The good news is that it's completely normal not to remember much of your early years. It's known as infantile amnesia. This means that even though kids' brains are like little sponges, soaking in all that info and experience, you might take relatively few memories of it into adulthood.
Adults can generally recall events from 3–4 years old, with those that have primarily experiential memories beginning around 4.7 years old. Adults who experienced traumatic or abusive early childhoods report a longer period of childhood amnesia, ending around 5–7 years old.
These traumas can impact your brain's ability to form memories. It could be due to a physical impact on your brain, which impairs your ability to create memories. It also could be from your brain's attempt to cope with the emotional and psychological impact of the trauma. Sometimes you can develop dissociative amnesia.
Severe stress, depression, a vitamin B12 deficiency, too little or too much sleep, some prescription drugs and infections can all play a role. Even if those factors don't explain your memory lapses, you don't need to simply resign yourself to memory loss as you age.
Occasional lapses in memory are a perfectly normal part of life for all of us. We've all forgotten someone's birthday or misplaced our keys now and then. But when memory lapses are persistent and get in the way of your daily life, they may be an indication that you're experiencing the early stages of a memory disorder.
Psychologists think they've identified an entirely new memory syndrome in healthy people characterised by a specific inability to re-live their past.
Adults who have experienced childhood trauma often have heightened anxiety levels. They may worry excessively and have trouble managing their anxiety. Childhood trauma can lead to persistent feelings of sadness, lack of interest in activities, and difficulty experiencing pleasure.
Most unresolved childhood trauma affects self-esteem and creates anxiety. Did you suffer a serious childhood illness? If so, you were likely isolated at home or hospitalized. This meant being removed from normal social activities and you probably felt lonely, maybe even worried about being different.
Re-experiencing or re-living unwanted memories as flashbacks or nightmares. Hyper-arousal: problems with sleep, irritability, anger, anxiety, hyper-alertness, exaggerated startle response. Hypo-arousal: feeling numb or cut off, feeling detached from others, dissociating, feeling flat or empty. Emotional dysregulation.
Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) do not process most information due to inattention and loss of the opportunity to save and retrieve information. Therefore, these children experience memory impairment.
Read an old letter, personal journal, or newspaper article. Listen to an old song that you or someone in your family loved. Cook a meal your mom or dad used to make for you. Smell something that may jog your memory, like a book, pillow, perfume, or food.
The Trauma Test is a brief self-administered rating scale. It is useful in determining the degree to which you struggle with the aftermath of trauma, anxiety or depression, nervous system overarousal, and difficulty with healing and recovery.
Sadness: If you notice that you or a loved one is feeling down much more often, it may be a sign that they're coping with a traumatic event. Losing interest in normal activities: A child may lose interest in things they once enjoyed.
Nostalgia is a term that describes the feeling of longing for aspects of the past that people feel a strong emotional connection to. For example, some people experience childhood nostalgia, where they wish to return to an earlier point in time when they felt the happiest and most carefree.
If the trauma is left untreated, one can experience nightmares, insomnia, anxiety, depression, phobias, substance abuse, panic attacks, anger, irritability, or hopelessness.
Cognitive Signs of Unhealed Trauma
You may experience nightmares or flashbacks that take you back to the traumatic event. Furthermore, you may struggle with mood swings, as well as disorientation and confusion, which can make it challenging to perform daily tasks.
If you have a repressed childhood memory, you may find yourself feeling triggered or having strong emotional reactions to people who remind you of previous negative experiences, family therapist Jordan Johnson, L.M.F.T., tells Bustle.
Without treatment, repeated childhood exposure to traumatic events can affect the brain and nervous system and increase health-risk behaviors (e.g., smoking, eating disorders, substance use, and high-risk activities).
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been associated with large magnitude impairments in working memory, whereas short-term memory deficits, when detected, tend to be less pronounced.
The researchers found that between the ages of 5 and 7, the children remembered more than 60% of the events, but by the ages of 8 and 9, this had fallen to less than 40%.
Hyperthymesia is the rare ability to recall nearly all past experiences in great detail. The causes of HSAM are currently unknown, but some theories suggest that it may have biological, genetic, or psychological origins.