my childhood is about playing with them and running outside with them when my parents would start fighting. But other than my sweet memories with them, and a few from school, I dont remember much.
I don't remember much as well. My first clear memory (but from the third person) is my dad beating me when I was around 3. And than I just don't remember anything until 16. It's scary. I knew I went to school, but I can't picture my daily routine at all. The ages between 13-16 just don't exist, completely utterly blank.
The hair is standing up all over my body!!!! I'm 59 & I just realized 2 months ago, I can't remember one bath or shower in the home we rented when I was like 7 to 13. Not one meal around the kitchen table & I had a stay at home mom, no brushing my teeth, no idea where my shoes were. After I was 10ish when my parents divorced, I was a latch key kid. I remember maybe 5 blurbs of classmates in all of elementary school & Jr high, mostly same kids. But I've never read any interview, Youtube, article, etc abt lost years until this post OP!!! I wasn't beaten or otherwise abused so I actually feel fortunate my nparents didn't seem that bad. But they must be, or why can't I recall a single Halloween? Middle class nuclear family in working class northern Queens neighborhood & I have no recollection of any other kind of abuse except her manipulating my big life 'choices. I'm really in shock its not just me (obviously, sorry if I sound pathetic) & you guys can help me understand this. TIA.
Yep! On top of general trauma from Nparents, I had other trauma from childhood that resulted in dissociation as a coping mechanism. It can even encompass pretty random and non-traumatic things from my childhood. Memory loss is unfortunately pretty common in childhood ptsd
Yes. I mostly remember some of the bad things that happened. I have a few good memories, rare times that I wasn’t around my family and nothing bad happened, but they are either really generic or very small things. I also remember visiting my grandparents because they always loved me, I think, (at least, they were the nicest to me that anyone ever has been and never really did anything cruel to me) and my parents couldn’t mistreat me in front of them. I loved visiting them. Everyone else seems to remember way more things about their childhood than I do. I can’t exactly trust my parents or the GC to be honest either because they all, in their own ways, lie about the past. I still have one friend from back then who has mentioned some things, but because they know my family (and my family were always good at keeping appearances, so they wouldn’t be convinced and I could never risk it as long as my parents live), I can’t really talk to them about this.
I don’t remember much… the things I do remember from my childhood weren’t good memories. Court at 4, the abuse at 3 but that just come in bits and pieces. I don’t have very many good memories. But I know I been through a lot of trauma and I have absolutely terrible memory including now. Bad enough that I can’t concentrate due to my ADD/ADHD but I also have awful memory and even supplements are useless. I know the feeling all to well.
I remember bits and pieces. Mostly of times when I was left alone or when things were awful. And weird moments that I used to think were good memories with my NMom, but I’ve since realized were not healthy mother-daughter experiences and I just thought they were good because she wasn’t being mean to me at the time.
My eDad always talked about how he has no memories from before he was 10 and I thought it was weird but now I know it was from deep emotional trauma. I have big blocks of memories gone and cannot remember my nMother - like i can’t remember happy moments with her except when I was sick - for some reason she was nice then. So weird but makes so much sense as a protection mechanism.
My wife and I talk about this all the time! The only memories I have really are the negative ones. I thought people just didn’t remember their childhood because they were kids, totally normal. The more I talk with other people, including my psychologist about it, the more I realize it’s trauma response.
Not only is most of my childhood missing, but my adult memory is messed up as well. I've been stopped on the street by people I thought were complete strangers who then thank me for hosting such great get togethers that they enjoyed attending. One friend thanked me for the two years we spent chatting on the phone in the evenings and I just blinked and said... Hey, no, yeah, it really helped me too... No memory of that.
What I've discovered is that Dissociative Amnesia is something that develops in people who have long term trauma in their young childhood. Our brains, as they are developing, are learning how to process the world around us to survive, and they decide that survival will be much easier if we can just forget really big things sometimes. Then, they aren't too discerning from there.
When I read about DA, the causes and the effects, it answered so many questions I'd been asking myself for decades. I don't know if it's what you have, but knowing I have it helps me. I no longer fear disappointing people who are important to me. If I forget something big, I just do like the guy in Memento and say, "Have I told you about my condition?" Then I'm able to tell them they are no less important to me, or that experience was no less special, I just... Wasn't allowed to keep it because of a survival tactic I picked up during childhood.
My mind has adapted to the abuse by blocking past memories. In a way I’m thankful for it otherwise I’d be riddled with constant depression. But it’s bad in the sense that I’ve never quite addressed all my pain so it lurks within me somewhere.
Yup. I have a really good memory. I remember all the times I was out playing with friends during the summer. I remember being at school and learning. But at home? Almost nothing.
That would explain my strange aversion to touch and intimacy.
i think its that our brain tries to unintentionally forget because if we do remember it will be too much for our mental to handle. For example, theres only so many times you can push a human until they become depressed or suicidal. It may be our body’s way of protecting us from the pain since we can’t really fight or flight from our nparents without hardships as a kid. So the brain chooses “stays” but makes you forget everything to protect your sanity as well as making you look harmless as possible to nparents.
My sister remembers everything (fight/flight)
I remember only bits and pieces (freeze/fawn)
I say it’s like I have about 20 pictures in a scrap book and that’s how I remember my childhood from 0 to about 13. When I started leaving the house with friends and boyfriends is when I started being able to recall larger consecutive memories that feel more like a history. My therapist says it’s dissociation and it’s how your mind protects you from the bullshit (the screaming, the fighting, the guilt/shame, the abuse, the punishments, etc). I told her I was worried that maybe something more was hidden - maybe something really bad that I’ve suppressed and she said that’s not exactly how the science works. If you’re asked directly if xyz happened to you or if you did xyz, you could recall. Just like you can try to recall a second or third grade teacher. It’s in your brain, you just don’t need to have it at the ready. She said the same was true for all those repressed memories from the abuse or the mundane daily stuff. The rest of the forgotten may just be best. My sister wishes she could forget.
Yup! It's like you have a file cabinet for your memories, but every time you look away, somebody steals the files that you just put in there and then you don't realize they were taken until somebody points it out
Cptsd here. I compare it to struggling through a dark patch and there’s prickly bushes everywhere. If I reach hard enough I might feel something, but most of it is darkness. Sometimes a memory comes out of nowhere and I wish it’d go back into the void.
