Huge Chunks of Time MIssing

[Dexter0420]

I am new to this site and am reading Surviving a Borderline Parent.  I am 43 and for the last few years seriously thought I might be experiencing early onset of Alzheimer's because I don't remember so much of my childhood.  Now I'm learning that it is much more likely that I blocked out a lot of that time because it was so hard to deal with.  I am relieved but also a bit melancholy for not having that Norman Rockwell childhood.

Anybody else with this?

[gentlestguardian]

Hi Dexter, welcome!

With regard to your question, absolutely! You should check out the inner child thread (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=233344.0) as there is some discussion of lost memories there. Many of us here struggle with recovering lost memories or finding it in ourselves to open up to the painful memories we've suppressed. I've been doing a lot of work on this myself. I've been able to gain back some solid chunks of time but I still feel like I have a long way to go before I recover everything I intuitively feel is still hidden. Have you been doing anything to try to remember?

[Dexter0420]

Thank you, I will definitely check out that thread. 

I haven't done anything in particular... .yet.  I only just realized the potential link and quite frankly am hesitant to dig.  What I remember is painful enough, I don't know that I want to push the envelope so to speak.

I think another reason I have such a hard time is because we moved so much when I was a child (not in any one place for more than 2 years).  Because of that, I have very few - well only one really, long term relationship from my childhood.  It seems like a blur to be honest. 

[yogibear60]

Yes, I am one who has a hard time with childhood memories.  I look back on photos and wonder why I can't remember a thing.  I really don't have anything in the old files of my mother and a few with my dad.  I use to sit and think how strange that people around me could chatter up a storm and I had nothing.  We moved around a lot too and had not thought about that being a reason.  For the most part I thought about how curious it was that my mother would say or do something, how inconsistent she was with her words and her actions and that I was fearful to ask why. I remember thinking that I wish she treated me the same way she treated her friends... .   I am glad to know that I am not the Lone Ranger.

[Woolspinner2000]

Welcome Dexter! 

So happy that you've come to join us all here at the BPD site.  Yes, I can totally relate to missing large chunks of childhood memories. It can be quite distressing!  This summer our daughter asked about stories related to when we were children and celebrated our birthdays. I began to feel all hot inside, hoping she would ask her dad first so that I could think about what I was going to say for I have zero memory of any of my own or my siblings birthdays. My husband remembered some things that sounded nice. When she came to me, I sadly had to say, "I'm sorry. I don't have any memories of my birthdays at all. I only remember one gift that I really wanted when I was 6 that my mom got me." I don't know if or when they'll come back, but this is only one illustration of the missing memories. Lately I've been having memories return here and there, and some are very challenging and scary. There are times I'm glad I don't remember, but as I'm healing, then I'm more able to handle them when they do come. Take your time as you process. We all take it as we can here, one step at a time.

It's great that you are reading Surviving a Borderline Parent! It was one of the first books I was able to handle, and it has been like a Bible to me, helping me to begin to understand my uBPDm and my own reactions to what went on in my childhood. Keep reading and growing and posting to us here!

Woolspinner

[Harri]

Hello and welcome Dexter!  Glad to have you join us.

I haven't done anything in particular... .yet.  I only just realized the potential link and quite frankly am hesitant to dig.  What I remember is painful enough, I don't know that I want to push the envelope so to speak.

My experience is like Wools; the memories returned as I got stronger and when I was ready to remember.  I think part of my problem was that I dissociated a lot when I was a kid so I think there are many things that may be forgotten forever. 

Just take it slow.  The brain is amazing and will do things to protect us.  As the memories return, try to remember that that is a good sign even though they may be painful.

Keep posting.  Everyone here can relate and are very generous and understanding. 

[Trollvaaken]

Whoa. I feel like I am going to repeat what everyone else has just written, but I am just adding myself to this statistic.

Sometimes, it didn't even feel like I had a past just because I couldn't remember.

I find that more memories have been coming up lately, so maybe as someone mentioned I am healing and therefore ready to confront them, but now I feel like I have another problem. For some memories, I just feel like they just cannot be real, that I must be making something up and they are of such a sensitive nature that it would be risky to verify their veracity (and sometimes children have a distorted perception of things). These memories come to haunt me every once in a while, but I dismiss them because I don't see what I can really do about them.

[gentlestguardian]

I had a thought today with regard to our poor/suppressed memories that I wanted to share. I was chatting with a good friend from college about a desk that her family stored for me after I moved out of my mother's apartment. When I first thought about the memory, I couldn't remember at all why I would even ask her to store such a thing for me. It was a pretty large desk, and while her family was always kind to me, there was really no reason I should have asked them to store this cumbersome piece of furniture for me. When I think about it now, it was pretty invasive of me. After really forcing the memory of that time period though, I recognized that the only reason I had asked such a thing of my friend's family was because I was in panic mode. My BPDm was epically stressed that I was moving out of her apartment, and instead of telling me to put my stuff in storage or somehow dispose of it, she told me to ask my friend to store it. And because I was in a FOG panic of my own due to causing her what I perceived as so much discomfort and pain, I just reacted to her request without thinking it through for myself; it was a decision made out of high anxiety and stress.

Could this be partly why children of BPD parents have such spotty memories, because many of us made split decisions as we grew up, often while our minds were infused with fight or flight chemical reactions? So many of the decisions I made as a young adult and in my twenties were not born from an authentic place within me; they were purely reactions to my BPDm's anxiety and abuse.

Once the fight or flight response brought on by anxiety passes, our bodies go into a state of calm to bring our bodies back into stasis. Often that statis includes erasing or dulling anything harmful that would set us off into anxiety again. So, bye bye memories and experiences created while we were in a state of anxiety.

Anyway, just something I wanted to throw out there.