Huge gaps in childhood memory. Anyone else experience this?

[JustKathy]

Yesterday I was doing some journaling/memoir writing, trying to document events in my early childhood. I don’t have a lot of memories that date back that young. I do have some fuzzy memories of happy events, but the only events I remember with absolute clarity are negative experiences with NM.

One thing I find particularly interesting/troubling is that I have no real memory of having a sister. Even though my sister is very close in age (one year younger), I don’t remember any interaction with her as a child. I remember playing with my pet bunny, and I remember playing with my school friends, but I don’t remember playing with my sister. I remember that she lived in the house, but that’s it.

I initially thought that I was failing to remember things from early childhood because I was just too young at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I also don’t remember her as a teen. I remember things like Christmas and Thanksgiving, but otherwise, there’s a huge void where there should be family memories. My sister and I actually shared a room all the way through high school, and I don’t remember any interactions with her.

So I have two thoughts:

First thought is that the bad stuff was so bad, any positive memories have been eclipsed by the negative ones. There’s a saying I learned in business: "It takes 1,000 'attaboys' to make up for a single 'You f*cked up.'" I think that’s true. Negative experiences are rarely forgotten.

Second thought is that it was by design. NM was a master at controlling the communication between her children. We were never allowed to play or spend time together without her acting as an intermediator. As adults, we never communicated with each other outside of family gatherings, brainwashed into believing that all communication had to go through her. Maybe NM prevented us from forming a sisterly bond, and I’m just now realizing this.

Or maybe it was a combination of both. I don’t know. I’m curious, though, if anyone else has memory gaps like this.

[Twoapenny]

Hi Kathy, it's nice to see you

Yes, is the simple answer to your question   I have enormous gaps throughout my childhood (I also have them through my late teens and early twenties but I think the drink and drugs erased a lot of that ).  But yes, huge gaps.  I had very few memories of happy times but, interestingly, when I was going through therapy (and started to remember more about abuse events) I also started to remember some really nice things (mostly with my dad).  I do remember the therapist saying the mind will just block memories, good and bad, if there's too much trauma to cope with.  I have had quite a lot of situations where I remember I knew someone from those days (school, for example) but I couldn't remember whether we were friends or not.  There was one girl I emailed when Friends Reunited first started up, and I said in the email, "I don't know if you remember me, but I think we were in the same year at school together".  Her reply was that of course she remembered me, I'd been her best friend.  I can remember her, and I do remember going to her house a couple of times but I didn't even know I had a best friend at school.  I've had other occasions where people showed me photographs of something I was at (I'm in the pictures) but I have no recollection of the event or the people there.  For years people would talk about, "oh, do you remember that day we were by the river", and everyone would fall about laughing but I really had no idea what they were talking about and just joined in.

It's interesting that you say you have no recollection of playing with your sister because I don't either!  I don't think there was much in the way of play in our house, full stop.  I lived in a world of my own; I had Sindy dolls and I spent hours playing on my own in my room.  Either that or I read.  We didn't really do anything as a family and, as you say, my sister and I were pitted against each other constantly (my mum carried that on to adulthood, telling each of us that the other had said or done horrible things, only for us to find out years later it wasn't true).  My mum always controlled the communication between us and other adults as well (aunts, uncles and so on).  Even as adults, we only saw other family members at weddings and funerals.  There's no real family there at all.

So yes, everything you say rang a big bell for me   Therapy helped me with piecing together good bits of the puzzle (I have got some nice memories of my dad playing with us when we were little).  And lots of therapy/diary writing helped the bad bits recede and take up less room in my head (eventually ) xx

[JustKathy]

My mum always controlled the communication between us and other adults as well (aunts, uncles and so on).  Even as adults, we only saw other family members at weddings and funerals.  There's no real family there at all.

