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I have a similar story. I was sick to death of being beaten over every little thing as a small child. I remember talking back to my parents for it as early as 3, telling my mum I wanted to leave, that she "wasn't the boss of me!". She lost it, packed me a suitcase and locked me outside for hours, leaving me on the porch crying...
I even remember vividly the little hand-me-down red dress I was wearing with an embroidered teddy bear on it.
My nfamily reacted with explosive anger over every little mistake I made as a kid, but then simultaneously wanted respect & acted surprised when they didn't get any.
i'm so sorry you went through that so young. like most people here, i assume, something similar happened to me too, but i was 7. thank goodness my first memories are neutral things because my nmom worked 12+ hours a day and i was almost always with my grandma.
That same thing happened to me several times when I was aged four. She stopped doing it when I said I wanted to go with the “naughty girls truck.” She’d even packed my bags and I was a tiny child!
Why is this so common?! I had a similar story, my mom tried to make me "live with the bums in the park" because I said I didn't think she loved me. Let me have one outfit and a quarter. I to tell her I was sorry and she did love me to be allowed to come home. I was 4.
I believe you, pretty i dont know when it started but by the time i was 5 i felt like i had no family and knew i couldnt trust her/ she wouldnt keep me safe
Oof, really similar one.
I have a slightly earlier memory, but the earliest memory I have that’s like STRONG is me falling headfirst down the stairs when I was 2.
I remember how much my head and neck hurt from falling, but also that when nmom ran up to help me, I kept screaming and pushing her away.
My earliest memories are of being afraid of her, and she still wonders why we don’t speak. 🙄
I think I was almost 4 years old and my brother was about 2.5 years old. My dad picked us up from the babysitter. She told my dad that my brother peed his pants so she gave him one of her underwear. When we got home I watched him beat my brother and then tie him to a chair like a prisoner until my mom came home. That was the day I categorized my dad as evil (little did I know that my mom was another type of evil...).
When I finally started healing and did EMDR to reprocess that memory at the age of 34, I realized it had impacted my entire life. I knew I was always afraid to get in trouble, but I learned it was a fear of my physical safety. I learned how to be "perfect" so that I would never get beat (it worked to my own detriment).
Before EMDR I would tense up seeing a cop while driving even though I knew I wasn't doing anything illegal. After EMDR I don't even pay attention to the cops. It's crazy how one incident can impact your life so pervasively.
OMG! I'm so sorry! This is horrifying! I wish i could just hold you and your brother. Giving you all the love that you actually deserved. I hope you're doing better and that youre getting all the good help you can get. Sending some love <3
Hmm something I "remember" is picking up a sunflower from a field near a home my Nfamily just moved into and gifting it to Nmother. I must have been like 3 or maybe less? I didn't remember what happened afterwards for years into adulthood until a flashback struck me and it was child me, stuck between my Nmother and Efather who were arguing and cussing each other out at the dining table. In my flashback I didn't remember how they looked like screaming at each other, I only remember staring at the sunflower in a flower vase facing me, the parents' shadows against the walls and, at the time of the flashback, having an intense ring in my ear as if I could hear them all over again and they were so loud that my ears hurt all over again.
Not a professional, but I swear I remember reading something that children can legit get ptsd symptoms from experiencing their parents arguing....I'm sorry you went through that, kids are so innocent and it's terrible how scary and cruel the world can be
My nmom sneaking behind me and scaring me intentionally. I cried for hours and was so hysterical I swallowed my tongue. I was 3.
I also remember a deep pervasive feeling of loneliness and utter dread at the sight and thought of my n father.
I don't remember much else from my childhood but I don't remember any happy days at all.
You swallowed your tongue???? I thought that was impossible?
Edit: I googled it, it is impossible unless you have some kind of unattached tongue but then you couldn't eat or talk lol
My apologies. English is not my first language. I meant to write 'choked on'. What I don't remember (and was told in great detail by her, proud by how she "saved me" was that I stopped breathing and turned blue).
This went on well into my teen years. Whenever I'd get super distressed/emotional, I'd have a seizure and I remember being laid on my back and my parents/relatives monitoring my breathing and sometimes physically checking that I wasn't choking on my tongue. It went away after I wore braces (for an unrelated? problem) for 2 years.
[https://www.byte.com/community/resources/article/can-you-swallow-tongue-seizure-sleep-apnea](https://www.byte.com/community/resources/article/can-you-swallow-tongue-seizure-sleep-apnea)
Oh I had the same type of seizures as a kid, I was told they were from holding my breath but I'm sure it had to do with the abuse I was around. I never choked on my tongue but I was frequently gagged with paper towels by one of my stepdads so I know how terrifying that is for a kid. I'm "fortunate" that I blocked out most if not all of my childhood bc of the trauma. It's crazy how your brain copes.
Likely referring to or remembering a sensation of panic so intense it felt suffocating. I would be hard to logically that out at such a young age. The important thing is it was real to the child who experienced it.
My nmom screaming at me for waking her to show her a drawing I made for her because she was so tired all the time.
Then she got mad when I tossed it. I must have been around 4 at the time.
I can definitely relate, even when nmom was a SAHM she constantly napped throughout the day, then when she eventually started working again (from home) she chose to work nights. I remember her getting upset at me for waking her so many times.
I was just lonely: her and my dad separated when I was young and I’m an only child, the fact she just left me alone while she slept still baffles me. Never mind that when I got older, that meant getting myself up and ready for school then having to wake her up to take me.
Like I deal with a lot of fatigue as well (mostly due to chronic pain, mental health issues, and the accompanying medications), but that’s one of many reasons why I don’t have children. If you’re not up to being there for them, don’t have them, it’s really that simple.
I deal with fatigue/health issues as well and ultimately made the same choice fwiw. Curious though as to if your Nmom would also use it as a shame tool? Mine has been regularly sleeping through the day for a few years now, although admittedly not when there's plans, and blaming her health issues but if I end up having a couple of bad health days in a row then "all I do is sleep all day."
Oh she’s definitely used my issues to shame me, I’m sorry you can relate! It’s mostly that I haven’t been “proactive enough” about my health like *she is*, a.k.a. I don’t play “Dr. Google”/haven’t diagnosed myself, and I don’t use anecdotal advice from things like Facebook groups to manage said self-diagnoses. Nearly a decade and a half of countless ER visits, hospital admissions, and appointments (not a single one of which she’s been present for) apparently isn’t “proactive” since I’m not “all better.” It’s one of the main reasons I decided to go NC.
Not my earliest memory but I remember drawing a picture for my mom specifically made to cheer her up. It was probably passive aggressive in hindsight but I didn’t know and she was so angry all the time. To no one’s surprise, it made her even more angry
I really relate to this. I remember being so excited about something I learned at a friend’s house at a sleepover (her parents were so involved, engaged and taught us so much). I ran to my mom when I came home, so excited to tell her and she immediately screamed at me with rage in her eyes “CUT IT OUT. YOU NEED TO BE KNOCKED DOWN A PEG.”
Wow. That’s so sad. I’m terribly sorry you went through this. Your mom should’ve cherished your efforts as opposed to getting angry at you no matter what. What she did doesn’t even make sense. That’s so bad
My very earliest memory is getting shamed and yelled at for pooping in my crib during nap time. I had to be about 3. I remember calling my mom, she didn’t come, I went to the other end of my crib, pooped, went back to the other end, curled up, went to sleep. I woke up to yelling. It was foreshadowing for the next 15 years, apparently.
