YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I think it was about a year ago when I realized something pretty weird. I can't remember my childhood.

I mean, I can kind of remember events and maybe even emotions at certain times, but not the actual "in there" memory. It's more as if I'm just old adult me looking at a child that is supposed to represent who I was and what my life was like. I don't feel the actual connection to the memory. Also, it probably doesn't help that I'm a writer. Writers can be amazing when it comes to three things: storytelling, truth-telling and LYING (or for the sensitive writers reading this, EMBELLISHING). I'm wondering if maybe my inability to remember my childhood is a byproduct of a fucked up concoction of a few of those things.

So, if it's true, if I'm just always lying to myself about how things went while I was growing up, does it add my brain's ability to cover it all up? And when I say "all", I mean virtually everything. If anyone else on the planet lied to me as much as I do to myself, I wouldn't be able to trust the person. In fact, I'd want to punch them in the eyes. Why do I accept it? Why can I write about it here, showing some worth of self-awareness and continue to go on like that? Is it a shield or something?

I had a great childhood, by the way. From what I know. My parents are wonderful people. I wasn't abused and I never had to worry about anything. Also, I know that all parents have flaws and my parents are no exception. But unless they were like beating with dead rats and pouring blood all over my hair on a daily basis and it scarred me so bad that I COMPLETELY make up my own past, something else is going on here.

Also, I've not been someone to take tons of substances to the point my memory would be shot. In fact, my short term, regular memory is a strong trait I have. Well, really it just helps me show off to people that I can memorize and repeat long number sequences so I can get a few "Ohhhh heeeeee's sooooooooo smmmmmaaaarrrrrrt and sppppeeeeeecial." I need those.

Can anyone relate to any of this kind of crazy shit?

I think that's pretty normal, unless I'm completely fucked up too (which no one's ruling out). The way you described your relationship to your childhood memories sounds pretty similar to mine. To me it doesn't seem like it would be caused by pushing out trauma, but just the fact that you were a different person at the time, quite literally. The structure of a child's brain completely changes as it transitions into different stages (for instance, there have been experiments that show that for the first 12 years of a child's life, their brain is almost physically incapable of putting themselves into someone else's perspective both literally and emotionally), so it would make sense to feel a disconnect to those events you're remembering, as if you're filling in the blanks about the life of someone else. It seems completely normal (to me at least) for you to not remember your life as a seamless progression. Our memories generally are constructions based on the information we have about who we were at the time.

Are there any salient memories you can recall? Do you have any memories where you remember them in the first person, or perhaps remember a smell or other sensation vividly?

Oh goodness, I can't remember much about my childhood, but that is based on trauma. A few months ago, I asked my mom if I was a happy child, and she said "Not at all." She handled it by keeping me as busy as possible (I was an opera singer, until I had a 2nd breakdown when I was 22).
It's really weird, because I've been through a few traumas, and it's had a devastating affect on my memory and my verbal communication. My memory seems to reset every few weeks, as a coping mechanism, which I find to be completely crazy-balls. I've just learned to live with it. I dont even lie about it anymore, like I used to. The only time it hurts anyone's feelings is if we were really great friends in high school.