Yesterday a sibling and I were comparing childhood memories of emotional events. We agreed that it is possibly easier to access traumatic or painful memories but wondered if our shared lack of positive memories of parental affection is because our childhood was not quite “normal”. So help us out here – during your childhood (for purposes of this discussion, let’s say age 10 or less) what positive emotional memories do you have?
I remember going outside on one of the first nice spring days, twirling around and loving the warmth. I had to have been under 5 years old because I remember it being in the back yard of the house we moved out of before I started kindergarten.
Around the same time, my parents took me to the local library one evening. There was an entire children’s section in the basement of the building. The books were arranged by recommended grade level. I took a look at the pre-kindergarten section, which was mostly picture books. I already read quite well, and looked wistfully at the other sections. “I’ll be glad when I’m in first grade so I can borrow those books over there,” I commented. “You may borrow them now,” my father replied. “I can!!! Any of them?” “Of course. And you may borrow any of the ones from upstairs that you want, too.” It was as if the heavens opened and a choir of angels sang. The idea of the awesomeness of mere existence of all those hundreds and hundreds of books, and that I could read any of them filled me with inexplicable joy.
Both of my parents generally worked full time, but in the spring that I was seven years old my father had taken a new job in a different state and was working there while my mother and I stayed behind to finish the school year and pack up the house. My mother had quit her job a month or two before the move, so suddenly instead of daycare centers and hassled parents, I had my mom to myself. We’d have breakfast at Dunkin Donuts before school sometimes, and she’d pick me up from school at the end of the day and we’d run fun errands together. She even was able to come to some end-of-the-year field trips with my class. It was heaven.
My grandfather built a cabin that stayed in the family until this year. I have a lot of good memories of spending weekends there and playing in the snow until my legs cramped, and trying to decide if I was brave enough to touch the claws on the bear skin. (Grandpa was a hunter - yearling grizzly, quite legal to shoot it at the time, amateur skinning and tanning job and hanging in a shadowy corner. Coarse fur like a dog’s, but longer. Um, and a partially intact nose. Never did touch that.) I want to buy the cabin again some day - I can’t bear the thought of never going there again.
I tend to revisit the negative memories of my childhood more frequently than the good ones, but they’re not a majority of what I remember.
Lots of good ones involving time spent on my own, and my loving father (when he was around, which wasn’t often enough), painfully few of any incident involving my cold and often abusive mother. I know people who have almost nothing but happy/contented childhood memories, to predominantly remember being miserable means you had a bad childhood with bad parents IMO.
A six hour long horseback ride in los llanos in Colombia where we had some land and two horses. We would go up there for a month in the Summer. I was 10 years old. It was our second day there. I mounted one of the horses and took off. I rode on grassy gentle hills, across little creeks and low rivers, stopped at various farms where I met nice folks and got fed. I arrived back at dusk and as I was riding towards the gates, I could see the silhouettes of members of my family, and as I got closer and closer I saw their arms crossed and worried/angry/relieved looks on their faces. I got in huge trouble for not telling anyone where I was going. My dad and uncle had been looking for me for hours. I didn’t care. I had the time of my life - alone with my horse and my thoughts and for just a little while I forgot about the dark things that had been going on in my life. That night I slept on a hammock outside. The sky was covered with stars. It was a beautiful sight. There were more than I have ever seen at any time in my life. I fell asleep with bruised and sore cheeks from riding and a smile on my face.
I was seven years old. Mother was out of the house for the evening and Daddy and I watched TV together. There was a story on about a husband and wife who had only $13 in the bank and it was Christmas. How could they buy presents for the children to find on Christmas morning?
My father and I watched without comment until the program was over. Then I slipped off the sofa, went over to his recliner and crawled up into his lap. I put my arms around his neck and said, "It was you all the time! He nodded and then began to tear up. He was a very tender-hearted man. But I was thrilled and let him know it! After all, my own father was Santa Claus! It has been one of the most treasured memories for both of us. That was 62 years ago. But I can still remember the excitement of knowing on Christmas morning that I was having breakfast with the real Santa Claus.
No need for such an dramatic explanation. What you have here is something much simpler. What emotional stat you’re in now, determines your view on your past, as well as the kind of emotional memories you have access to.
So if one of you is more depressed then the other rigth now, the depressed one will have a memory bias towards less positive memories, more negative ones, and the shared memories he will see in a bleaker light.
That is why, when people are depressed, it seems useful to delve into their past, as they always find sad memories that might “cause” the depression in the present. But later research has found that such delving and ruminating on sad memories does no good, wastes time, and in fact does harm.
Maastricht, your post stunned me. You may think you’re smart and informed but how dare you negate somebody else’s feelings?
When my younger brother and I compared notes he couldn’t remember a lot of the things I brought up. That’s because our childhood was so bad he’d blocked it out.
My good memory is of my adoptive father before he was killed in a car wreck. He really loved me, and the feeling was mutual. He took me everywhere with him, like a little kewpie doll, which is why, when he died, I couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t taken me, too.
I believe his love was what got me through the remainder of my childhood and I’m grateful to have had him, if only for a little while.
Sigh. Post that begin with “How dare you” seldom come from someone in an curious frame of mind.