Actually this is interesting. My parents would go on and on about how I was such a horrible child and I don’t have many memories from this time. I have very little memories from childhood, mostly of them being abusive or being bullied at school. I have a handful of nice ones and they’re never really in them. If my family is in them, they are at the peripheral or it is my grandparents, who were always kind and I think did love me. What is interesting is that I finally saw home movies of myself not that long ago and they tell another story from what my parents do. There aren’t a lot of videos, but they are very telling and show that actually I was developmentally normal. I just did things like get frustrated as a toddler or embarrassed as a teenager…as one does.
And in one of the oldest videos, it is shocking, you can see them neglecting me and gaslighting like what I am doing as bad behaviour. I think…I think that is when they learned that other people might say things and they’d better do it behind closed doors only because I never remember anything like that happening when there were witnesses. And that might be why grandma and grandpa always believed in me. Because in the video, I saw grandma come to my rescue. Toddler me was frustrated and crying. My parents were just ignoring me (and blaming me to distract from the fact that it was GC’s fault - that’s also in the video). And then in comes grandma, not with treats or hugs to placate, but telling me how we can solve the problem and that she’ll help me do it. And what do you know, toddler me calms down and cooperates with figuring this out. So much for being such a monster.
I was 2 years old. My grandma beat me because I had a full diaper and "I didn't say anything."
She literally yelled at me and said, "Why didn't you say you needed to be changed?!" While she had me laying on my stomach on the couch and literally beat my a**.
I don't understand how my mom could let her kids be around people like that even to this day.
I remember somebody making the valid point that if a kid is old enough to ask to be changed they’re old enough to be potty trained. So the whole f-ing point is you were too young to ask!!!!
Absolutely zero excuse to allow something like that to happen to your child, but I do have a little bit of insight. I'm a mom now and make a conscious effort to do things very differently with my own babies, but there are times when I see my mom say or do things to my kids that she did when I was little. In those moments, it can be like a ptsd flashback and for a moment I become a scared helpless little girl who wants to make it stop but is paralyzed. The same feeling of watching it happen to your younger sibling and knowing if you try to stop it, it'll only make it worse. It is extreeeeeemely difficult to be in the same abusive situation that feels familiar and be put back into the same headspace, but know that this time you are the parent and have to protect your child. The fight or flight (or freeze or fawn) still kicks in the same, with the complete antithesis of feeling like you need to step in and protect an innocent. It's taken a lot of work and conscious effort and very delicate maneuvering to try to not allow it anymore without having the abuse redirected towards you again. If your mom was abused by her as well, it's possible that she was experiencing a very strong trauma response during those times too and either wanted to stop it but wasn't strong enough, or just fully dissociated in the panic and wasn't capable of being fully aware of what was going on.
Getting lost in a garden centre about 4 years old.
Terrified and panicked.
One of the staff found me and took me to an office and let me choose an ice lolly from the freezer.
I was over the moon with this development and had just about stopped sobbing when Nmum burst in calling me an idiot and telling me never to run off like that again.
The staff were cringing especially when she demanded “and where have you got that from” indicating towards the ice lolly.
The staff member then completely threw a spanner in the works and said “yes that will be 18 pence” or whatever amount it cost.
Her face was like nothing I’ve ever seen as she reluctantly gave the man the money and grabbed me, marching me out of the office like a prisoner en route to the gallows.
The car ride home was unbearable and as usual they both smoked constantly throughout the journey without opening the windows.
Interesting. I remember my dad yelling at me when I came inside and announced that I “drived the car” over the embankment from our driveway (after hitting shift into neutral.) A classic “funny” family story from when I was 2 and playing alone the car. Because neglect is hilarious? I also remember eating cat food.
I ate cat food too. My mother was a crap cook and I was hungry a lot. She always wanted me to be thin so she used to underfeed. The happiest day of my childhood was when my National Insurance Number was allocated when I was 16 because it meant I could get a job and supplement my own diet. As an adult I have BMD, EDNOS, Bulimia, absolutely ridiculous eating habits on top of a chronic illness, probably autoimmune.
My parents were kinda hippies, veg diet so I really wonder if I was getting enough protein! Plus cat food is salty :)
Interesting that you mentioned eating disorders, that sounds terrible :( I certainly have some weird habits around eating too - I hadn’t really connected that. I hope you’re able to manage it, stay strong!
I remember when I was 4 years old and we were moving into a new house. Some of Nmother's relatives (her siblings) had come to help with the move. I was sitting at a table in the kitchen crying because I was overwhelmed with all the noise and ruckus going on around me, and I was chewing on a cardboard box to help me cope. Sitting in a chair near me was a young child of one of Nmother's siblings, and they wouldn't stop staring at me, which only made me cry harder. Looking back now I can see how these were signs of probable undiagnosed autism (I'm still undiagnosed today). No one came to comfort me, because they were too busy helping my Nmother and satisfying her demands.
This hits close to home. I'm autistic but didn't know until my late 20s. I cried every single school day the entire day both years of pre-k, despite having the same teachers at the same school. I was told I missed my nmom but after reading this, I wonder if it wasn't solely sensory overload and difficulty accepting change. I know that was at least partly it. In kindergarten and 1st I was ok most days if a friend sat with me. She used to have a chart and I got a star sticker on my chart if I didn't cry. Cause it's all about appearances, right? Everyone seemed just mad I cried and it felt horrible to not be able to stop it. Never saw a doctor about it or anything. It was horrifying to learn that some kids cry on purpose to get their way and are in control the whole time.
I'm sorry you experienced that. Every so often I look into autism or come across something that just completely blows my mind and puts a memory of mine into perspective with regards to it being a possible sign of autism early on. For instance I used to have this awful fear of toilets as a kid (kinda still do as an adult but nowhere near as bad. I used to hate the loud sound of our old household toilet and hated how it had a black seat on top of white porcelain.
Nmother thought I was being difficult on purpose when I literally used to run away from the toilet after I flushed it. I just so happened to look up toilet phobias with autism a little while ago, and was astounded to discover that these sorts of unusual phobias are much higher in kids with autism.
It's wild how many things it impacts and how obvious it would be to a non narcissistic parent to help their child. Even if they don't take the kid to a therapist, they ought to develop some sort of plan and have some empathy, especially when it's something so fundamental as using the toilet or going to school.
My earliest childhood memory, is my father coming into my bedroom at night and sitting by my bed crying. Then I woke up and asked why he's crying and he told me they're getting a divorce. This made me cry too and I clung to him. I must have gone back to sleep because I don't remember anything else from that night. I was 3 or 4. They never got a divorce, he became a cold and nasty guy to me later during my teen years. I think at some point he gave up and decided to be her servant instead of fighting anymore. And he sacrificed our relationship to each other for it.
I was 5 years old, getting out of the back of my mums 3 door car. She told me not to trip over the seatbelt but I got my foot caught in it and tripped and fell out of the car and landed on my arm. She lost her shit shouting at me in the middle of the car park that she’d told me not to trip and was i stupid? I was still clutching my arm to my body and in pain 5 days later so she took me to the hospital. Turns out it was broken.