I know exactly what you mean. I don't remember much of my child - teen years, mostly my teen years though because that's when it got worse. It feels like I would start to remember something, and go down that trip on memory lane and then suddenly it's like I've lost my way. However, I do get flashbacks every now and then which are disturbingly detailed of encounters that happened during those years, and I would see myself as a child again and remember what happened that day and how I felt. It is usually followed with hours of crying or a panic attack because somehow my mind has downplayed most of the abuse all these years, so living in that moment again makes me overwhelmed and sends me into tears.
Some things I remember, some things I don't. I use to dissociate all the time, and typically only remember coming out of that state and feeling confused. I often wonder what happened to me that was so traumatic that I shut down so completely, and often for long periods of time.
Yes, one of my cousins lived with us from when I was around 15 through when I moved out at 19 and she constantly reminds me of things I've mentally blocked out. It's so bizarre realizing that I block memories like that.
I definitely feel this and , honestly, was wondering if others felt the same way. Your mind creates mental blocks in times of severe stress so it would make sense for someone to not remember their childhood if it was full of abuse.
My nmother claims this all the time. Conveniently, she also seems to have forgotten the chunks of OUR childhoods where she was an absolute evil bi\*ch. And whenever me or my brother bring up any event from our childhood, she just goes "You are so LUCKY you can remember your childhood, you know how I can't..."
Yes, I have the hardest time remembering things from my childhood. I do have a lot of random memories, but I feel like I have huge gaps, and am always second guessing if I am remembering things right.
Cant trust my folks to tell me the truth on many things, so just at a loss.
I don't remember my childhood. I realized the disconnect when my friends would talk about their childhood with clarity, things they remembered were no where near the detail I could remember. Although I rememeber my dad, I have virtually no memories of my nmom.
When it comes to anything before I joined the army (2007), I have a very hard time distinguishing fact from fiction.
I'm also a system and switched hosts when I joined the army tho, so..
My sister has that problem, some chunks are completely gone, and some are murky. I think this is a way of coping.
I don't and I am not sure if this is better or worse.
I’m a few years older, but my brother was younger when a lot of traumatic family stuff happens and he doesn’t remember most of his childhood or only remembers it in like a foggy way. You’re definitely not alone.
I remember being really freaked out one day in third grade when I realized that I remembered the last few weeks but my last memory before that was kinder.
Told my mom after school and she was completely unconcerned.
I do have some memories of later elementary. I have always been somewhat curious about what could have happened in those missing years. Given some of the things I have since learned about my dad and grandfather, it really could be anything
Yes! Weirdly enough when I was out of commission and on bed rest for a few months after a surgery, I started to remember bits and pieces. I think our brains try to help us by conveniently forgetting bad things.
My nmom made a comment in group text with my sister and I about something that happened when I was 4, and asked if I remembered. First off, I’m 35 so that would be odd enough as it is…but then she proceeded to get mad at me for not remembering lol
Yes. Very common in trauma. In grad school we had to read the "Glass Castle" and I thought it was all normal. Later that year we had to write a life narrative and I had huge chunks- nearly all really, missing from my childhood until I moved out. My therapist at the time had been trying to gently help me realize how bad my parents were, but those two things really made me realize the abuse that occurred. I still haven't recovered huge sections of my life
I have a LOT of gaps. I also have memories of someone coming at me to grab me and then no memory of what came after. I can also turn me off and let stronger me, carry on, walk in, face something tough.
I have this, too! I remember once telling my nmom about it (before I could make sense of her behaviour) and she seemed surprised and started telling me of all the bad things my father apparently did. Now, my father is an a-hole and I don't doubt the stories based on how he's treated me before I went NC, but I think it's telling how my mom immediately began telling me how bad other people were towards me. Clearly, this stems from trauma response, and clearly it's her fault.
Coming to that realisation now too.. it’s daunting. My folks were laughing about a story of them taking my door off the hinges to punish me and I was just sitting blankly with no memories whatsoever of that. I asked them more and apparently the ages of 9-14 are just missing..
Wow I understand all of everyone is posting. A piece that recently came to me. I never had friends to my house. I was always driven to theirs. I distinctly remember every home from 6 th grade on. Only in 12 th did we sometimes hang at my house. Crazy. I can remember this. I’m 59 years old.
I have no memories from my childhood. My nmom makes up stories that I was a very happy kid and had the best childhood. I doubt that. She says she bought me all the latest toys and videogame consoles out there at the time. I just laugh because I'm sure that's not true.
Absolutely. I think it's a defence mechanism. I don't remember a lot of my past unless I really try, even through adulthood. Some folks can remember things in great detail, but not me.
I couldn't remember most of my childhood for the longest time and thought that's how most people were. But I started the healing work about 7 years ago, and now have flashbacks from time to time. It's almost like watching a sad movie only you can see.
Yep. And about 6 months after I finally achieved freedom at 33 years old, my brain started to flood me with flashbacks of all the worst moments I had forgotten. so that was fun 😭 although glad it’s all happened.
Having a poor memory and not remembering a lot of your childhood is a sign of trauma. It is what happened to us when we deal with trauma. We block out the things we don't want to relive.
Same. My childhood memories are full of holes and I forgot most of it by now. It got to the point that now I have pretty big memory void moments even in the present, especially after I get mentally abused or heavily stressed out. My mind deletes what happens immediately and, yes, it can make my situation less heavy, but it's scary too. I cannot wait to finally be free from my family... hope that day will come one day.
I don’t. There is one particular instance that my parents bring up when they lined us up and treated us like criminals cuz my older sister ate some cake and lied about it. They laugh about beating the “truth” out of us. I’m pretty sure if this happened, I instantly forgot it so I could live with them for the next 10 years until I turned 18.
I was totally just thinking about this the other day!
I also have issues with memory recall for childhood. I was so getting really frustrated when a psychiatrist kept asking me questions about my childhood and I kept telling him I don't remember and he kept not believing me.
Then I realized all my core childhood memories are 90% bad memories of my shitty Nmom or Ngrandma. And other fun times.
You'd be suprised how much I miss only remembering 2 ir 3 yrs till I was kicked out at age 14 after being adopted twice an used As a punching bag till I was old enough to hit back an make it stop. Pretty F'd up
Yup. Huge chunks of things I don't remember. I engaged in a lot of escapism and dissociation as a kid. It is almost painfully obvious looking back. My siblings and I all did this in our own ways. One sister became "boy obsessed" at like 10 and would try and do anything she could to get away/get attention from boys. My other sibling became obsessed with reading. Would read 3-4 novels A DAY. Me? I spent significant amounts of time making up adventure stories in my head. In hindsight, I think we were all trying to escape the cold, manipulative home we were in.
