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Author Topic: Childhood photos  (Read 409 times)
Gettingthere
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« on: November 10, 2010, 02:32:03 PM »

I dont have any, do you? I remember once seeing a photo of myself in a highchair, but that was promptly whisked away.  I also remeber around 8-10years old taking family photos - days out etc. Those to were whisked away - that time i think trying to erase the fact that i ever had a father.

So ive no idea what i looked like as a baby/toddler. strikes me as very odd
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MyNascence
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« Reply #1 on: November 10, 2010, 02:39:11 PM »

I have seen 1 or 2 of me as a baby and then at like... .6 or 7?  I wish I had more.  Don't even know where any of them are.
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ellejayswan
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« Reply #2 on: November 10, 2010, 02:53:41 PM »

Hi MyNascence,  The photographs totally gives me a red flag   on my emotions.  My paternal first cousin is working on a geneology of photos and does not have alot of the information that I know about the secrets we held hidden about MOTHER... .She asked please send some family photos and literally years have gone by and I can not really gather the strength to deal with photos... .I think it has to do with a deep sadness and the phoniness of trying to look like a normal family.  The abuse is on the inside... .its really tough to remember my preschool years.    You are among those here who can totally relate.  I hope to not associate these deep emotions to things... .sigh  Kind regards,   ellejayswan
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wideap27
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« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2010, 02:54:19 PM »

My parents took VERY few pictures of us as kids... .most of what I have were taken by my grandparents and I have them in one album. They don't fill the whole album, but they're there.

I could practically make a flip-book of my daughter's life from day one to the present day with as many pictures that I've taken of her.
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livingw/ochaos
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« Reply #4 on: November 10, 2010, 04:44:19 PM »

It is impossible to ignore the weirdness my PDinlaw have about pictures.

They are absolutely OBESSED about taking pictures.  But pictures are NEVER shown to anyone.  MIL actually has a large wartrobe type cabinet in her livingroom stuffed full of family photos.  Photos are copied and stored in file cabinets - one drawer for each of her seven children.  The cabinet is locked, however (I've only seen inside it once), and no one is allowed access to any of these photos.  The one time I saw it opened I reached into my H's draw (it was labeled) and grab out one photo before she returned back into the room.  It was a school picture of my H in first grade.  It remains the only picture he has of himself prior to moving out of the family home when he went to college.  About once a year or so, H asks his mom to share some photos with him.  She refuses.
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Ankakusu
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« Reply #5 on: November 10, 2010, 05:13:27 PM »

My parents stopped taking photos of me when I was around five or six. There were no more of me in our house except for my school photos until I was 16 and started taking photos myself. My parents also never displayed photos--the only one up was a picture of mother's paternal grandparents with an infant uNPDgranddadster. Family photos from before I was six were generally hidden away somewhere.

I was shocked when I found some of my paternal grandmother's photos of me taken at a family gathering during the no-photos decade. I was sure at this time (around age 12) that I was completely hideous, but the photos show a pretty girl dressed very much like Steve Urkel (thanks ever so much mother   ), squashed against uNPD/ASPD endad and obviously trying to have an out-of-body experience. I barely recognized myself, except for the out-of-body experience look.

DH is obsessed with documenting practically every moment of our existence photographically. It's one of the many things I love about him.
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wideap27
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« Reply #6 on: November 10, 2010, 05:17:16 PM »

We never had a family photo taken either (professional) outside of one for the church directory when I was 12... .and I remember that day distinctly because my mother went after me in the bathroom for daring to ask to put a little makeup on to cover up some acne for the picture.

If you look at that picture now my parents both look REALLY angry and my brother and I have these terrible, fake smiles... .it's disturbing.
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wideap27
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« Reply #7 on: November 10, 2010, 05:18:33 PM »

What's funny about the whole thing is I ended up becoming a professional photographer... .and I document other people's families/milestones now.

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Lucidogen
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« Reply #8 on: November 10, 2010, 07:55:12 PM »

From early childhood: many pictures, beautifully arranged in photo albums with cute decorations that uNPD/(BPD?)mom cut out from colored paper... .She´s quite artistic. Also there are cute comments, making it look fun, harmonic, relaxed. Yeah, I wish I had the childhood that I can see in my childhood photo albums.

But I was just props in her little Perfect Mother-stage act.

Moving on to my teenage years: noo pictures of me. Zip, zero, null. But many of the rest of the family.  When I was maybe 14 or 15 years old, I commented on this. Mother calmly replied: "Yes, you look so hideous now, your dad and I have decided not to take any pictures of you. You will thank us for it later."

 :'(  

After that, I hate having my photo taken.

Recently, when my mother took a picture of me and my D, she commented with sarcasm "You look just as relaxed as I do when I have my picture taken".

It's not like that remark made me more comfortable.

Hey, now I realize she was projecting when she made that strange remark when I was a teenager... .