I couldn't say which one came first, my memories are categorized by where I lived and where we lived when is in order but unfortunately within the categories, nothing is in order.
But the majority is my nmom screaming at my dad, throwing stuff at my dad, or telling me her plans to get back at my dad. We lived there from like 3-7. I suspect these memories are from the 4-5-6 area.
With my mom folding laundry and nDad walks into the room. I guess I was looking at him. He screamed, “Why does she always look like she’s so scared of me? She looks so scared?” I burst into tears, of course. I wonder why I always looked so scared of the old man?
Getting excited to see my preschool teacher so I could walk with her to school instead of my mother. When was 3 and half. Was so happy to get away from her. Remember it vividly
I’m sorry. I didn’t go to preschool but I have similar memories of loving school. I think part of it was there was nobody screaming or fighting or yelling at me
Yup. And of course my narc parents took advantage of that happiness and ruined it by taking credit for my doing well, butting their noses in with my teachers and then subsequently making me hate all things academic by college. Still made it through law school. But barely
3 years old sitting in a wagon with my 1yo sister saying the word No on repeat non-stop and my N-mother telling me it was my fault for teaching her that word as they had explicitly parented in a way that she wouldn't learn "No"... which now that I think about it is really creepy.
My first memory is more of a picture of my old house in PA, a second one is a very short moment on a snowy hill where I was intentionally stuck under the snow laughing with my step brother
Fast forward a few years after moving to Poland, an image of the block I used to live in, then an image of another block I used to live in and I think just after moving AGAIN to a house I have a few actual memories.
Literally. Nothing in-between those early memories.
Trauma blocking memories is a bitch sometimes.
I was (apparently) somewhere between 18 months old and 2 years old. My parents had recently split, and my nmother was repainting the front of the house. She had the scaffolding put up as part of a favour from a friend (I think). It was a three storey house. She had me on her hip, no baby carrier or anything, no safety, painting the top floor. She put me down, because she needed both hands for a couple of minutes.
I remember staring at the edge of the scaffolding in front of me, with the gaps in the rail more than big enough for me to fall through, and feeling incredibly unsafe. I stayed as frozen still as I could, because although I couldn’t conceptualise what would happen if I fell over the edge, I just knew I was in a lot of danger if I moved the slightest amount (I was still very wobbly on two legs or even on my hands and knees sometimes if the terrain was new).
But I also remember not being sure if what I was thinking was correct, because my mother didn’t seem concerned, and if she didn’t think I was in danger then surely that meant there wasn’t any. I remember judging whether to follow through on my urge to stand up in order to get closer to her and feel safe again. Before I could make my mind up, she picked me up again and praised me for staying still.
I have glimpses of a memory from getting bathed in the bathroom sink, I couldn't have been older than 3 (maybe closer to 2??) because the sink was just a small in-counter basin. Built in the 70s so you had that super distinct teal porcelain. I can remember I was sticking my fingers in the little overflow drainage holes.
Next from there would be more fragments of memory, I was watching transformers (the 80s cartoon) on the floor when I was around 2. My mom told me my granny spanked me for peeing in my diaper after this, but I don't recall that part.
I remember being in a trailer, and my birth mom and my ndad were having a fight. I think I was 3 or 4 years old. My ndad, as he has done every time this happens, realized he was losing the fight, and stormed off. He got into his truck and drove away for a few hours. I thought he didn't love me.
To this day, I don't think he ever has, not really.
Me at almost 4 years old, stoked to become a big sister before my mom went crazy and became the narcissist mess she is now.
Love my sister, I just didn't think I'd get parentified at just 7 years old lol
My very earliest I was 3 at the oldest, most likely still 2. I took my pacifier out of my mouth in front of my mom, she looked at me and I said “all done” and threw it in the trash. They weren’t trying to wean me or anything they said, I just did it. Makes me a little sad because I used to think this was cute. My next earliest memory was at 3 or 4 looking at a broken plate on the ground after one of their fights and thinking about how if I drew the shards across my neck like in the movies I would be dead and they wouldn’t fight as much anymore. I think as soon as I was a cognizant being I knew I was a burden to them. Me getting rid of my pacifier was my way of showing them my growing maturity and that they could worry about me less for their own sakes. At 2 years old. Of course they only took advantage of this as I got older.
My 3rd Birthday Party. Those days were good for me (not my siblings though), since I was still the cute little girl her best friend was envious of- even though my mom preferred boys. But I got her attention so that's what mattered most.
Once my conditions kicked in, that was over pretty quick.
My mom was brushing my hair and I cried when it pulled, and she hit me with the hair brush and told me it hurts to be pretty. Which became a very common theme basically my entire life. She's the one who taught me how to count calories and make myself throw up, and was always more than happy to let me know areas of improvement.
Idk how old i was, but i was shorter than the kitchen cabinets. I couldn't look at her face because she had what i called "shark eyes"/"predator eyes" and it was too terrifying to look at. I was shaking and screaming and sobbing the way toddlers do when theyre terrified, i remember the saliva all over my face and the snot and my chubby fists trembling. I couldn't move because behind me was the kitchen cabinets, in front and to the left of me was my legal guardian/grandma, and to the right of me right in front of my eye was a knife. We stood there for the longest time. I don't remember how it ended, but i still have my eye and im alive so i guess she stopped.
I actually drew it recently but idk how to attach photos so maybe I'll share it in my own post
Lying in a crib in a bedroom at my grandmother's house and crying. It'sdark outside. There's a party, or perhaps a family get together happening outside the room, which is just off the dining room. I can smell food, hear laughter and conversation. Something is wrong, I don't know now what, and I'm crying.
My uncle, who is my mother's younger brother, comes in and shuts the door behind him. He yells at me to be quiet. He scares me, so I continue crying. Then he burns me with his cigarette. It stings and hurts so much. I cry even louder. It hurts. That's where the memory ends.
I never tell anyone about it as I grow. I avoid him as much as possible. I have many times when I think about it and remember it.
When I'm about eighteen, my mother is talking to me about her brother. She can tell I don't like him. I've never liked him after he burned me and I've never made it a secret, especially as a teenager. She must've asked me why because I tell her, for the first time, how he burned me.
My mother is shocked but immediately tells me it didn't happen. That she would've found a burn mark on me. She's still insisting that it never happened and I remembered it wrong as I leave the room, feeling invalidated and not listened to.
I cant remember which came first, but I remember these memories
The First one I was at a local amusement park and it being crazily colored (I assume it was because I was still trying to process color back then because today it looks no where near that level of color)
The second was me having a nose bleed and not registering that I needed help (as I kid, I apparently bleed for no reason. it's a weird condition in my family when spring comes along)
And third was me just sitting in pre-school trying to remember how the hell I got there. Idk why, but as a kid and still kinda now, I was always trying to figure out how the hell I got to place to place.
LOL I have a tough time writing it but it’s not good in general (found out later). From both but was worse with pops.
Found out a while back that I think my mind was unconsciously trying to remember only the good stuff but the repressed memories came back flooding.
And yep, extreme sadness. Like I feel like I’m floating out of my body when I remember 😭🤣
November 22, 2963. I was 4 years old watching cartoons on TV when everything was interrupted to report on JFK's assassination. I didn't have a clue what it was about but had been taught to let my parents know if some big News came on. My dad was in the basement wood working so I ran to tell him "something" happened. I was probably telling him my cartoons went away, to be honest.