I’m here to share wat I think of as relevant, helpful and accurate information adressed at the OP’s question. If you want to crash the thread to get validation of your emotions, or looking for a pity party, I’m not interested. Go see (and pay) a shrink. Or get indignant some, more without me, please.
For me it was making a go cart with my best friend ( with help/ supervision fom both dads). It was finally finished in winter, complete with Briggs motor and bike headlights and tail lights. Both dads were engineers.
We coulnt wait for warmer weather, and began zipping up and down the alleys…funny how a sinlge city block with one long north/ south alley, intersected by 2 e/w alleys, seemed like an entire city, when you were a kid.
But after several weeks, we felt prepared to expand our horizons…literally. We drove it, daytime and night time, for miles on city streets.
That all ended on dark, snowy night…seems a neighbor was either jealous or concerned for our safety, and call it in. I saw the reflective badge on its door, as it turned in my direction under a street light. The cruiser was between the retreat of my parents house, and me. So i went lights out, and tried to slip past it undetected. No such luck. I could see it doing a wild, sliding, u-turn and accelerate my way, lit up light a christmas tree in heat. My next brilliant idea, was that my 10 hp Briggs could outrun a Plymouth Fury with police interceptor 340 V8. Right as i was preparing to turn left into my parents alley and ditch it in the side yard, and cuddle up with a warm chocolate milk from the safety of home sweet home, the Fury slid into my path, and i t-boned it. Of all the car features we built into the go-cart, seems we totally overlooked installing a reverse gear. So my 2nd most positive experience (1st place was permasealed by the 37 yr old lady) also tied for my 2nd most unfortunate exp.
Sorry Maastrict but as far as my situation Becky2844 has my back, particularly in explaining why my sister remembers more (good and bad) than I do. My mother was a classic narcissist and my sister and I do not remember any affection from her. I was the scapegoat so that could easily explain why I may have blocked things out.
My post was (obviously) a bit too vague but I was wondering if small children typically remember being hugged and praised and kissed goodnight. My sister and I (who lead relatively successful, content, upbeat lives with the ability to joke about it and no depressive symptoms) don’t, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Last night after I posted this both my sister and received in the mail from another (much younger) sister a DVD compilation of our family home movies. While watching, the three of us kept up a running text commentary about how wonderful it was to recall those humorous, happy times but even fondly recalling our family did not engender any memories of verbal or physical affection from my mother, so it appears that the posited neuropsychopharmacological theory does not apply in this instance. I like the direction the thread was taking so any more stories along the lines of Dunkin Donuts, starry skies, sidekicks and go-carts?
A few problems with your analysis:
1 - You have no idea what the OP’s state is now or previously or how his/her state compares to the person he/she is comparing memories to. You don’t really have any information to draw any kind of conclusion.
2 - Your response implies there can be no valid difference in the number of positive or negative memories, that any differences are due to current emotional state. But the data your provided merely shows that the relative number of positive vs negative memories for an individual is influenced by mood.
While that is interesting information I think you’ve reached well beyond what can really be concluded by it with respect to the OP.
Read the book we gave you, Sheldon.
I have few fond memories that relate to family yet I am full of fond memories that involve nature, pets, the seasonal ponds with the frogs etc. I find it odd that I have six siblings and we all have a totally different memory of what it was like. My negative memories are much more vague, even as a child I tended to reject bad experiences and not dwell on them. Sometimes I think I would go into black out mode when I entered the hell hole we called home.
I was my narcissistic mother’s scapegoat, I don’t have any happy memories of my childhood at all.
I’m in the same boat as the others. Very self-centered, selfish parents. I have few good memories of childhood because there were few of them.
I had a wonderful childhood and have a host of really lovely memories. For me they are flashbulbs equally as strong as the few bad childhood memories.
For instance, I’m about 7, it’s hot summer and my dad is taking me out - this is the first (and possibly last) time he and I have been out alone in the evening. It’s a surprise for me, it must have been close to my birthday. I get ready, I’m wearing a pink ruffled sundress and I have a handkerchief in my pale blue handbag. I’m ready before he is, so I go out to him in the back garden where he’s finishing up the yardwork and I do a little twirl to show him my dress. When we get to the place that we’re going, it turns out to be a screening of the ABBA film, and as I’m obsessed with them, it’s possibly the best night of my life to this point.
Another one - I must have been 12 or so, my brother 9ish. We’re home alone for the day while my parents are at work, so we decide to take our lunch out for a picnic. It starts to rain, so instead of sandwiches, we decide to have Pot Noodles for lunch (not sure how UK specific they are, it’s an instant noodle thing, revolting and delicious all at the same time). We take a flask of hot water out with us and walk up the road to the local woods, but it’s raining so hard we turn back and end up having our picnic in the garage rather than going g back into the house.
For both of those, and others like them, the sense memories are so strong and so lovely. I noticed that I naturally used a present tense in describing them too. I always feel so sorry for those of you who had shitty childhoods, whenever this kind of topic comes up. I can’t imagine what it was like not to feel safety, love and security in your earliest childhood, and it makes me absolutely determined to do what I can to make sure that my children have a childhood they can relish remembering.