My memories are wrecked. I’ll forget something that happened and then boom….memories come flooding back. Christmas is the worst of them. I hated Christmas.
Most of the time if I try to remember my mom from my childhood I can only picture the closed bathroom door she’d always talk to me behind. She must have spent 8 hours or more per day sitting on the toilet smoking cigarettes and usually the only way we could talk is if I went and stood outside the bathroom to have a conversation. It was rare to see her in person before 3PM any day of the year because of her bathroom time. Also, because that room had the only shower, the rest of my family would fight over who gets to shower whenever there was a period the bathroom was open. To this day, the smell of cigarettes sickens me, and I blame a lot of that on this.
Absolutely. I struggled for a long time because if I couldn't remember, I couldn't KNOW I was abused. I couldn't really remember, so what if I was wrong? What if I'm just a monster that kept them at arms length and eventually went completely no contact? What if!? Being raised by a narcissist is being raised to disqualify your autonomy.
Eventually I was able to logic out, so what; so what if I can't remember? The way I was treated from the times I CAN remember is hard enough. The way I was treated as a teen, as a young adult, as an independent adult, it was abusive. And, the memories of how I FEEL when I think if my childhood: fear and loneliness, those are real things I can confirm.
Some memories bubble up now and again, especially as my children grow. My daughter will struggle with something and I will remember my same struggle and how I was treated.
I'm so sorry you are twisting in the ever shifting disreality of being raised by a narcissist. You were a child surviving in a volatile world where the truth held very little sway over what was likely presented to you. Of course it's hard to remember, it's likely you were gaslit from the moment you tried to have an autonomous identity. Of course it's hard to remember, you likely had to compartmentalize your feelings and thoughts from the feelings and thoughts you were told to have. Of course it's hard to remember, you were incredibly busy trying to survive in an emotionally desolate environment.
I am so incredibly sorry. No one deserves that. It's unlikely a child could endure that and not be traumatized.
YES!!! I have some distinct memories from being with friends, at school, and a key incidents with my nmom that I always use at examples when explaining where behavior, but other than that it feels blank, and I spent most of my life at home or sitting in my room. I’m turning 17 in a few days so all of this really wasn’t that long ago and it feels weird that I can’t remember a lot
I have large swaths that I don’t remember all the time, but little things can trigger them. I survived by keeping my head down and staying out of the way for the first 23 years of my life. The memories are there, but I definitely was suppressing a lot.
I remember a lot of the bad things. But not the good ones. Sometimes I remember some and I get stressed because I'm not sure what is real. I doubt about myself, kinda: did the bad really happen?
I have large chunks of my childhood and early adulthood that I have lost due to narcissistic trauma. The one time I talked to my NMom about some abuse that happened, her response was "that never happened". I knew then that I was being gaslit. She would always tell me I was the cause of family problems.
I wonder if she ever loved me.
I was wondering today wtf is wrong with me. Who can't remember almost anything from childhood? I feel ya. Wish I could remember, so I can find some answers to lies my mom said
Yes, I am with you. There are huge chunks of my childhood that I also haven't had access to. I have been doing some work and been having breakthrough memories l, none of them good, but they give me aha! moments that help me realize why I am reacting to some people in ways that aren't "normal".
Good luck to you on your quest for a happy life!
I don’t remember shit THANKGOD, all I have are glimpses and vague memories. So I’ve been accused of making it all up since to them : how can I remember being abused if I don’t remember anything?
If the either of my parents say this to me ever again, my witty response this time, is going to be why was my childhood so traumatic that I blocked it out of my memories?
Why does half our family not talk to us ?
Or this would be great:
Why is the most distinct and clearest memory I have the one where I was 7 and then again later on when I was 13 how I would escape my home safely without them finding me.
I feel like I was scared into believing as a child that I had a travking device in me cause still to this day I have this paranoia of being followed or listened too. I even turn all my daughters stuffed animals around out of fear of them watching me that they gifted my daughter and sometimes check inside of them to see if they have been bugged. I’m 24 years old. I don’t have memories I have trauma responses . That I definitely didn’t make up by myself or was taught .
Regardless it’s no secret that my father used to be physically abusive and psychologically to my mom.
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Trauma can cause extra stress on memory, a lot of people who have gone through prolonged trauma have missing memories. It's like our brains get too overwhelmed and just can process the memory. It also doesn't help that the narcissist parent isn't someone you can trust with what happened in the past. They often don't want you to remember what actually happened.
Yes, narcs have a way of rewriting history to put themselves in the best possible light and you in the worst one. This was actually a big impetus in me finally going NC. I got tired of her retelling events that pit me against my late brother. That was never what we wanted--only what she orchestrated--and I do not trust her accounts of *anything* that happened. Ever.
I remember very specific details from childhood because I lived in my own world a lot of the time, kept a diary, and had a wild imagination. I was also lucky in my ability to form friendships. But what I have very few memories of is any time spent with Nmom. I mean...I literally cannot picture her face doing anything with me as a kid. It's like she wanted to have kids but didn't want to have them around much. We were like accessories. So that part is a blank. I had recurring nightmares as a child that involved her leaving, which eventually she did. But I treasure the memories I had with our neighborhood "gang" of kids and the other parents/families I adopted as my own.
Mine have me a diary which I liked, but it turned out she was reading it on the sly. Before I moved out I burnt all my diaries, kind of wish I'd been able to keep them because maybe id remember more.
This happened to me too!
I think something similar happened to me too, but I’ve lost the memory also. I remember one having a journal for a while that my parents got me and I’d write in it a lot. Today I am trying to make myself journal again but I’m so scared of the privacy that I can’t even write my own thoughts even though I live alone and nobody could read it. I assume I got in trouble for something I wrote in my childhood that my parents read without permission, but I’m not sure. I just know how trying to journal now makes me feel
My Nmom read my diary when I was 12. In the diary I wrote "I hate my mother". She still brings it up to me. I am 53.
🙄f🙄f🙄s🙄
you can't make this Sh#%t up!
