What Can You Glean From Old Photographs?

[Tinyflame]

There weren't many pictures but I threw out what there were of me, unless there was someone else in them I wanted to keep. I don't want or let myself be in photos, ever.

 

[Deleted member 29961]

Do you feel anything looking at old pictures (whether from childhood or before or after trauma)? Have they ever helped you put together any lose pieces?

Sad mostly, you would be hard pressed to find photo of me smiling (and if I was, it wasn't long after it was taken that dad took it away). When I was younger, I rarely looked at tem because they reminded me of a childhood I was trying to forget. Today, I only look at them when I want to remember what it was like.

 

[Changing4Best]

I have one photo of myself sitting in my mother's lap. I know that this photo was taken after my mother came home from the mental hospital and was on thorazine. I know that she loved me and comforted me from the photo. I remember that she did too. My trauma happened while she was in the mental hospital before that photo was taken. So it comforts me to look at that photo and know that I was loved and cherished by her, also safe with her, even though my father seemed to hate me. I have always thought he mistreated me because my mother had post partem psychosis after my birth. Also during the time she was away, I was abused and molested by my father's father and neglected by my father. That photo takes me to the time after all that nightmare ended, so it sooths me to look at it.

 

[Deleted member 29920]

I can see that I always put on a brave face. My smiles were fake, they didn't reach my eyes. I look uncertain and distant in many and downright depressed in a few. I hate looking at my childhood photos, I know all the sadness behind the forced smiles.

 

[Chava]

Shit, I somehow deleted everything I wrote.

I relate a lot to the forced smiles, not having that natural twinkle in my eyes, just willing my mouth muscles to move a bit.

I feel that now and hope I don't look back on my last 10-20 years as just lost. It feels like I'm doing my best, and I tend not to regret that. But if I looked at my photos from adulthood, in all it would seem like I'm not totally living...surviving in a sort of safe zone (pics of nature, etc, very few pictures of any people or good experiences in the world of human beings). On one hand, I'm glad for the good connection I feel to nature. But it's years and years of seemingly like I never made it to adulthood. Or never even made it fully into the human world, but drifted onto some parallel but isolative track. The few photos with friends remind me of relationships that didn't stick...I just keep failing.

Mostly I want a twinkly-eyed smile in my current life, whatever i'm doing.

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes @Chava , I wish I could have a do-over. It's like I've taken a road or train I can't go back from & can't get off of.