How Much Of One's Childhood Is Normally Remembered (w/o Ptsd)?

[Rainbow_Habitué]

I have recently gotten to trying to remember my childhood and I'm coming up with gaps. How much do people typically remember from kindergarten through grade six?

How does one differentiate amnesia from non-traumatic forgetfulness? Is it common to have weird fuzzy memories that you can't even place within an age group?

Sometimes I think, well maybe my life then was just that boring, maybe I just didn't do enough to remember, but I have so much trouble in my life I wonder if what I'm forgetting is important!

I do over-react to things that have to do with my health (which seems to fail me at every turn), so that could be all it is. How does this match up with your experiences?

 

[OtterMedicine]

I would imagine that asking that question on a board that is NOT primarily folks with PTSD might yeild better results.

Not saying don't ask, mind you... Just wondering how good of an answer you can get on this here.

 

[Rainbow_Habitué]

Yeah, I suppose. I was just wondering if any of the supporters might know, or those whose trauma was after adulthood. It's just the sort of question that gets me strange blank looks from my family and friends. :p

 

[dcmcmurtry]

I've never been diagnosed and stopped by because of a friend (I'm personally interested because of some problems I had while living overseas, though they were never diagnosed as PTSD, and I didn't ever show all of the symptoms). Anyway, I don't know who's childhood is normal, and I couldn't tell you what is normal for you or anyone else--in fact, I suspect that it varies a bit by individual.

My earliest memory is when I was 2 and a half, I can still picture the moment from first person (which is pretty rare for me and, as far as I can tell, for most people. My stress in this moment and my stress memories from my miserable moments overseas are both in the first person). I know I was 2 and a half because I was still in a crib until just before my 3rd birthday. My brother and sister and I had stolen the scissors in the den (under the nose of our babysitter) and we had cut our hair on the living room carpet, discovered to the rage of my father when they walked in the door from their night out.

Several of my memories as a child were of moments that were filled with emotion--very exciting, very afraid, in a lot of pain, surprised or experiencing something novel (a blizzard when I was 4). Usually when I'm shown a picture, I can remember the event or similar events. Sometimes when my parents or sister/brother remind me of an event, I can remember and other times I just can't. Usually when someone asks me to remember "typical" events, I can recall something--a time I was punished, a time I did something fun, a favorite toy, favorite activities. However some things that I used to be anxious about or feel emotionally about I don't remember--I was often afraid of talking to people for the first time but all the memories I can remember are from when I was 5th grade or older and had a paper route (and frequently had to speak to people I didn't know). I'm sure there were earlier moment, but I couldn't tell you what they were. But other things which used to regularly stress me out I remember very clearly, and I think that I remember many or even most of them. In fact I felt like I was supposed to remember them, so I did, as if I were on the watch for them.

I remember being fascinated by the idea "repressed memories" when I was a kid and first heard about them, and I struggled to remember things that I couldn't remember. But the first time I remember "blanks" in my memory was after I returned from overseas. While I was there it was as if my eyes/memory was glued open, but when I returned home I couldn't pay attention, didn't care to, couldn't remember meetings I had been in, etc. I remember watching a movie on the plan home, but it took me 4 years to remember where I had see it--I couldn't account for where because there was no "contextual" information in my memory of it; I could only remember that I had for certain seen it and knew what was coming next.

If you had a generally unpleasant childhood, it may be that you just don't want to remember even if you could, or it could be that you don't have much to remember. My parents weren't very fun to be around when I was young, and I don't have very many "happy" moments with them where I 1) wanted bond or do something special with them or 2) enjoyed being with them. Someone told me once about waiting at the end of the block for their dad to come home from work and I can honestly say that I don't remember ever doing that because I never thought my mom or dad returning from work was something to celebrate or look forward to. So sometimes I know I don't have any memories of something--or at least haven't stored it in a file labeled under that category of memory. I'm sure if I thought hard about it I could remember a time before the age of 8 when they came home from work and I was around to notice.

I'm pretty sure that I have an above average memory and I tend to remember images pretty well. I know people who think/process information more abstractly and they don't tend to remember as much, it seems. Maybe it would be helpful to ask yourself if you really want to remember any of these details. Or maybe ask yourself what kinds of gaps you have. Are they selective--only certain types of activities? only certain times of the day (night, for example?) only around certain people that you are sure you must logically have interacted with a lot? Or is it just that you can't really remember much at all before age 8? Are all your early memories fuzzy? Also, in my experience, gone is different from fuzzy. There are things I don't remember from childhood, but I feel like I don't care much (though I was admittedly a bit dissociative as a kid). But the memories I couldn't seem to get back as an adult felt...conspicuously absent. There should have been something there where there was nothing. There was space in my head for it, there were logic gaps--memories of the airport the day I left to come back and then suddenly I was standing at the trunk of a friend's far watching her put my suitcase in her trunk and she was asking me if I would go eat dinner at my boss's boss's house. I can't answer what it's like for those with trauma as a child who have memory issues, but a comparison might be helpful

 

[Rainbow_Habitué]

That's an immensely helpful post. Gives me a lot to think about to have another person's perspective on their memories. :)

Some of my childhood memories are fuzzy. Oddly enough some of my memories as a toddler in pre-school are clearer and more of them are first-person type than most of my elementary school memories.

