Missing Memories and Anxiety

[NightHawkJohn]

I have problems with memories of my childhood, i realise that from about 10 and below its very hazy with ages below 5 a complete blank.
Above 10 or so i can remember things with great detail, as i have a photographic memory. Which only makes it stranger that i cant remember much about when i was a child as i can remember things so well.

I am noticing this even more lately as i found a bunch of stuff from when i was a child and have been going through stuff to try and jog my memory.

My mother threw out most of my childhood stuff and erased all my home videos so i don't have a lot to go on, but luckily my sister must have kept some of my stuff as she used to take my stuff and hide it away for some reason.

But it is pretty unsettling to read stuff about yourself and have no memory of it.

I have a picture of me when i did a charity thing for my school and had my picture taken for the local news paper, but when i look at the picture i have no memory of it at all.

Mostly everything in my box of childhood stuff does not jog my memory, i have valentines cards from some girl, artwork i did, story's all sorts of things, my report cards for when i first went to school show that i was the top of my class and then i just gave up and became unresponsive.
I feel this may have to do with my first best friend who died when she was hit by car when i was very young, i never got any kind of counselling for it and when i talked to my mother she did not care and told me to stop crying about it.
So i think i just gave up on school for that reason and the teachers were not very nice and would generally punish me for no reason, and because my parents did not care they could do whatever they liked and i knew i could not tell anyone as no one would care anyway.

Which caused me to get crappy grades and now my job prospects are pretty much nil for anything decent.

I also lately feel worried a lot of the time and nervous, i get anxious around people and i find that its stopping me from having a life.
I never used to be and had quite a few friends and would go out places all the time.

But now i pretty much don't go outside at all if i can avoid it, and usually only go out to get food at 5am because its quiet. Otherwise i get terribly anxious and sometimes i wont eat because i cant go out and get something until it is early morning again.

I did have a good job which i loved until some bad stuff happened and it caused me to try and kill myself which luckily i managed to be okay, but after that i ended up moving back with my parents as i did not have any money and i could not work, i tried to go on jobseeker's allowance which if your not from the uk is a system that gives you money if you are looking for work, but I had such anxiety about going in and talking to them i just quit going as i could not take it and lost my benefits.

I have been trying to work up to going to see the doctor to see if there is anything they could do as i don't like feeling like this, i have been told it may be possible for me to get on disability and maybe get my own place, as living around my mother is driving me crazy as she is very emotionally abusive and part of the reason i cant get a job as she will go out of her way to sabotage my life anyway she can.

I wondered if anyone has any advice about my situation.

 

[Badjedidude]

I have a similar situation. I don't remember anything about my life from about age 8 and younger. Sometimes I wonder if I was molested or abused or something, and it may have caused me to forget everything... but that's hard to believe because I have good parents and family. *shrug*

But it does bug me sometimes that I can only remember about 2 or 3 hazy things from my childhood. The rest is lost to me forever, short of hypnotherapy or something.

Oh well, no biggie. It's the PRESENT that matters anyway. Don't worry so much about the past; just focus on making your present and future as good as they can be. That's all you can do anyway, so get to it!!

 

[Punisher]

I remember everything.

 

[NightHawkJohn]

I have a similar situation. I don't remember anything about my life from about age 8 and younger. Sometimes I wonder if I was molested or abused or something, and it may have caused me to forget everything... but that's hard to believe because I have good parents and family. *shrug*

But it does bug me sometimes that I can only remember about 2 or 3 hazy things from my childhood. The rest is lost to me forever, short of hypnotherapy or something.

Oh well, no biggie. It's the PRESENT that matters anyway. Don't worry so much about the past; just focus on making your present and future as good as they can be. That's all you can do anyway, so get to it!!

Yeah that's true i have been trying to focus on the present and doing more exercise and eating healthier etc.

 

[NightHawkJohn]

One other thing that i did not mention before, i typed it up and then deleted it but decided to post it as i have spent my whole life hidden away from everything.

I know when i was a child i went missing for a whole day, no one remembers where i was.

I went round to play with my next door neighbours house around 9am or so, i was quite young and i was not meant to be playing outside, my next door neighbour took me out to play with the bigger kids and we were going to play manhunt.
I remember going to hide, but i don't have a clear memory of what happened for the rest of the day, i know i disappeared for the day, the other kids looked for me but could not find me.
My next door neighbour was worried he would get in trouble so delayed telling any adult, so a lot of time passed before i was even noticed missing.
I remember the next memory i had was when it was late in the evening and i was terrified and lost, i was crying and could not find out how to get home, one of the bigger kids found me and took me home about 9pm-11pm.

I sometimes have flashbacks of something which i believe has to do with where i was for that day,

One recurring flashback is of someone chasing me and grabbing me as a child and dragging me off somewhere.
The other one is of me in a apartment, with a few people.
They are talking, one of them has a camera and i think i saw another kid a little girl there as well, i am standing in the middle of the room, i am terrified and i feel like i am frozen to the spot, i see someone jab at me with something which i assume is a stungun and i fall over, he is laughing.
Then it kinda skips forward to a man and a woman arguing about something and they are saying they need to get me out of the house.

I also know that where i went missing another girl went missing and apparently they burnt down this guys house who was responsible, i cant remember if he died in the house or not but i do remember they let all his animals free that he kept in the house. he kept a lot of pets in the house to bring in the kids i guess.

I know through most of my childhood i would have vivid dreams which i could not wake up from, usually i am tied down on a table and someone is cutting into me with knives, or someone is holding me down and i cannot get free.
I usually wake up feeling scared and worried, and have to check my room to make sure i am safe and no one is there, this is why my grandfather gave me a flashlight when i was a boy so i could make sure no one was in my room, i was afraid of monsters.
Even to this day i usually have to make sure my house is locked and secure and that my bedroom is locked and that i have my flashlight near by.

I even remember how when two drunk girls came up to me and were trying to grab at me being silly when i was walking one day, it really freaked me out as they were far to close to me.
I felt terrified of these two girls, which made me feel stupid as i am a pretty big guy i am 6ft 240lbs and these two 14 year old girls made me feel so frightened and i did not feel safe till i was back in my house.

I feel like i go through cycles of this stuff bothering me and then it goes away again and i feel fine for a time, i can then go off and feel confident and i am not worried about a thing, i used to have a job which involved me dealing with the public having to talk to groups of people and i had no problems with it and then after a few years go buy somehow i start getting depressed and all the fears and anxiety comes back and i can barely go outside without feeling scared.
Then other times i feel so numb i cant feel a thing and nothing seems real and i just don't care what happens.

I just wish i could remember what happened to me as i know something made me really depressed as a child and its what still haunts me to this day, i just want to be free of it so i can start living my life.

I think this is the reason i am writing this out, it helps me let some of it go.

 

[VanillaCreme]

I remember my childhood. However, I agree with Jedi. Don't look back into the past. It's the present that matters. I do understand your desire to want to find out what could have possibly happened to you though. It must be an awful thing to not remember anything, then realize that it was one event in your life that possibly made you forget everything else. Perhaps talk to your sister. She seems to have wanted to preserve your childhood for you. She probably sensed how your mom was, and wanted to save it. I don't really have anything of my childhood. I had one random picture when I was about 5 or 6 stuck in a notebook I had. We don't have any pictures or baby clothes or anything due to our move down south, and we couldn't bring anything really.

But I still remember everything, and I remember nearly everything I did. Still, I say talk to your sister if you can.