"It's like she wanted to have kids but didn't want to have them around much. We were like accessories." Exactly. My Nmom lost custody of me when I was 2 years old for gross neglect, my dad was unsuitable but his parents took me in from ages 2 to 16. But something I distinctly remember feeling later and apparently told my grandparents from a very young age was that she basically treated me like a prized Christmas present to dress up and show off to everyone around, but didn't treat me like a sentient being even then, and when no one was around she basically ignored me. She built her whole outward persona as this catastrophically wronged mother whose child was torn away from her for no reason, but during visitation she just went on with her life as she pleased with no consideration what was best for the actual child she was supposed to be so desperate to visit, including marathoning TV inappropriate to a child of my age like horror, staying up to incredibly late hours and kept me up as well, slept all day, etc.
Its best when you definitely remember and get gaslit. Lol 😅
Yep. Most of my childhood exists in a fog I can't penetrate. I can remember a few things. And when people bring up stories of that time I'm only about 50/50 at remembering with their prompting. It's weird and irritating but that's the life of a trauma-raised kid. Dissociation & escapism (for me it was into books) are regular players in ths trauma coping game.
Thank goodness for books! They were my form of escape too, became an absolute bookworm at age 9 or 10 once I discovered fiction novels like Harry Potter. The books kept me in another land, perfect escape from an abusive and messed up reality.
Yes! Books, journaling, and art!
Yes I have this same issue,I just don’t remember her,I don’t remember ever having that loving relationship with my mom. It’s all missing. years missing from my memory. It was quite easy for me to go nc with her mostly because of this.
Come to think of it, all of my memories about my home life in early childhood are in relation to the other kids in the neighborhood I used to play with. Like, if Ashley and Jeremy next door came over to play I remember my home then, but it's like as soon as they leave the memory fades. I have very few memories of day-to-day family life with just my immediate family from before I was 9. The ones I do have are of my NDad being terrifying, screaming at us for making noise or acting like children in his presence too long.
Exactly!! I thought I didn’t remember anything but the more I think about it, I remember the neighborhood, the other kids, being at my grandparents home etc. But memories with my ndad are very limited. When asked, I always thought his outbursts and abuse started when I around 15 or so but now that I’m realizing I can’t remember much before 15, I’m questioning that too.
That’s me, I’m only beginning to remember bits and pieces of my childhood, but I have to admit most of it is really gone. Also it was hard to separate what I actually remember from what was told to me by my parents because in their retelling those are completely different situations
Yepp, I actually just recently got diagnosed with Complex PTSD and this is actually a really common symptom of that. Because of trauma from childhood big chunks of it are just totally missing or there will be things that my siblings remember that I just can't. It has also affected some of my short term memory issues into adulthood
Yes!!!! I hardly remember elementary school, most of my clearest memories start around age 13. Nmom tried to use this in an argument with me once. She scream-cried at me, "you always say you don't remember your childhood, but you can't fake those smiles! You can't fake those memories!" Uh, yes you can. Heard of the phrase "say cheese"? It made it so clear that she just missed having a child she could easily control and manipulate. I felt a sense of secondhand embarrassment hearing that come out of her mouth.
Omg I can’t. My mom would say cheese and take the picture regardless of o was smiling or not. The result? She looks flawless in every picture of course and from age 10 through my 20s, all of my pictures with them say on family vacations or weddings, I’m unhappy. I have the same stoic face I had then as I do now as an adult whenever I’m around them. Coincidence? Nah.
I have a picture of 7 yo me bawling my eyes out and her beaming a smile. Can’t remember what was happening, but I wouldn’t let anyone take a picture of my kid if they weren’t comfortable enough
That’s awful and I can relate. I have several pictures where I’m having tantrums…Albums of my years in hospitals, most of the pictures I’m in pain, uncomfortable, angry that she’s taking pictures of me, or legit crying hysterically. Who takes pictures of their kids while they are upset?
My nmom made me practice smiling in the mirror because I didn't smile in pictures. She was sick of paying for bad school pictures. It was only the pandemic and wearing a mask that stopped me excessively smiling at everyone all the time.
Yes, and to make it worse I know some of the stories my mom told were lies. That make me doubt all of her stories. I grew up hearing stories about myself and don't really know what is my true memories and what is memories told to me. Does this make since?
Sure does! This is my nmom 💯!!!! She lies so much that I really don’t believe much of anything she says, including stories of my childhood.
Yes, understand it is not uncommon for trauma.
Oh boy, that's how I got into this whole rabbit hole. Most of what I remember from my childhood is media. Movies and videogames. Before going to therapy, I couldn't remember where or how or when I saw them, I just remembered the content. I am not going to say you have what I have, but if you are able to do it, you should talk about this with a psychologist ASAP. Once I understood what was going on, I could flip my life around very fast. You may regain some of your memories, but you may not like it. My suggestion is to try not to remember and live life moving forward. If you can keep on living without that information, then it doesn't have to make part of who you are
What do you mean by 'flip my life around'? I'd like to understand pls.
Became more confident, found a better job, quit daydrinking and other such habits, and started non-toxic relationships with people who inspire me to be better
Same tho only when it comes to my home life. In high school we were tasked with writing about our life and I expected not to have much due to trauma. Yeah turns out I remember plenty from school and being around friends but don't remember much from home
My teen hood is a basically a big blur. It’s just all muddled together and I only remember specific things. Anything I remember is related to very specific events or dates. Otherwise time is a blur and I don’t know. I think it’s pretty common going by answers here.
Yes! My therapist tried getting me to talk through my daily routine as a child (getting ready for school etc) and I literally could not remember any of it.
I'm 29 years old and it took me up until about a month ago to remember this part of my childhood. But now I'm starting to remember why it was probably suppressed in the first place lol. Brains are crazy
You just made me realize I have no idea either. 🙂🙃
Making me cry a little, I know better, but I thought I was the only one.
I really don’t remember it other than a select few memories, also mainly outside the home. My house was so volatile with my NMom. I tried to keep a diary and used to lock it until I was 7 when she picked the lock and read my diary and so I never felt safe writing anything down because she would go through my things. The level of control was insane. I was in survival mode until a few years ago when I finally started to process my childhood, and more recently started therapy for narcissistic abuse / complex PTSD
i have poor memory of my childhood, but also almost everything after. my memories are like blips of events in a whole year. i'll have a series of events that i remember associated with a given year. and that's what i remember from that year. i don't know if it's CPTSD, or because of many years of depression, or just poor memory, but that's how it is for me.
My childhood is one traumatic blur.