Oh my gosh, Tup, this describes my family EXACTLY. I only ever saw aunts, uncles, and cousins at Christmas or other family gatherings. I never knew how to contact them at other times of the year, or more so, was afraid to contact them without her permission. Even now, at 58, I don't have any communication with extended family members, and wouldn't know how to go about making contact. I took a memoir writing class last year, and one of the women in the class was a doctor who understood quite a bit about NPD parents. She suggested that I try to contact my mother's remaining siblings, to try and figure out what she was like as a child, so I could piece together when the N-ism started. I'd love to do that, but I don't know how. Part of me still feels I'm not "allowed" to contact them. I also fear that they've been lied to about me and will reject me.

"I don't know if you remember me, but I think we were in the same year at school together".  Her reply was that of course she remembered me, I'd been her best friend.

This is another thing that happened to me. A few years ago I ran into a school classmate on Facebook and friended her. That was followed by friend requests from three other girls who I recognized only by name. They started talking like we were best friends, and I could barely remember anything about them. High school was so traumatic for me, all I could think about during those years were the things my mother was doing to me on a daily basis. I never told any of my school friends about it, so to this day, they have no idea. Their lives were so much different than mine; different meaning normal. They were concentrating on school, as kids should be. I barely even remember the classes I took.

[sKePTiKal]

Yes; I did - and like Tupp, I have filled in some of those gaps better.

What's interesting, is that my brother remembers things I don't - at all. And vice versa. It's more than just he experienced something differently than I did, so he remembers it differently. And there's plenty of that. How much of that is directly related to my mom's interference? No idea.

But it was one reason I was obsessed for awhile with researching as much as possible, the chronology of Twiggy's story. I found docs and newpaper stories to piece together a timeline. Lots is simply gone forever, but I have enough to create some kind of narrative of that time, events, and Twiggy's memories to make some guesses about the deeper nature of what was really going on. I just have to remember they will always be guesses.

[Twoapenny]

My mum always controlled the communication between us and other adults as well (aunts, uncles and so on).  Even as adults, we only saw other family members at weddings and funerals.  There's no real family there at all.

Oh my gosh, Tup, this describes my family EXACTLY. I only ever saw aunts, uncles, and cousins at Christmas or other family gatherings. I never knew how to contact them at other times of the year, or more so, was afraid to contact them without her permission. Even now, at 58, I don't have any communication with extended family members, and wouldn't know how to go about making contact. I took a memoir writing class last year, and one of the women in the class was a doctor who understood quite a bit about NPD parents. She suggested that I try to contact my mother's remaining siblings, to try and figure out what she was like as a child, so I could piece together when the N-ism started. I'd love to do that, but I don't know how. Part of me still feels I'm not "allowed" to contact them. I also fear that they've been lied to about me and will reject me.

"I don't know if you remember me, but I think we were in the same year at school together".  Her reply was that of course she remembered me, I'd been her best friend.

This is another thing that happened to me. A few years ago I ran into a school classmate on Facebook and friended her. That was followed by friend requests from three other girls who I recognized only by name. They started talking like we were best friends, and I could barely remember anything about them. High school was so traumatic for me, all I could think about during those years were the things my mother was doing to me on a daily basis. I never told any of my school friends about it, so to this day, they have no idea. Their lives were so much different than mine; different meaning normal. They were concentrating on school, as kids should be. I barely even remember the classes I took.

There are so many things that you write about that ring bells with me, Kathy, that I am waiting for the day when we find out we were raised in the same house!  Lol.  Yes, my contact with extended family now is a Christmas and Birthday card to two of my mum's sisters.  One does and has made an effort over the years and I would love to spend time with her and get to know her better but I know the nuclear reaction from my mum would make that impossible.  It does still wind me up somewhat that they all tiptoe round her and no-one dares to cross her but there we are.  And yes, the school thing - I've cried buckets over all of that.  I remember going to a therapy session one day after receiving an email from someone I was at school with and just crying about how different my life was to this other lady.  She'd just had a normal life, she ran a little business, she was happily married, three kids, nice house - just normal.  She sent me pics of all of them with both sides of the family and they just all looked happy.  I know people don't tend to broadcast their bad news and no-one's happy all the time but, like you say, people who can concentrate on school and life instead of having to manage the madness at home and then deal with all the crappy things it leaves you with - it's hard.  We become experts in other things, like avoiding someone's moods or having people talk about us in a nasty way or endless, daily criticism.  It's very tough.