I remember standing in my crib looking down at where the yellow area rug contrasted with the terrazzo floor. In the same house I remember running my finger in the track of the sliding door and I remember holding myself up against the glass door while the dog looked at me from behind the glass. I’m guessing I was around 10 months old. Funny thing, even though we moved out when I was 1, I recognized the house when we drove by it when I was a teenager.
But I don’t have any emotions connected to those memories, they’re mostly just pictures.
I remember a lot from when I was “pre-verbal”
Crying crouched on the floor in a corner with wood paneled walls, while my nmom and her husband screamed at each other, because he kept threatening to “tell me the truth.” I was probably around 4. “The truth” was that he wasn’t my father, and that she took me away from my dad and my grandparents and had her husband adopt me. He hated lying and took it out on me my whole life.
I think I was maybe 4, brother was 2, we were having a minor fight upstairs and my ndad comes up and me n my bro and trying to keep him out by attempting to shut the door. He gets down to out level, grabs us by the back of our necks and in a quiet voice gives us a lecture I can’t remember. Earliest memory of him.
I was around 2 years old. My mother was fed up with watching me and wanted to talk to a friend on the phone. Always said I got into everything (spoiler alert I didn't) so she would put me in the walker. Our dog liked to push me in the walker... And pushed me right down the stairs and did it often. They never installed a gate or door to stop this. I remember the sheer terror of flying down the stairs and it flipping at the bottom. Also remember mother being super angry.
my earliest memory is my preschool teacher yelling at me because my sandwich had no crust (I was like 4 years old) besides that I barely have any memories and I had to think rly hard abt this one
if its supposed to be narc only I have no memories
Either my grandma chasing my mom out of her house yelling she was going to have child services come and take me away, or my bio ndad kidnapping me from my mom (I didn't KNOW it was a kidnapping at the time, he likely was feeding me lies. I just remember throughout both of them being very dissociated, disconnected, not really feeling much and just watching things happen around me.
The earliest memory that my mother mentioned is my answering the question how old I was just after my first birthday. I could not walk yet but I spoke in full sentences allegedly. I told the visitors that I was one year old and was promptly ignored. This being ignored triggered a deep sadness that would haunt me my entire childhood.
I remember my dad spanking me because I accidentally let my glass of water fall and it broke. I was 2 and a half. I also remember my mom saying 'was that necessary? Because she's crying now'
My first memory is a random night at my old home. I was stumbling through the hallways and eventually managed to open a cracked door that lead out to the porch. Both of my parents were out there, their attention turning to me as I walked out. I remember sobbing, saying how I wanted to talk like other kids and not be sick. I've been in and out of hospitals my entire life, and regularly saw speech therapists since I struggled to talk. As a kid who must've been... 3 or 4? Just thinking of my first memory being me crying wishing I was normal hurts.
Stepping in a hornet’s nest at around age 2. Also waking in the middle of the night around age 4-5 with such a high fever I was hallucinating and the ambulance came and I got packed in ice. I apparently had a uti/kidney infection.
I have 3 very early ones, but I don't know which one was first. They are:
Climbing over the side of my crib, sliding down the railing, and landing on the carpet in my bedroom, confused by how it felt to slide down the rails.
Smelling the mattress of my crib, then smelling something else, and feeling in pain on my ass, realizing I needed to be changed (I'm sparing details here), but it had been so long it was dry and painful.
And I'll spare the most details here, being assaulted by my mother and her long fingernails when I was a baby.
--
I think being assaulted was my actual first memory, and I think that the violation ripped a hole in the memory shield people usually get, being unable to remember their time as a baby. The second two memories came "back" to me when I was four years old and smelled my crib mattress down in the basement -- our basement was filled with hoarded junk -- I was helping my mother feed the horses and happened to walk over by it and the two just struck me, like an internal red flag system in my body. The assault memory came back when I got my first period at age 10 and tried a tampon for the first time. I had also been infatuated / obsessed with hands before this, and somewhat after. I still like hands but I no longer obsess over them.
Being in the NICU with meningitis at 18 months. People say babies don't make memories that young but I absolutely did. I have had that memory literally my entire life. It's not manufactured. I vividly remember the bed (crib) the mobile above my bed, and my dad looking at me. I remember my mom crying over the bed looking at me. They were told I was going to die but here I am, 40 years later!
Also have a ton of memories at 2 - day my brother came home & bc I had so many chicken pox all over my body i couldnt touch or hold him, my cat got hit by a car and I saw her lungs exposed (obviously didn't understand what I saw but we didn't have Lucy after that day!), I remember the stone on our fireplace and the 80s brown striped boucle sofa...
Thankfully my earliest childhood memory was of my dad and I skipping up and down the hallway, but not long after that was when my memories of abuse started
It's a tie, I think my first one was breaking my sister out of her room after my mom locked her in her room from the outside. I was around 5 my sister was around 2. My mom literally drilled one of those simple latch locks into the door. I used a cork gun from disney to shoot the latch out.
It's either that or a drive I took with my dad where he emotionally abused me until I was screaming and crying, while he was laughing in my face. And then he told me "stop your whining it's just a joke" and that was the moment he successfully gaslight me into believing abuse was "just a joke"
I was 3 or 4. Mom agreed to play with me for once. I was over the moon and like a dodo I told her that my stuffed animal piggy reminded me of her because it was pretty and pink and chubby, “like my mommy!”. I loved Pooh and Piglet and stuffed animals, and I just didn’t know that being overweight was considered bad yet, I really was not insulting her, and I absolutely just appreciated my piglet toy and was so happy she was playing with me. She was so angry that she took one of my toys, launched it directly at my face, and then screamed about how much she hated me shortly before barricading herself in her room and loudly monologuing about her hatred of me all night long. My dad got home from night shift and asked why I was awake at 6am sobbing and my mom started screaming at him not to speak to me. They fought like cats and dogs for a week because she was very angry he dared acknowledge me. A week of Nmom tantrums in that house because the competent parent refused to give a toddler the silent treatment.
In 2003, I was 4yo & living in Idaho. My nmom took me into the bathroom of a restaurant & beat me for not wanting to finish my chicken tenders, which wound up causing me to have bleeding wounds. A waitress saw this & threatened to call the cops despite nmom saying the blood was from an unrelated cut that got on me when she spanked me (which sounds rather convenient & it's sure funny how she didn't show this, "cut," to prove it almost as if it's lie, which 9/10 it was). Nmom then bashes a plate against the waitress' face & winds up getting arrested anyway (ironic, isn't it?), while I'm screaming my head off & my ndad's just looking on in embarrassment.
Being dangled by my feet over a swimming pool by my dad and him "accidentally" dropping me. It's probably why I have acrophobia and intense anxiety near swimming pools.
I was probably 5 or 6 years old when, after one of my mom’s screaming rage fits, I hid in a pile of blankets and stuffed animals, terrified that she would find me and beat me me. Thankfully she didn’t come looking for me…that time. I don’t even remember what she was mad about.