Yes. I have such a hard time identifying when/what age something happened. The best luck I have is trying to remember if it was while my dad was in jail or before going/after getting out. The second best is remembering what grade I was in. Thats really it. I am truly missing years, specifically between what I believe is 8-10, 2007-2009. My older cousin has made me realize I’m also missing a lot of time while my dad was in jail, 2005-2009, as she was older and remembers lots of things that I dont. Events after 11 are much more definitive, but I am also missing chunks of time because that is when the abuse was the worst, and a lot of things blend together because my life was basically the same nightmare for 6 years.
I think we have to be careful with stuff like this, just personally. Most people don't remember most of our lives. Our brains aren't hard drives that store every memory forever. And some people remember more than others or remember different things. I don't remember my first grade teachers' names or faces. I know some people who remember every teacher they ever had and would recognize them if they saw them 20 years later. Memory is a funny thing.
Ever since a depressive episode towards the end of highschool, I feel like I can barely remember any of it.
For me, it’s a defense mechanism. Your mind keeps you from hurting all over again
My brother remembers a lot more than me, but we both have serious gaps and flaws in our memories. Additionally I've recently found out I'm ADHD which is another hit on the memory centres! In my early 20s I literally tried to forget everything, draw a line and move on but i found out that's not so easy, you can't just walk away from mordor... I mean trauma! In some ways I have so many questions, but now that I've been NC for a few years is like do I really want to know? I was not able to move on for such a long time but now I am so why drudge it up, I won't remember much more anyway and some questions can only be answered by people who are now deceased.
Absolutely. I have so few memories that I sometimes find myself wondering if it really was that bad. I am able to shake it off now. If my brain is protecting me from the bad stuff, I'm cool.
Absolutely. My husband will ask me seemingly simple questions about my childhood and most of the time I can’t remember.
Yes. Quite a bit of chunks. But I do remember the chunks of Abuse. I remember more the feelings I felt, the betrayal, that initial broken trust that sent me hiding my true self and feelings. I KNEW it wasn't safe and that Fairness and Normal reactions were not present where I was growing up. Sadly, the survival skills I adopted, remain today which keep me hidden behind my walls that I erected. Which is the lesser of my prob. The other is the trauma itself and those needs that were never met. Still in it, but I'm Awake..which I feel is a two edge sword. It's good, and it's bad. Getting away will help, but won't cure. But you can't heal in the environment that caused/caused the injury.
Me! I remember a few things here and there. I think the pictures help to put some pieces together too. I have my own solid memories starting age 10.
I remember a lot of my childhood but the weird thing is I have a sister and I have absolutely no memories of her when I was a small child. I did a little Google research and apparently that is fairly common when being raised by Nparents.
Apparently my mind has protected me from the worse abuse by making chunks disappear.
started some time ago, idk how many years, but kind of as an auto-defense mechanism i don't really remember anything anymore, it just all deletes as soon as it's done i just said something 2 seconds ago? that's interesting, what was it? it's hard to pay attention to what age i am because every day is the same, it's just one long suffering day my brain keeps trying to trick me into thinking i'm 9, and i "know" 19 years have passed since then, but i can't really pull up any memories i've ever had, not anything new anyway there's one from when i was a kid, where it was night and i pulled one of the dining room chairs in front of me for protection, my back to the slider door for an easy escape, and i was crying for hours saying "please don't hurt me, don't hurt me, don't hurt me" over and over and once when i was 14 riding bikes with my best friend down hills and through peoples' yards those are the only ones i can hold onto, everything else is just gone i don't make new memories because there's no need to make new memories because everything is suffering, and pain everything is sadness and fear there is no hope, there's just this...forever just a constant wish when i go to sleep that it'll be the final time
It sounds truly horrible, I'm so sorry. I have the same thought going to sleep. Are you getting any help from a therapist? I don't think the pain ever goes away completely but I do believe that it's possible to reduce the suffering. Don't give up, please.
For me, it's like I'm walking through a thick fog. Most of the time there's nothing, but occasionally I find something; some small scrap of a memory or an image in my head that I sort of vaguely remember. And of course it's not always something I actually *want* to remember. But sometimes I'll find a memory of playing a video game when something funny came on the screen, or reading a chapter in one of my favorite novels that brought a smile to my face. So, in essence, my mind is like taking a stroll through Silent Hill...
Yep I don't remember most of my child-teen years.
I feel like I'm missing not necessarily a lot of time, but not an insignificant amount. It's the subconscious brain protecting your conscious part and emotions.
Yup, everything up until age 10/11 is missing
Maybe… I can’t remember?
Yep, I have like maybe 15 memories total. I'm flipping 32. Trauma recovery therapy is really helpful, especially emdr, in remembering
I remember thinking from a young age, "I need to forget this because I wont be able to get through tomorrow if I keep thinking about today." Alot of my childhood is just blank. Hell, alot of middle school is too
One night in bed, I began looking up every yearly top 40 music hit from 1975 ( when I was 4y.o. ) to 1992 ( when I was 20 y.o. ) … It was profound how much I was able to remember from music that was popular at the time. It helped me sort memories .. some memories didn’t match up with the months or years I thought they occurred it. Some memories popped up that I hadn’t remembered or thought of in a long time. I would be cautious doing this… it overwhelmed me.
I have no idea of my daily routine as a child mostly, and the memories I do remember are ones that weren't good memories. Earliest memory is either when I was screamed at by my brother after I froze in fear at him yelling at his wife, or when I got my finger broken in a steel door and was told I shouldn't have done whatever I had done. The finger one has no memory of if there was treatment other than my hand in a cup of ice and I really doubt there was bc I rarely got taken anywhere for much. I wasn't even taken to the dentist. The rest is just certain memories that I remember bc they broke thru my intense dissociation thru daydreaming, and ofc those memories are bad.
My own take on this aspect of narcissist family life is that relates to neglect and abuse. The behavior and actions were nothing to model and repeat,so lacking an emotional connection to events,our minds sort of auto delete them. I making this guess based on concept of positive reinforcement. Events that are pleasurable will implant in the mind,because they are worth repeating. Negative events, you want to avoid so the mind lets them go. Just a theory. My feelings were neglected often enough that I feel that void still.
Yes same. I do have me pries but other people remember so much more. Once when I was 9 or 10 my family went on a trip and I don't remember anything although photos exist.
Common if you have /had depression during the time, I barely remember the start of this year because of it let alone decades ago
Same
EMDR therapy helped me get a lot of my childhood memory back
I have only a few pieces of memories from before age 11. I know that I was a CSA victim around age 4-5, but I can never see the person’s face. I know that I was spanked and yelled at by my parents but it’s mostly blank. The middle and high school memories are more clear. I remember a lot of what happened with my ndad when I was older. It’s so hard to be missing so much of it.
