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Does anyone else not recognize themselves in photos?

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David1959

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My T felt it would be good for me to go through photos to see if that helps my memories. I have literally about 10,000 photos from our travels and other events over the last 20 years. I have told my T that I have a hard time looking at them because even though the photos's are of happy times they generate flashbacks that are not pleasant. For about 10 years my wife and I were in the tour operating business and traveled with groups all over the world, thus the images. My memories of events we produced which were wonderful always focus on the one or two things that went wrong.

My point of this post is that I realized as I went through photos when I saw one of me, in most cases I did not recognize myself. I knew it was me in the photos but the person in the photo seemed like a stranger? I know this is odd to both know it is me and yet not really recognize myself.
 
I certainly understand that looking at images of when I was a kid might seem foreign but I am 61yo and I am having this issue on images from 5-10 years ago?
 
I simply don’t like what I see.
My issue is the opposite, the person I see in the photos seems happy, healthy and normal but that is not how I see myself, when I look in the eyes of the person in the photo, it is not me
 
My T felt it would be good for me to go through photos to see if that helps my memories. I have literally about 10,000 photos from our travels and other events over the last 20 years. I have told my T that I have a hard time looking at them because even though the photos's are of happy times they generate flashbacks that are not pleasant. For about 10 years my wife and I were in the tour operating business and traveled with groups all over the world, thus the images. My memories of events we produced which were wonderful always focus on the one or two things that went wrong.

My point of this post is that I realized as I went through photos when I saw one of me, in most cases I did not recognize myself. I knew it was me in the photos but the person in the photo seemed like a stranger? I know this is odd to both know it is me and yet not really recognize myself.
I have this too. Even with photos that are three months ago or something.
 
I completely understand this. This is exactly what I was trying to explain to my therapist last week. When I see photos of me or look in the mirror, I have no understanding of that being me or that being what I look like. It's a very strange thing. It's like I have no connection to my physical appearance.
 
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