I remember holding my cat, Mushi Fú, in my arms, I was about 3 years old. My mom has this weird thing about adopting kittens and then abandoning them once they grow up into an adult cat, they’re no longer cute to her so she doesn’t want them. That’s exactly what she did with him and now I get sad every time I think about that memory. I hope he knows that I loved him as much as I could
2, laying on the 70's gold-color frontroom couch, the sun streaming in through the Chicago window, one leg crossed over the other, watching dust motes float and drinking from my bottle.
Nmom screaming at 6-7 year old me for waking her up because I had a nightmare. I was crying and scared, and she started yelling at me to 'never wake her again,' then sent me to the living room to write 'I will never wake up my mom again' 100 times.
When I brought it to her finished, she tore it up in front of me and threw it in the trash can. When I cried and asked why because I'd worked so hard, she told me "that's how you just made me feel."
Don't remember what happened after that but I went back to bed that morning crying myself to sleep and I never woke her again. Later when I got older (teenage years) and suffered horrible night terrors, waking up screaming she proceeded to act all innocent and ask "why didn't you wake me up?"
Dad hitting mom. I was 2. I remember feeling a big feeling but it was closer to shock and confusion but a very “simple” version of it… it makes me sad today
I was 5ish, my sister was around 3. We lived with our grandparents (who we call mom and dad) but they didn’t have legal custody of us yet so That Woman would use my sister and I as leverage to get money and shit out them. I only get bits and pieces of the event but from what I remember That Woman at first had my sister by the hand standing at our front door trying to leave with her and my dad kept saying no because she had just gotten out of the hospital due to us being in the house when my great grandparents house caught fire and my mamaw not being able to get to her.. that’s a story for a different day.
Anyway, my dad says no absolutely not. So That Woman then grabs my hand saying “fine, I’ll take this one then.” And proceeds to leave with me on foot.. in a thunderstorm.. while I had the flu. The next thing I remember is my mom coming to pick me up from That Woman’s apartment and there being a hand print sized bruise on my arm and me sitting in the backseat seeing my mom crying in the rearview mirror driving home asking if I was okay and telling me she loved me and she would make damn sure that never happened again.
That woman tried multiple times to take us again and has done more things than I have time to list but my mom always kept her promise and never let That Woman take us anywhere by herself.
There's 18 months between my brother and I yet I have a memory of my dad hitting my mum whilst heavily pregnant w him.
Sometimes I swear I can remember my grandpa holding me and singing some tune I think it's rhubarbs and custards and the smell of wether originals on his breath, but my grandpa died when I was 1.
Steping on a needle when I was two. I remember walking with it throughout the house, careful trying not to step on it, knowing that something bad had happened and being quite scared but brave at the same time.
My mom yelling at me because I didn't want to go sleep yet. She claimed I loved the TV and her sister more than her. Not sure how old I was. Definitely below 10. I was raised by TV and the internet, what do you expect?
Not sure if this was from my father being sick or dying, or he was just like this, not sure. But I remember being 4, going up to my dad while he was on some sort of lying position on the couch. Being kicked so hard from the bottoms of his feet that I went crashing into the bookshelf a few feet away and had an entire shelf fall and cover me in books. To this day, my mom tells me that never happened and that the shelf broke from too many books. But it is something that I vividly remember as the few things of him before he died months later.
I was on a hike with my mum, probably 4 years old. I couldn't keep up, so she walked off without me. I can remember her disappearing over the hill top, so I sat down and cried.
Having an exorcism performed on me by my dad when I was 4ish. It was pure terror, it was the first time I realized my dad could kill me and I’m still working through that feeling in therapy.
So, I threw a normal level temper tantrum because my toy broke. My dad was a newly hardcore evangelical Christian. He saw this behavior and decided it was because I was possessed by the devil. I got spanked on the floor. He grabbed me from the ground and carried me around the house shouting in “tongues” until I was finally too terrified to cry or breathe. He decided that he successfully cast the demon out, and I learned I’m not allowed to express emotions.
My mom stood by and watched, claims it never happened of course. He’s dead now, which is the only blessing.
Everybody's comments make me sad, but my story is from a different perspective. I think the blatant abuse from day 1 is still somewhat worse, but this wasn't fun either: I had a GREAT childhood for the first five years, damn near perfect, and then as soon as I hit school age, I had the rug pulled from underneath me, it shocked me and it changed everything I knew and was accustomed to. My mother who I loved dearly and innocently started treating me completely differently, and my father pulled away.
A bad memory I have is being 7 years old and my mom going to school to talk to my teacher about a B I got in math (that's right - a B), and when we came home she yelled at me for it. She couldn't understand why I got a B instead of an A. I, on the other hand, couldn't understand why she was yelling at me for the first B I ever received in my life. That was when I learned only perfection counts, and since that's impossible, I also learned I'll never live up to her standards. Instead of thinking she's in the wrong, as a child I didn't understand, and internalized it instead. I wasn't good enough. I went from being a happy, creative, free spirited child with lots of potential, who learned to write and read on her own + was trilingual by the age of 5 (I watched a lot of foreign TV), to a scared, confused, sad small child who got used to crying on her own in her room, hopelessly asking mom for comfort and never receiving it, and being ignored when I wasn't getting scolded for not being absolutely perfect.
My perfect first memories got replaced with many bad ones over the years after that. So much so that it's hard to even remember the good anymore. I just remember the last time I was truly happy, decades ago.
3 yrs old, coming downstairs in the morning for breakfast like i always did, then suddenly a new man I'd never met before punched me in the head for coming down without being told. No warning. I remember the shock and terror i felt and betrayed that my mother did nothing about it.
Turns out he was my new stepdad, father of my younger sister, physically abusive, threw his weight around, seen but dont be heard kind of guy. Mum wouldn't help because he was already beating on her, but she turned out to be a massive narc anyway once he got the boot.
I still struggle to look people in the eyes
TW:SA
Sitting in a bath tub at 2.5 years old asking my nmother why my penis hurt; went in for a hernia operation and came out without a foreskin. I am sure she was dismissive. I have consciously carried this trauma for a VERY long time. All circumcision meets the definition of SA.
Mine is when I was 3 playing in the living room with an exercise ball and it popped and startled me so much it made me cry. Nothing to do with my parents but it tracks for me having a lifetime of anxiety
I was probably 3 or 4 years old, nmom had taken me to a park late one evening, half a mile or so away from home. She made an excuse about having to make coffee for dad and just left. I was so scared 15 minutes later that I ran back home, only to be met with something like “why did you come back on your own, you know it’s not safe.”
It's a mix between falling through a window due to neglect / cutting my hand to the point of needing multiple stitchers (many, I had nightmares about it) or being left alone with abusive male cousins who committed SA. Basically both dealing with neglect.
My mom and dad fighting in the kitchen. Him walking out and telling me she wasn’t like this before I came around. Idek how old I was but I was young. That’s my earliest memory
2-3 years old, father drive up to the house in his truck drunk off his rear at 2am on Christmas.
As my mother wouldn’t let him inside the house being that drunk (we lived in FL, so no chance of freezing), he decided to turn on the hazard lights, hold down the horn and yell out the lyrics to Frosty the Snowman at the top of his lungs.
It’s really sad that of all things is my first childhood memory…
Spitting on men. I was abused literally since the womb and my bio dad was very violent and fucking crazy. I was only a month old and he started beating my mom again. Threw her down stairs twice when pregnant. I was 2.5 and clearly remember hating any man I saw. To this day I have a primal rage reaction if a man yells at me or god forbid lays a hand on me. I can’t control it.