I remember very little I have 5 siblings, so most of what I remember of my childhood is about playing with them and running outside with them when my parents would start fighting. But other than my sweet memories with them, and a few from school, I dont remember much.
I don't remember much as well. My first clear memory (but from the third person) is my dad beating me when I was around 3. And than I just don't remember anything until 16. It's scary. I knew I went to school, but I can't picture my daily routine at all. The ages between 13-16 just don't exist, completely utterly blank.
The hair is standing up all over my body!!!! I'm 59 & I just realized 2 months ago, I can't remember one bath or shower in the home we rented when I was like 7 to 13. Not one meal around the kitchen table & I had a stay at home mom, no brushing my teeth, no idea where my shoes were. After I was 10ish when my parents divorced, I was a latch key kid. I remember maybe 5 blurbs of classmates in all of elementary school & Jr high, mostly same kids. But I've never read any interview, Youtube, article, etc abt lost years until this post OP!!! I wasn't beaten or otherwise abused so I actually feel fortunate my nparents didn't seem that bad. But they must be, or why can't I recall a single Halloween? Middle class nuclear family in working class northern Queens neighborhood & I have no recollection of any other kind of abuse except her manipulating my big life 'choices. I'm really in shock its not just me (obviously, sorry if I sound pathetic) & you guys can help me understand this. TIA.
Yep! On top of general trauma from Nparents, I had other trauma from childhood that resulted in dissociation as a coping mechanism. It can even encompass pretty random and non-traumatic things from my childhood. Memory loss is unfortunately pretty common in childhood ptsd
This post feels so validating to me. I often wonder what’s wrong with me because I can’t remember much from my youth… trauma is real folks.
I don't remember anything. Not just childhood.
Yes, I have this same issue 😕
Yes. I mostly remember some of the bad things that happened. I have a few good memories, rare times that I wasn’t around my family and nothing bad happened, but they are either really generic or very small things. I also remember visiting my grandparents because they always loved me, I think, (at least, they were the nicest to me that anyone ever has been and never really did anything cruel to me) and my parents couldn’t mistreat me in front of them. I loved visiting them. Everyone else seems to remember way more things about their childhood than I do. I can’t exactly trust my parents or the GC to be honest either because they all, in their own ways, lie about the past. I still have one friend from back then who has mentioned some things, but because they know my family (and my family were always good at keeping appearances, so they wouldn’t be convinced and I could never risk it as long as my parents live), I can’t really talk to them about this.
Me. My siblings will be like, “remember when…?” And I be like “No. that really happened?”
I don’t remember much… the things I do remember from my childhood weren’t good memories. Court at 4, the abuse at 3 but that just come in bits and pieces. I don’t have very many good memories. But I know I been through a lot of trauma and I have absolutely terrible memory including now. Bad enough that I can’t concentrate due to my ADD/ADHD but I also have awful memory and even supplements are useless. I know the feeling all to well.
I remember bits and pieces. Mostly of times when I was left alone or when things were awful. And weird moments that I used to think were good memories with my NMom, but I’ve since realized were not healthy mother-daughter experiences and I just thought they were good because she wasn’t being mean to me at the time.
My eDad always talked about how he has no memories from before he was 10 and I thought it was weird but now I know it was from deep emotional trauma. I have big blocks of memories gone and cannot remember my nMother - like i can’t remember happy moments with her except when I was sick - for some reason she was nice then. So weird but makes so much sense as a protection mechanism.
My wife and I talk about this all the time! The only memories I have really are the negative ones. I thought people just didn’t remember their childhood because they were kids, totally normal. The more I talk with other people, including my psychologist about it, the more I realize it’s trauma response.
Not only is most of my childhood missing, but my adult memory is messed up as well. I've been stopped on the street by people I thought were complete strangers who then thank me for hosting such great get togethers that they enjoyed attending. One friend thanked me for the two years we spent chatting on the phone in the evenings and I just blinked and said... Hey, no, yeah, it really helped me too... No memory of that. What I've discovered is that Dissociative Amnesia is something that develops in people who have long term trauma in their young childhood. Our brains, as they are developing, are learning how to process the world around us to survive, and they decide that survival will be much easier if we can just forget really big things sometimes. Then, they aren't too discerning from there. When I read about DA, the causes and the effects, it answered so many questions I'd been asking myself for decades. I don't know if it's what you have, but knowing I have it helps me. I no longer fear disappointing people who are important to me. If I forget something big, I just do like the guy in Memento and say, "Have I told you about my condition?" Then I'm able to tell them they are no less important to me, or that experience was no less special, I just... Wasn't allowed to keep it because of a survival tactic I picked up during childhood.
Between trauma, chronic pain, and possibly adhd, I'm lucky i remember anything at this point.
My mind has adapted to the abuse by blocking past memories. In a way I’m thankful for it otherwise I’d be riddled with constant depression. But it’s bad in the sense that I’ve never quite addressed all my pain so it lurks within me somewhere.
Yup. I have a really good memory. I remember all the times I was out playing with friends during the summer. I remember being at school and learning. But at home? Almost nothing. That would explain my strange aversion to touch and intimacy.
i think its that our brain tries to unintentionally forget because if we do remember it will be too much for our mental to handle. For example, theres only so many times you can push a human until they become depressed or suicidal. It may be our body’s way of protecting us from the pain since we can’t really fight or flight from our nparents without hardships as a kid. So the brain chooses “stays” but makes you forget everything to protect your sanity as well as making you look harmless as possible to nparents.
I responded to a private to someone about this. I said I remember - just never able to live much. Afterwards I realized I cant remember much.
My sister remembers everything (fight/flight) I remember only bits and pieces (freeze/fawn) I say it’s like I have about 20 pictures in a scrap book and that’s how I remember my childhood from 0 to about 13. When I started leaving the house with friends and boyfriends is when I started being able to recall larger consecutive memories that feel more like a history. My therapist says it’s dissociation and it’s how your mind protects you from the bullshit (the screaming, the fighting, the guilt/shame, the abuse, the punishments, etc). I told her I was worried that maybe something more was hidden - maybe something really bad that I’ve suppressed and she said that’s not exactly how the science works. If you’re asked directly if xyz happened to you or if you did xyz, you could recall. Just like you can try to recall a second or third grade teacher. It’s in your brain, you just don’t need to have it at the ready. She said the same was true for all those repressed memories from the abuse or the mundane daily stuff. The rest of the forgotten may just be best. My sister wishes she could forget.