The fuzzy ones are distinctly third-person and I often find it hard to link the emotion with the image, even with memories that should evoke some measure of pain at least. They are all faded, as if they were videos taken with too much light, so they are partially 'blown-out'. My memories of objects, my mom, my grandparents and animals are clearer than my memories of kids my age or my dad.

From what you've posted, it seems to me to be a fair assumption so far that my memories are this way because I was dissociated all through my elementary days.

There are huge gaps. I can't remember most of the teasing, just some amorphous feelings and then there's the odd memory where I can't connect the emotion. I can't remember much of being in class or recess. There's little bit more I remember from being at home, but thinking about this I'm finding is oddly exhausting.

 

[dcmcmurtry]

I'm glad you find it helpful. I joined the forum so that I could answer your question--hope that doesn't sound weird. But I find that thinking things through and being radically honest, at least with myself and when I can find them, very loyal and trustworthy friends, is the best way for me to deal with my own emotional challenges in my past, whether they were extremely traumatic or not.

I think that if it's exhausting, it's may be traumatic. After all, if it was a generally good memory, why feel so bad about not being able to remember it? I think that if you try hard and can't remember AND you feel anxiety about not remembering, then possibly you really don't want to remember.

But you know, I don't remember much from school at all either, and if I didn't have a twin sister and a brother that I interacted with a lot at home either, I might not remember as much. I lived in my head a lot as a child, had very few friends at school, and when I was there I may or may not have done my homework or listened to the teacher. When I was at home I don't remember interacting with my parents much at all, especially during certain periods. And if my siblings hadn't been there to pull me out of my mental worlds, I probably would remember the activities and events that I do. And the books that I read or drawing and games that I made were disembodied--I mean I could have been any age--and I don't remember them well at all either.

 

[Rainbow_Habitué]

Thank-you so much for going through the trouble of joining up and making such a well thought-out answer! It means a lot to me. :)

How you say you lived in your head sounds so much like me. I spent so much time reading books and daydreaming myself into them (to the point of getting horribly depressed when a story ended and I was back into reality). Maybe that's why. I have a sister but we hardly got along at all until mid-teens and no twin, or even friends in my class, so that could be why the memories didn't stick.

Of course there is also the point you bring up, that I may not want to remember. However if that's true it's not the conscious part of me calling the shots on that one, because consciously I want to face it and feel whole (but my sub-concious might know better). Maybe if I stop fighting it, things will pop through when I'm ready? Don't know :unsure:

 

[dcmcmurtry]

It seems helpful to stop fighting. You might find some things that are good as well as things that you would rather not have found, though knowing what's there always seems to have some level of security for me. I you find some time and freedom to remember what you can and leave forgotten what you don't remember--whether there wasn't anything to remember or not. Maybe it would be best to just start with the things you remember and enjoy, things that tell you about yourself and where you invested your time and energy as a kid?

 

[Rainbow_Habitué]

That could be a good plan. Though when I think of the elementary school years I feel mostly unhappy or vaguely morose, but I think it would be a good idea to focus on the memories I have from before that. They are largely happy. :)

 

[dcmcmurtry]

:) Find the happy ones first. I find that the happy moments provide almost infinite enjoyment--like a good book or movie that I love watching over and over again. I just remember all the great things about it, like how much fun I used to have watching clouds in the blue sky, pretending the sky was like a big ocean and the clouds were pieces of icebergs. But you know, it was also easier for me to reenter my other childhood memories as an adult too, with kids I hated or feared, and see them as a parent or teacher, someone who had a much better understanding of their (and my own) behaviors, how they created many of the problems I had or made them worse, why other kids thought I was weird (I was! I was a weird little kid! lol!), and why it was so hard for me to enjoy so much of what now I have the begun to find enjoyable. Maybe it will get easier for you too?

Anyway, hope you have a happy remembering of all of your wonderful pre-school age memories! Once I took the time to remember and I remembered when an old-fashioned circus came to town and we got to watch the elephants putting up the tent poles. I still remember how much I loved the white, paint-swirled balloon I got there and how I took it to bed with me every night for almost a week when it was so deflated I got rid of it. It was fun to revisit that. Hope you find some treasures!

 

[Taven Carlsen]

IIRC from psych class childhood memory is highly variable in quantity/quality, even onset of lasting memories varies to some degree. In my case I have detailed and extensive memory from a young age.

 

[nimkekaa]

I have often wondered also what people normally remember from their childhood. It's hard to know if you are blocking something or it's just normal to forget things.

For me though I remember lots of my childhood but nothing that happened inside a certain house. I can remember playing at a friends house at the same age but not being in my own home. Anything I do remember is very awful and for a while I thought couldn't possibly be true. But thinking rationally, if I can remember events happening at a certain age but only in certain places then that can't be just normal forgettting as you get older.

Great question!