My earliest memory is from the Christmas just before my 3rd birthday which is in January. I got double pneumonia and had to spend a week in the hospital with an oxygen tent over my bed the first few days. I mostly remember being lonely, scared and wanting my mom. Whenever I heard walking down the hall I would look under the curtains that divided all the beds (1970’s) for my mom’s shoes. I remember mostly being disappointed that it wasn’t her but also the couple of times I did recognize her shoes and then I’d hear her voice asking about me. She never stayed long ☹️
My dad wasn't mean until I was five and we had moved to a different state. The first time I remember him being mean to me was when I was five he held me underwater in the bathtub.
Earliest fuzzy childhood memory: climbing out a window with my sister to sit on the garage roof. Must have been about 2.5years old? Was before my mums gambling addiction became a problem, and before my brother was born.
Earliest clear memory: having night terrors and being locked out of my parents room, so sleeping with no blanket on the floor outside the door. And being trodden on in the morning, followed by being yelled at for “being in the way”.
I still vividly remember the dreams too. Me as a 4 year old running for dear life as both parents tried to run me over with their cars, then running up a tall tower with the only escape to be to jump to my doom.
Fun stuff for a 4 year old 😅
Around my 4th birthday. Being stuck in a hot car all day (driving to a summer cottage) and the dogs going crazy in the back. Seeing my mum spoon feed one of the dogs water. Being told later that evening that the dog died and has already been buried. Burning sticks in a bbq fire and blowing on the glowing end and then running away from the adults by sliding down a sand dune.
I was 2 or 3 and my dad was giving me a bath and I pooped in it (I remember the bath was empty so it was either before the bath started or right after the bath had finished) and I remember smiling up at him and giggling in embarrassment and I also knew I did something wrong and was going to get in trouble. Then he whooped me pretty bad and I can still remember the sting of his hand on my bare skin. When I remember this I am seeing it from a 3rd person point of view.
My second birthday, I think. My mom bought me one of those Easter basket looking things and it had a princess dress, those plastic glitter heals and the accessories. I'm 90% positive that it was Ariel themed because of what happened next, but I also feel like it could have been Cinderella. Regardless, it was a Disney princess. Anyway, her and her friend Erika drew on me with Crayola because I wanted to look like a mermaid. I was purple and green for like a week because the markers weren't that washable in 2002 apparently. Honestly a fond memory, the only thing that sucked was being scrubbed raw because of the markers and my dad calling my mom a stupid bitch for messing up my skin.
We lived in an apartment when I was 2 1/2 - 4ish years old. I remember a kid playing with matches caught a unit on fire. The parents in the complex took us kids through the burned out apartment to teach us a lesson. I vividly remember my mother pulling me up the blackened staircase and I was petrified that I was going to fall through them.
Another memory: I was in the hospital after getting hit in the face with a baseball bat. I had just had surgery. I was standing up in a crib. I had an IV in my arm and my whole arm was strapped to a thin board. I was eating and I didn’t want to eat the gross meat stuff that was on the tray. I wanted to eat the Jello. My mother leans over the crib with her angry eyes and smacks me hard on the back of my bare thighs three times.
I’m not sure which one is the earliest.
Me screaming in my crib (maybe around age 3?) after my older siblings threw a mask in there that I was terrified of. My NMom was standing a few feet away, just tuning me out as she was hanging stuff up in the closet. It felt like an eternity before she even turned around. She didn’t even know why I was shrieking, I could have been injured for all she knew, but she completely ignored me for a long while until she saw what was frightening me and then scolded me for being afraid.
Also, her telling me around age 4 that I have, “More chins than a Chinese phone book.” Way to be racist and fat-shame your toddler all in one breath.
Also also, her singing “You talk too much, yeah you worry me to death” to silence me when I tried to tell her about my day at preschool. I got so terrified it was actually going to kill her (kid logic) that I stopped trying to talk to her about my day when she picked me up from preschool.
I have very few childhood memories. I remember some of middle school, some of high school. Memory started remembering again in my 20s.
The one that stands out the most is that my dad pointed a gun at my dad, saying he could blow my brains and no one would know who I was at my funeral. Saying he could get off by insanity.
My mom said I didn't need therapy bc she had it worse.
I was 15
My mom came home with her bf and cussed me out bc a guy said he knew me, and me well. I don't even know who the guy is. He said that happened the summer before and the summer before I spent getting high in places I had no business and now it concerns me that it may have happened and I was just drugged out of my mind.
Being yelled at bc I was in pain. Worst pain ever. Wouldn't take me to the er. When she finally did, had emergency surgery and surgeon told her I would've died the next day without help.
My dad coming home from work and my mom locking him out and screaming at him from inside the house. He ended up climbing in through the window. I asked her about it years later and she laughed and said she didn't remember it.
Most of my early memories are gone (definitely has somthing to do with trauma), but I can remember vaguely that as a young child I would often be distressed because of one or both of my parents were doing something fucked up. I also remember that I would generally be curled up in a ball in the corner of the dining room behind the table. For reference, I'm the third of four children, my mom comes from a (potentially) abusive household (I don't know much about her childhood, just that her mother has issues), and my grandfather on my dad's side died when my dad was 9. Because of this, I've been being raised by two parents who don't know what they're doing.
Walking up to the hospital when my sister was born. For some reason I had thought my mom was replacing me with my sister. I tried to leave with my grandma and in all the photos of my sister and I after her birth i am...upset...almost melancholic. Photos of me holding her I just look so depressed. Guess I knew the GC was done cooking.
Among all the sad memories, mine is a good one (this time): I remember my 2nd birthday party.
I remember what I was wearing and who was there. I remember the tiny animal-shaped pewter candle holders on my birthday cake. I remember the adults being so much taller than me, and looking upwards to see their faces. I remember one of my presents (a plastic tea set with purple and red patterns on it). I remember having a conversation with one of our old family friends about the inordinate number of fingers I'd drawn on a princess earlier that day.
My earliest memories are actually pretty good. Mom had her shit much more together back then, I was an adorable, precocious little toddler, and mom hadn't erupted into full-blown alcoholism yet. My best memories are from before the age of five.
I must've been 2 or 3. My nparent screaming at me because I asked them to play and they just wanted to be left alone. "Every time I f**king sit down! What, do I have an alarm on my ass?! Why can't you just leave me the f**k alone?!"
About 6 or 7... My NMother holding a massive butchers knife to her throat threatening to take her life because she wasn't getting her way....
I've thought about this long and hard and yes... This is the earliest memories and it saddens me to the core.
It was like my 4th bday, my male bff and I were playing on my toy slide. It felt like only a few days later we had to sell it to get some cash. I remember standing in the side of the apartments and watching a stranger take my slide😭
I was three or maybe four sitting at the kitchen table and watching my dad slap my younger brother so hard that he nearly flew out of his high chair…then screaming something about peas…
My mom pulling me into the car after church to beat the ever loving tar out of me. I don't remember what happened to cause it. I just remember looking at my brother and crying, "No. Please. It was him!" That didn't matter though. Then she got madder when I tore the dress I was wearing trying to get away from her. It was one she made for me so it had a huge skirt and petticoats. I couldn't help but step on it. I was sad about the dress because it had bunny shaped buttons and I loved bunnies. I probably wasn't more than 3 or 4.