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selfishshellfish
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« Reply #9 on: November 10, 2010, 08:04:26 PM »

I have loads. When I started setting boundaries, my uPDF let himself into my house one dayand left cases of old photos, mostly of me as a baby and child (I was a model as a baby, so there really are loads of them).

He also left me a lot of old pieces of... .well, detritus, really. Stuff I made for him as a preschooler etc. Why he thought I'd want them is anybody's guess.

Incidentally, in the last few years I've come to hate being photographed. Because of shame, possibly? I'm not really sure.
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oliveihavenone

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« Reply #10 on: November 10, 2010, 09:04:23 PM »

Yeah, there are albums filled with photos of me as a child (none as teenager on).  All showing what mother had bought at christmas.  And of the girl scout troup she had to be leader of and in control of.  All being kept in a storage building until I asked about maybe having some.  Then they were moved to mothers townhouse and are now being held hostage.

I should care less... .all they show is what she wanted to remember: what a great mom she was for buying me all the stuff she did.  But still it would be nice to remember what I looked like as a kid.  Now she started taking pics of giving my daughter stuff... .That really bugs me.  All she wants are pics of her giving people crappy gifts so she can call everyone "takers" when she gets mad.  
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Alastor
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« Reply #11 on: November 11, 2010, 02:19:14 AM »

Touchy subject for me.

Same here: she took photos until I was about 8, and then they mysteriously stop. There is a huge gap for about a decade with no pictures. Add on top of it that she threw out (literally: cut up and burned) pictures that "reminded" her of my father following their divorce, that's a lot of missing childhood memories.

But, speaking of baby pictures... .she periodically threw all mine out. One time I managed to get them safely out of her house, all of them. However, when she came to visit once, she spirited about half of them away, back to her house. I came home from work to find her going through my closet and putting the pictures in her suitcase. Grrr.

THEN, surprise surprise, her last rage ended in her ultimately holding my baby pictures "hostage". She first demanded my address so that she could send them to me (with a 24 hour deadline and statement "I don't want them in my home any longer", and when I didn't respond within 24 hours (uh, I didn't check my email every day and I didn't want her to have my address to keep sending nasty letters ), she "revoked" her offer and said they were "hers". Then without warning she tried to send them to one of my friends, who refused the package at the door because he said "it seemed bulky and he was worried it was legal stuff" since my mom is so litigious.

Can you imagine? These are my childhood memories that I would like to share with my own kids or even grandkids one day, and she's destroyed some of them forever. What pathetic, abominable cruelty.
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Lucidogen
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« Reply #12 on: November 11, 2010, 03:47:21 AM »

Yeah, there are albums filled with photos of me as a child (none as teenager on).  

Touchy subject for me.

Same here: she took photos until I was about 8, and then they mysteriously stop. There is a huge gap for about a decade with no pictures.

Hm... .Alastor, I don't know if you are a woman or a man. But I wonder if this is about the competition with the child of femininity and beauty. When the girl is growing up to be a woman, this might be too much of a threat to the PDmom. Maybe not taking photos of the child is a way to "deal" with that.
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Cassy
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« Reply #13 on: November 12, 2010, 01:02:44 PM »

I do have photos. But I remember around age 8 or 9 asking to see the family photo album and being told "pictures aren't supposed to be looked at." I had no idea what that was supposed to mean and still do not. She also never ever had photos of us framed or anything, never on a table or hung, even a large family portrait I had paid for when I was about 22... .

For a while she had one designated section of the living room wall as a "family" wall, for grandkids' photos, but that didn't last long.
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1stof4
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« Reply #14 on: November 15, 2010, 07:31:30 PM »

"pictures aren't supposed to be looked at." I had no idea what that was supposed to mean and still do not. She also never ever had photos of us framed or anything, never on a table or hung, even a large family portrait I had paid for when I was about 22... .

uBPDM took lots of pix and kept them in albums, but WOULD NOT frame any or put them up. She makes snide remarks about people who do put out pix of their children. We quit sending pix of grandkids when we discovered that they were all going into shoeboxes in the back bedroom. But hanging over the fireplace is a poster-size amateur painting of two dogs she had ten years ago . . .  ?
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Please help
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« Reply #15 on: March 22, 2017, 04:12:14 PM »

Don't know if this thread is still active or not. The fact there are a few pics of me up to age 5, then a few more around 8/9 and after that, nothing. Up to 5 we were slightly functional, F went to prison, got out around 8/9 and my parents divorced shortly afterwards.

This is almost physical proof I had no childhood. What is even more concerning is how I ended up the the photo album of myself. This means neither of my parents had any interest.

If you look at some of my other posts, I think the fact I so desperately hang onto memories of my childhood friends is that is the only thing I can tangibly say I have /  had from my childhood.

  I think I just had a small breakthrough of understanding.
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