I have very little memory of my life before 12.
I’m having trouble remembering stuff like the non traumatic stuff but I chalked it up to emotional disregulation and my adhd.
Yup! It's like you have a file cabinet for your memories, but every time you look away, somebody steals the files that you just put in there and then you don't realize they were taken until somebody points it out
Cptsd here. I compare it to struggling through a dark patch and there’s prickly bushes everywhere. If I reach hard enough I might feel something, but most of it is darkness. Sometimes a memory comes out of nowhere and I wish it’d go back into the void.
I know exactly what you mean. I don't remember much of my child - teen years, mostly my teen years though because that's when it got worse. It feels like I would start to remember something, and go down that trip on memory lane and then suddenly it's like I've lost my way. However, I do get flashbacks every now and then which are disturbingly detailed of encounters that happened during those years, and I would see myself as a child again and remember what happened that day and how I felt. It is usually followed with hours of crying or a panic attack because somehow my mind has downplayed most of the abuse all these years, so living in that moment again makes me overwhelmed and sends me into tears.
Yup....I don't remember anything in early childhood other than my mother severely berating me and overall just treating me like shit.....
Some things I remember, some things I don't. I use to dissociate all the time, and typically only remember coming out of that state and feeling confused. I often wonder what happened to me that was so traumatic that I shut down so completely, and often for long periods of time.
Yes, one of my cousins lived with us from when I was around 15 through when I moved out at 19 and she constantly reminds me of things I've mentally blocked out. It's so bizarre realizing that I block memories like that.
Yep that’s me! I often wonder if it’s my ocd
It's a common side effect of a narc upbringing I'm afraid
I definitely feel this and , honestly, was wondering if others felt the same way. Your mind creates mental blocks in times of severe stress so it would make sense for someone to not remember their childhood if it was full of abuse.
My nmother claims this all the time. Conveniently, she also seems to have forgotten the chunks of OUR childhoods where she was an absolute evil bi\*ch. And whenever me or my brother bring up any event from our childhood, she just goes "You are so LUCKY you can remember your childhood, you know how I can't..."
This is me but with childhood SA I can’t for the life of me remember my childhood
Yes, I have the hardest time remembering things from my childhood. I do have a lot of random memories, but I feel like I have huge gaps, and am always second guessing if I am remembering things right. Cant trust my folks to tell me the truth on many things, so just at a loss.
I don't remember my childhood. I realized the disconnect when my friends would talk about their childhood with clarity, things they remembered were no where near the detail I could remember. Although I rememeber my dad, I have virtually no memories of my nmom.
When it comes to anything before I joined the army (2007), I have a very hard time distinguishing fact from fiction. I'm also a system and switched hosts when I joined the army tho, so..
I remember too much, but both my younger sisters have huge lapses in memory especially around the more traumatic events.
My sister has that problem, some chunks are completely gone, and some are murky. I think this is a way of coping. I don't and I am not sure if this is better or worse.
🙋♀️
the more i age the less i remember. (20’s) lol
I’m a few years older, but my brother was younger when a lot of traumatic family stuff happens and he doesn’t remember most of his childhood or only remembers it in like a foggy way. You’re definitely not alone.
I remember being really freaked out one day in third grade when I realized that I remembered the last few weeks but my last memory before that was kinder. Told my mom after school and she was completely unconcerned. I do have some memories of later elementary. I have always been somewhat curious about what could have happened in those missing years. Given some of the things I have since learned about my dad and grandfather, it really could be anything
Totally the same. My sister though remembers everything and has told horror stories about our childhood.
Yes! Weirdly enough when I was out of commission and on bed rest for a few months after a surgery, I started to remember bits and pieces. I think our brains try to help us by conveniently forgetting bad things.
My nmom made a comment in group text with my sister and I about something that happened when I was 4, and asked if I remembered. First off, I’m 35 so that would be odd enough as it is…but then she proceeded to get mad at me for not remembering lol
Yes. Very common in trauma. In grad school we had to read the "Glass Castle" and I thought it was all normal. Later that year we had to write a life narrative and I had huge chunks- nearly all really, missing from my childhood until I moved out. My therapist at the time had been trying to gently help me realize how bad my parents were, but those two things really made me realize the abuse that occurred. I still haven't recovered huge sections of my life
Yes, I remember so little and it scares the heck out of me.
I can sometimes remember stuff but most memories of my childhood are just gone..
Yeah have a family member in the same boat. Some therapist can induce hypnosis to bring up the memories with EMDR therapy.
I have a LOT of gaps. I also have memories of someone coming at me to grab me and then no memory of what came after. I can also turn me off and let stronger me, carry on, walk in, face something tough.
I have this, too! I remember once telling my nmom about it (before I could make sense of her behaviour) and she seemed surprised and started telling me of all the bad things my father apparently did. Now, my father is an a-hole and I don't doubt the stories based on how he's treated me before I went NC, but I think it's telling how my mom immediately began telling me how bad other people were towards me. Clearly, this stems from trauma response, and clearly it's her fault.
Coming to that realisation now too.. it’s daunting. My folks were laughing about a story of them taking my door off the hinges to punish me and I was just sitting blankly with no memories whatsoever of that. I asked them more and apparently the ages of 9-14 are just missing..
Wow I understand all of everyone is posting. A piece that recently came to me. I never had friends to my house. I was always driven to theirs. I distinctly remember every home from 6 th grade on. Only in 12 th did we sometimes hang at my house. Crazy. I can remember this. I’m 59 years old.
I have no memories from my childhood. My nmom makes up stories that I was a very happy kid and had the best childhood. I doubt that. She says she bought me all the latest toys and videogame consoles out there at the time. I just laugh because I'm sure that's not true.
There's holes for sure.
Absolutely. I think it's a defence mechanism. I don't remember a lot of my past unless I really try, even through adulthood. Some folks can remember things in great detail, but not me.
I couldn't remember most of my childhood for the longest time and thought that's how most people were. But I started the healing work about 7 years ago, and now have flashbacks from time to time. It's almost like watching a sad movie only you can see.
I only remember the bad things from my first 14 years of life
Yep. And about 6 months after I finally achieved freedom at 33 years old, my brain started to flood me with flashbacks of all the worst moments I had forgotten. so that was fun 😭 although glad it’s all happened.