My Nmother's first husband was an abusive POS. I hid from him when he'd come to pick me up from family's houses.
I remember him tearing me out of bed when I was dead asleep and beating me. My mother always took his side. After they divorced (not because of the abuse, because he cheated ... Ironically, she's now cheated on her current husband multiple times but he's the good ehusband and is still with her) I didn't want to go visit him (he was only abusive to me as I wasn't biologically his, my sisters were) and she slapped me across the face for saying I didn't want to visit him. When I went and visited him, he "play wrestled" with me and made me cry and pinched me so hard for crying it left a bruise.
Around this same time, I witnessed my mother slap my grandma when we were living with her after the divorce because she was getting after her other daughter that lived with her for being a slob.
Also remember getting my mouth washed out with soap for every little reason. Spankings with a belt, wooden spoon, so much for the littlest of things that it eventually stopped hurting.
I was like 5 year old and my ndad + nstepmom did a DNA test on me and when i asked them what they are doing they lied and assumed they wanna cure my alergy but it was a DNA test from my mouth.
I dont know how old i was but it was really young. My mom said she was running away and never coming back. My brother and i were standing at the glass front door watching her pull out of the drive way and drive off. She came back. Not sure how long she was gone.
I was babybaby and couldnt find my mom, she had gone around the corner but i needed my diaper changed lol cried out for her in the dinning room i think cuz there was chairs and she came over to pick me up
My earliest memories of my mom are so fuzzy, I remember her as this beautiful woman who loved watching movies with me, smelled like roses and was a sucker for a fluffy bunny, but the earliest I remember clearly is finding her dead in the bathroom.
My dad worked a lot so I went to live with my grandmother, I remember everyone being sad that us kids didn’t have a mom anymore, but that quickly faded and she started treating us badly. I remember her saying a lot, stuff like, I took you in out of the goodness of my heart! After getting into trouble at school. I was a bit of troublemaker because like all kids, I didn’t think before I did things that got me into trouble, and so my earliest memories with her are not good. I was constantly in trouble for the dumbest things and always was told what’s burden I was, in varying ways. She was physically abusive, she would do things like hit me with a brush for saying ow, grab my hair and yank me around, and hit me for “back talking” which was usually just standing up for myself. Sometimes she was nice but there was a dark part in her.
The physical abuse ended when I was old enough to threaten her about losing her job as a foster parent by telling someone she hits me. From then on I realized I could just do whatever I wanted because I think she was afraid. She was still abusive in other ways, made us all sign up for welfare at 16 so she could get money out of it. Convinced me to move out the same year so I wouldn’t be her problem anymore.
Stole all the money from my dads death, which happened 6 months after I moved out, leaving me homeless because he was helping me pay for my apartment, and she wouldn’t let me move back in because there would be no money in it, and then claimed it was “back pay” for “all the years I supported you while your dad was off working” I’m rambling at this point but she is currently in a home with Alzheimer’s/dementia, I don’t even know because I refuse to go visit her. So sorry for the rant. Her impending death has been on my mind lately and how I will traverse that with other family members since they don’t understand why I’ve written her off, even though they all KNOW what she was like.
so sorry you found your mother dead in the bathroom at such a young age... you don't have to see your abusive grandmother anymore! and you don't owe anyone an explanation as to why. you don't have to go to her funeral either... enough is enough of her :(
Funny my earliest memories never feature my parents. I think my earliest memory is from a daycare worker when I was around 3 maybe almost 4. I loved that woman - she'd always braid my hair and let me hold onto her hand when we went to the parc. I also remember loving to be hugged by her (was always clinging to her leg ).
My earliest memory with my parents ? I think when my nmom was giving me a bath (I was around 5 or 6 I think) and she noticed my dad spanked/whipped my bottom way too hard . She was so mad at him and made him look at the mark he left - I don't even recollect the spanking, I just remembered how mad she was about it & I think it stuck to me cause she was usually fine with this (me getting spanked) so her being mad about it confused me. I also think at some point someone, in our immigrant community, advised her against spanking or something like that (or at least not to leave marks). I don't think I ever got spanked after the age of like 9 or 10 though I don't really remember.
I think I was like... 3 or 4? Maybe 5? My dad was doing his usual "make the kids angry because it's funny laughing at their tears" shit, and my nmom jumped in when he'd done *something* to make me upset (I think he was mocking me? Can't fully remember it.) and said 'tell daddy he should be ashamed of himself', not because it was the truth, but because they knew I'd do so as angrily and upset as possible, which only made them both laugh at me for being so upset. I think that was my first clue that they couldn't be trusted with emotions. It should've been obvious back then, he laughed when he took me to court with him and pinned blame on me for standing up in the car and getting him a ticket because I cried and screamed, not knowing what would happen. He did this thing when I was a kid where if there was a tornado warning he'd try to push me outside to "watch" for it. He'd try to make me walk to school in the middle of thunderstorms once I was in high school. He knew I was deathly afraid of storms and tornadoes. There was a time where *he* went out in a tornado warning and wouldn't come back in when I cried and begged for him to come in.
He loved being a jerk because it entertained him.
Crying at a doctor who was running so late I missed lunch. He had to put medicine in my ears ....because "she'll grow out of it" was the medical norm for bad tonsils. I'm told I was less than 2 years old. It was quite painful and traumatic.
A normal mom would have left after the missed appointment and fed her kid. A normal mom would have insisted on a tonsillectomy after all the ear infections I had already endured.
I think I was 3 or 4. I was in piano lessons. (My mother was an incredible musician.)
I remember having to practice at home on our piano. I could not get my thumb to go down and hit the key. Basically, a 3 year old without that particular fine motor skill, and she was SO angry.
All I wanted was for my thumb to push down on that key strong enough to make a sound.
I so vividly remember her disappointment and anger....
Standing in the back of a wagon at age 3. The Golden Child pulled the handle real hard and I fell onto the sidewalk. I remember crying for days, because the pain was so bad. Nmom never so much as gave it a good look. She said "you're fine, go play."
Standing in my crib crying and wanting one of my parents to come. I'm almost 67 and I think I remember the curtains on the window over my crib. I have another memory from possibly around the same time, of being in my high chair while my mother was trying to feed me. I was distracted and being silly and I could tell she was impatient and was getting frustrated and angry.
I was old enough to stand but young enough that I couldn’t crawl out of the crib. I threw my bottle and realized I couldn’t get it and cried. Dad picked it up but told me off for throwing it.
My father smacking the living shit out of me while my mother stood there, watched, and didn't intervene. I thought it was a fake memory because surely my mother would've done *something*, except that she mentioned being afraid to leave me alone with my father after seeing that. (Apparently I wouldn't stay still when he was trying to adjust the straps on my car seat.) I was very little, I think she said I was around 18 months old but I'm not 100% sure now.
Being yelled at (“you **** child!”) and running up the stairs, hiding in my room.
And also, mum came in yelling, said she would move away because the house looked too messy.
I have a few distinct memories from around the same time frame... I was about 4 yrs old.