[JustKathy]

What's interesting, is that my brother remembers things I don't - at all.

Yes!

Something weird happened about 20 years ago. NM cleaned out her storage locker and gave all of our childhood toys to the GC to sell on eBay. At the time, my sister was recovering from surgery and taking a lot of pain meds. It was the only time she ever stood up for herself and spoke her mind. She came completely unhinged, went after NM, and even demanded the GC give her the names of the people he sold to so she could attempt to buy these toys back. She sent me an email tirade about how NM had given away all of our Legos and our Barbie camper. I have NO recollection of ever playing Lego with her and don't remember a Barbie camper, yet these things meant the world to her. It sounds like we did have these toys, and we did play together, but I just don't remember it. Meanwhile, sister acted like her world was ending over losing the stuff. She was a total shut-in, so maybe those toys were the focus of her life at the time. My focus was on getting out, and nothing more.

[JustKathy]

It does still wind me up somewhat that they all tiptoe round her and no-one dares to cross her but there we are.

Tup, my NM died three years ago, and they STILL tiptoe around her. I thought once she died, I'd be free to have relationships with other family members, but instead they became even more distant. I think she got to them before she died; the poor woman whose vindictive daughter was so cruel she broke a dying woman's heart.

[Twoapenny]

It does still wind me up somewhat that they all tiptoe round her and no-one dares to cross her but there we are.

Tup, my NM died three years ago, and they STILL tiptoe around her. I thought once she died, I'd be free to have relationships with other family members, but instead they became even more distant. I think she got to them before she died; the poor woman whose vindictive daughter was so cruel she broke a dying woman's heart.

Ah, I think you're probably right, Kathy, and I know I had a therapist once tell me that family members often don't like to acknowledge they were wrong or they were taken in by lies - it's easier to carry on as before and just ignore the whole situation.  It's sad.

On a slightly different note, and I don't know if you've tried this already, but I found 'playing' as you would (or should) have done as a child, was another thing that helped.  I did a lot of it with my son which obviously gives you a good excuse but I did find doing teenage 'girl' stuff on my own helped for some reason.  There were girls at school whose mums brought them little craft kits where you sewed the kit together and made a stuffed penguin or a little cushion or something and I spent some time painting watercolours and just doing things that I'd have wanted to do back then and didn't get the chance to.  I don't know why but it helped.  And something that really helped (quite a few years ago now) was buying a great big cuddly bunny - the sort of really extravagant gift a dad buys for his little girl (they had one in the charity shop for a few pounds) and I cuddled up to him whenever I got the chance for a few years, really.  Eventually I rehomed him - I just didn't have a need for him anymore, but I cried buckets into those big furry ears at times!  It did help.  Anyway, I just thought I'd mention it in case it's not something you've tried yet xx

[JustKathy]

Thanks, Tup. That's really good advice. Years ago I took piano lessons because I had always wanted to play an instrument, and NM wouldn't let me. I should buy a cheap keyboard and start playing again. It made NM so angry that I learned to play the piano. She just hated that I accomplished something she tried so hard to prevent. I should start again, just to make her toss around in her grave a little.

[Twoapenny]

Thanks, Tup. That's really good advice. Years ago I took piano lessons because I had always wanted to play an instrument, and NM wouldn't let me. I should buy a cheap keyboard and start playing again. It made NM so angry that I learned to play the piano. She just hated that I accomplished something she tried so hard to prevent. I should start again, just to make her toss around in her grave a little.

Argh, that's what I just don't get, why are there people that don't want their kids to do good things?  I can understand parents stopping their children from doing things that might be harmful or get them into bad habits but piano?  You'd think any parent would be chuffed that their child wanted to learn to play something so beautiful!  Yes defo a keyboard - or maybe even a free piano?  People seem to give them away a lot over here - I guess getting them moved isn't cheap but I've often thought how lovely it would be to be able to sit down and play something amazing   Go on Kathy, get practising xx