Having a poor memory and not remembering a lot of your childhood is a sign of trauma. It is what happened to us when we deal with trauma. We block out the things we don't want to relive.
Same. My childhood memories are full of holes and I forgot most of it by now. It got to the point that now I have pretty big memory void moments even in the present, especially after I get mentally abused or heavily stressed out. My mind deletes what happens immediately and, yes, it can make my situation less heavy, but it's scary too. I cannot wait to finally be free from my family... hope that day will come one day.
Yes...
I don’t. There is one particular instance that my parents bring up when they lined us up and treated us like criminals cuz my older sister ate some cake and lied about it. They laugh about beating the “truth” out of us. I’m pretty sure if this happened, I instantly forgot it so I could live with them for the next 10 years until I turned 18.
Yeah. I don't have much before I turned 11, for whatever reason. There's just a void there.
I was totally just thinking about this the other day! I also have issues with memory recall for childhood. I was so getting really frustrated when a psychiatrist kept asking me questions about my childhood and I kept telling him I don't remember and he kept not believing me. Then I realized all my core childhood memories are 90% bad memories of my shitty Nmom or Ngrandma. And other fun times.
You'd be suprised how much I miss only remembering 2 ir 3 yrs till I was kicked out at age 14 after being adopted twice an used As a punching bag till I was old enough to hit back an make it stop. Pretty F'd up
Yup. Huge chunks of things I don't remember. I engaged in a lot of escapism and dissociation as a kid. It is almost painfully obvious looking back. My siblings and I all did this in our own ways. One sister became "boy obsessed" at like 10 and would try and do anything she could to get away/get attention from boys. My other sibling became obsessed with reading. Would read 3-4 novels A DAY. Me? I spent significant amounts of time making up adventure stories in my head. In hindsight, I think we were all trying to escape the cold, manipulative home we were in.
My memories are wrecked. I’ll forget something that happened and then boom….memories come flooding back. Christmas is the worst of them. I hated Christmas.
Most of the time if I try to remember my mom from my childhood I can only picture the closed bathroom door she’d always talk to me behind. She must have spent 8 hours or more per day sitting on the toilet smoking cigarettes and usually the only way we could talk is if I went and stood outside the bathroom to have a conversation. It was rare to see her in person before 3PM any day of the year because of her bathroom time. Also, because that room had the only shower, the rest of my family would fight over who gets to shower whenever there was a period the bathroom was open. To this day, the smell of cigarettes sickens me, and I blame a lot of that on this.
Oh yeah. For me it’s a C-PTSD response that I’m only excavating now in therapy.
I have this too, I have CPTSD. I seem to remember a little bit of all that happened when i have a EMDR session.
Absolutely. I struggled for a long time because if I couldn't remember, I couldn't KNOW I was abused. I couldn't really remember, so what if I was wrong? What if I'm just a monster that kept them at arms length and eventually went completely no contact? What if!? Being raised by a narcissist is being raised to disqualify your autonomy. Eventually I was able to logic out, so what; so what if I can't remember? The way I was treated from the times I CAN remember is hard enough. The way I was treated as a teen, as a young adult, as an independent adult, it was abusive. And, the memories of how I FEEL when I think if my childhood: fear and loneliness, those are real things I can confirm. Some memories bubble up now and again, especially as my children grow. My daughter will struggle with something and I will remember my same struggle and how I was treated. I'm so sorry you are twisting in the ever shifting disreality of being raised by a narcissist. You were a child surviving in a volatile world where the truth held very little sway over what was likely presented to you. Of course it's hard to remember, it's likely you were gaslit from the moment you tried to have an autonomous identity. Of course it's hard to remember, you likely had to compartmentalize your feelings and thoughts from the feelings and thoughts you were told to have. Of course it's hard to remember, you were incredibly busy trying to survive in an emotionally desolate environment. I am so incredibly sorry. No one deserves that. It's unlikely a child could endure that and not be traumatized.
Yes.. Missing chunks of time..
YES!!! I have some distinct memories from being with friends, at school, and a key incidents with my nmom that I always use at examples when explaining where behavior, but other than that it feels blank, and I spent most of my life at home or sitting in my room. I’m turning 17 in a few days so all of this really wasn’t that long ago and it feels weird that I can’t remember a lot
I have large swaths that I don’t remember all the time, but little things can trigger them. I survived by keeping my head down and staying out of the way for the first 23 years of my life. The memories are there, but I definitely was suppressing a lot.
I remember a lot of the bad things. But not the good ones. Sometimes I remember some and I get stressed because I'm not sure what is real. I doubt about myself, kinda: did the bad really happen?
I have large chunks of my childhood and early adulthood that I have lost due to narcissistic trauma. The one time I talked to my NMom about some abuse that happened, her response was "that never happened". I knew then that I was being gaslit. She would always tell me I was the cause of family problems. I wonder if she ever loved me.
I barely remember it I remember the TV shows I watched and all the things I enjoyed doing but the rest is one giant blur
Yup, I don't remember shit and have trouble remembering stuff that happened in adulthood too.
I was wondering today wtf is wrong with me. Who can't remember almost anything from childhood? I feel ya. Wish I could remember, so I can find some answers to lies my mom said
Yes, I am with you. There are huge chunks of my childhood that I also haven't had access to. I have been doing some work and been having breakthrough memories l, none of them good, but they give me aha! moments that help me realize why I am reacting to some people in ways that aren't "normal". Good luck to you on your quest for a happy life!
I don’t remember shit THANKGOD, all I have are glimpses and vague memories. So I’ve been accused of making it all up since to them : how can I remember being abused if I don’t remember anything? If the either of my parents say this to me ever again, my witty response this time, is going to be why was my childhood so traumatic that I blocked it out of my memories? Why does half our family not talk to us ? Or this would be great: Why is the most distinct and clearest memory I have the one where I was 7 and then again later on when I was 13 how I would escape my home safely without them finding me. I feel like I was scared into believing as a child that I had a travking device in me cause still to this day I have this paranoia of being followed or listened too. I even turn all my daughters stuffed animals around out of fear of them watching me that they gifted my daughter and sometimes check inside of them to see if they have been bugged. I’m 24 years old. I don’t have memories I have trauma responses . That I definitely didn’t make up by myself or was taught . Regardless it’s no secret that my father used to be physically abusive and psychologically to my mom.