Terrispots

What if I dont REMEMBER most of my childhood? How do I go about recovering and working through the ACOA stuff if I cant remember it?

Of course there are some memories, most of them not good. But I dont have a lot of memories of my mom. The other issue is if I told a story and you asked me how old I was, I always think I was 9 years old. Never older, never younger. Its like I am stuck at 9.

Is that weird? Anyone else have that problem?

DesertEyes

Hello Terrispots, and pleased to "meet" you

No worries. I don't remember most of my childhood either, and that had _no_ effect on my recovery in ACoA. What I did was work on the _present_. It's the tangled feelings and confused expectations that I have _today_ that make a mess of my life. What happened in my childhood is the _cause_ of my "baggage", but it's not the cure.

Not weird at all. At my meetings it is very, very common. I don't think there is a single person I know in ACoA who has the standard memory of their childhood. Personally I think it makes perfect sense, why would anybody _want_ to remember this horror?

Mike

Kialua

My sister doesn't remember anything either, in fact she denies anything happened. She has grown into a very nice (to others) full functioning adult that is a great mom and wife. She had to do this to survive our life, I was told by our alcoholic dad's therapists.

I on the other hand remember everyday and even at the young age of three. Course I was beat and she wasn't. I don't know why I remember everything, my husband is amazed at what I recall. It is a burden to live with, but that's who I am. I have grown and gone beyond my childhood but it's very vivid still.

DavidG

I am with Kialua, Terrispots... can remember lots and lots of things. When I was 17 I began to write poetry and started to set things down- slowly at first. Now at age 62 I can remember lots... the connections between events are really really hazy. Things come to me from time to time tho...

...the sad thing is my family, typically does never ever kick back and share memories. Some time ago two of my brothers came onto an online forum and tried to make out I was making things up...!

As always looking for the similarities, not the differences... :>)

DavidG.

EveningRose

I, too, have many and very vivid and clear memories of my childhood. But, like Desert Eyes, I would say it's the issues and behavior of my family today that are the problem. Deal with the feelings and events of today.

GingerM

DesertEyes has it spot on.

It doesn't matter whether you can remember the events or not. What matters is who you are now, whether you want to continue to exist the way you're existing now, and if not, what can you do about it now.

In the past year and a half, I had a dawning insight: if life was a poker game, and we could see what hands others had, it would make no difference whether the person next to me had a better hand than I did. I could be angry about it, I could be envious of it, but when it comes time to ante up, I'm still holding the hand I've got.

And when that hand is finished, and the next hand (or day, or moment, or year) is dealt, my hand may change. And if that hand is also pretty paltry, it *still* doesn't matter what hands the others at the table have. I still only have the hand I'm dealt.

The hands continually change throughout our lives. But we can only work with the cards we have right now. Focusing on the 'maybes' or the 'if only's or the 'it's not fair's only makes life worse.

Chose what cards to throw away, get your new cards, ante up or fold. There is no dishonor in folding. There is no dishonor in throwing away some cards hoping for better ones to replace them. That's doing the best you can with what you have available at the moment. And that's all we can do.

Those hands from your past, the things you can't remember? Those don't matter. You're holding your current hand right now. That's the hand you can affect. The past hands are done, the next hands have not yet arrived.

And if you can't see your neighbors' hands? Who knows then, it may be that their hand is worse than yours. Holding yourself in comparison to others doesn't help either. You have your hand, they have theirs. You may be able to do more with your mediocre hand than they can do with a good hand, simply because you've lived it longer than they have.

Today is what you have. The past won't change, the future exists only as a fantasy.

I wish you peace,

Gin

Terrispots

I think my bigger issue is that I feel like my whole life happened at age 9! Maybe that is just a brain glitch in my head, maybe it has something to do with my past, dunno...

Reedling

If you are working the steps, by the time you get to step 11 and incorporate meditation, you might have memories at that point. I did.

interrupted

I don't have many memories either, and the few I have are very disjointed, I don't always know the ages unless they happened at school. Most of my memories are from school, almost like that was my house. I don't know why.

It doesn't matter, though. When memories come up, and they do, usually in dreams, my therapist has me handling them by visualizing myself comforting the child me in the situation. Telling her things are okay and that she is loved and she deserves love. I re-imagine the situation with adult me in the picture also, and I praise and comfort the little me. It sounds totally insane, but it's really helping me to work through my emotional baggage.

Even without memories, sometimes I talk to imaginary little me in everyday life, and tell her what a good job she is doing with very mundane tasks. One of these days I'll either turn into a legit crazypants, or I'll slowly start to feel better! Either way works, I guess, lol!

I've gone off track, but my initial point was to agree that all the memories don't have to exist in order to work on fixing the now.