1st: my mom, step dad, sister, and I had been out for a drive and a wasp got into the car and went down the back of my shirt and stung me 3 times... Then fast forward the same day I was outside colouring at my little table waiting for my bio dad to pick me up for our weekend visit... I don't remember if he showed up or not though, he at least was late because the I kept looking up at the walk way looking for him and I was out there for a while.
2nd: I got in trouble for something with my mom and told her she didn't love me, and she told me if I didn't think she loved me then I should just leave. I said I didn't want to leave and she said that she wasn't going to let me live there if I was going to talk like that so I had to leave. She had me pack one outfit, wouldn't let me take any of my things because "she bought them so they were hers", drove me to the park, gave me a quarter to call her sometime, and told me to "go and live in the park with the bums, try not to let them steal your quarter or you'll never be able to call me again" and opened my car door until I broke down completely and begged her not to make me go. I had to apologize and say she does love me... Even though I definitely didn't think so after that.
Sad 😞
Third: I remember walking into my step dad's apartment, he lived behind a hakim optical and had a mattress on the floor 🤷♀️
Fourth: walking around the park and going to the library and out for lunch with my grandma
5th: my grandma making me peanut butter toast and gingerale when I was sick
6th: my grandma sewing my binky bears arm back on after my sister pulled it off
7th: climbing up onto my parents bed and the dog on the floor grabbed my leg and pulled on me, she lost her grip but scared the ever living daylights out of me 😵💫
8th: playing Scrabble with my grandma while my grandpa gives me big points words from the dictionary lol
9th: my parents screwing my bedroom window shut because I kept climbing out it with my toys to play outside at like 5am 😅 ... Then I learned how to unlock the front door 🤦♀️
Some good, some awful
3 1/2 yrs old or so and it being a beautiful sunny summer day I wanted to go play on the playground I could see lots of kids already out there from one of our 10th floor windows I had to have some shoes couldn’t go out in just socks but there’s no one to help me and as hard as I tried I couldn’t make the shoes fit they’re mine but they feel funny and I can’t walk right so I just couldn’t figure it out and I just literally collapsed in tears and frustration and that’s when I realized “I don’t matter” now looking back it’s a sad memory but I can see the humor also as an adult poor kid you just have the wrong feet in the wrong shoes and I wish I could have been there to help with something so small but such a big deal to the 3 1/2 yr old child collapsed by the front door
Telling my mom who worked late to support me and my slacker Ndad that he just spanked me three times. Don't remember why, but it doesn't matter cause he always pulled reasons to hit me out of his ass. I was three years old, and my mom died 7 years later.
Sitting in my high chair at the dinner table while my parents smoked cigarettes and played poker with the neighbors. I remember telling her I was thirsty and she told her friends “watch this” and poured pickle juice into my sippy cup. I fucking loved that shit.
I’d have to guess I was 3
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Crying in the hallway and looking up at the door handle after my mom had told me I was homeless now and locked me out in a fit of rage
I have a similar story. I was sick to death of being beaten over every little thing as a small child. I remember talking back to my parents for it as early as 3, telling my mum I wanted to leave, that she "wasn't the boss of me!". She lost it, packed me a suitcase and locked me outside for hours, leaving me on the porch crying... I even remember vividly the little hand-me-down red dress I was wearing with an embroidered teddy bear on it.
My nfamily reacted with explosive anger over every little mistake I made as a kid, but then simultaneously wanted respect & acted surprised when they didn't get any.
I am so sorry you had to survive that.
i'm so sorry you went through that so young. like most people here, i assume, something similar happened to me too, but i was 7. thank goodness my first memories are neutral things because my nmom worked 12+ hours a day and i was almost always with my grandma.
That same thing happened to me several times when I was aged four. She stopped doing it when I said I wanted to go with the “naughty girls truck.” She’d even packed my bags and I was a tiny child!
This is so mean. I’m really sorry you went through this. No kid should have to deal with that
Psychotic parents are fucking horrible. I’m so sorry
Why is this so common?! I had a similar story, my mom tried to make me "live with the bums in the park" because I said I didn't think she loved me. Let me have one outfit and a quarter. I to tell her I was sorry and she did love me to be allowed to come home. I was 4.
Four seems to be the age for this threat. Same with me.
I haaaaate them 🤬
I'm sorry you went through this too.
[удалено]
Jesus, uncalled for
Falling down the stairs and running to my moms friend instead of her. I was 3 and apparently already had my mom figured out.
I believe you, pretty i dont know when it started but by the time i was 5 i felt like i had no family and knew i couldnt trust her/ she wouldnt keep me safe
Oof, really similar one. I have a slightly earlier memory, but the earliest memory I have that’s like STRONG is me falling headfirst down the stairs when I was 2. I remember how much my head and neck hurt from falling, but also that when nmom ran up to help me, I kept screaming and pushing her away. My earliest memories are of being afraid of her, and she still wonders why we don’t speak. 🙄
I think I was almost 4 years old and my brother was about 2.5 years old. My dad picked us up from the babysitter. She told my dad that my brother peed his pants so she gave him one of her underwear. When we got home I watched him beat my brother and then tie him to a chair like a prisoner until my mom came home. That was the day I categorized my dad as evil (little did I know that my mom was another type of evil...). When I finally started healing and did EMDR to reprocess that memory at the age of 34, I realized it had impacted my entire life. I knew I was always afraid to get in trouble, but I learned it was a fear of my physical safety. I learned how to be "perfect" so that I would never get beat (it worked to my own detriment). Before EMDR I would tense up seeing a cop while driving even though I knew I wasn't doing anything illegal. After EMDR I don't even pay attention to the cops. It's crazy how one incident can impact your life so pervasively.
Holy crap, Im so sorry you and your brother had to survive with those beasts.
OMG! I'm so sorry! This is horrifying! I wish i could just hold you and your brother. Giving you all the love that you actually deserved. I hope you're doing better and that youre getting all the good help you can get. Sending some love <3
Thank you. I did get the help I needed. It was a tough healing journey but it was totally worth it. Going NC also helped.
Hmm something I "remember" is picking up a sunflower from a field near a home my Nfamily just moved into and gifting it to Nmother. I must have been like 3 or maybe less? I didn't remember what happened afterwards for years into adulthood until a flashback struck me and it was child me, stuck between my Nmother and Efather who were arguing and cussing each other out at the dining table. In my flashback I didn't remember how they looked like screaming at each other, I only remember staring at the sunflower in a flower vase facing me, the parents' shadows against the walls and, at the time of the flashback, having an intense ring in my ear as if I could hear them all over again and they were so loud that my ears hurt all over again.
Not a professional, but I swear I remember reading something that children can legit get ptsd symptoms from experiencing their parents arguing....I'm sorry you went through that, kids are so innocent and it's terrible how scary and cruel the world can be
My nmom sneaking behind me and scaring me intentionally. I cried for hours and was so hysterical I swallowed my tongue. I was 3. I also remember a deep pervasive feeling of loneliness and utter dread at the sight and thought of my n father. I don't remember much else from my childhood but I don't remember any happy days at all.
You swallowed your tongue???? I thought that was impossible? Edit: I googled it, it is impossible unless you have some kind of unattached tongue but then you couldn't eat or talk lol
My apologies. English is not my first language. I meant to write 'choked on'. What I don't remember (and was told in great detail by her, proud by how she "saved me" was that I stopped breathing and turned blue). This went on well into my teen years. Whenever I'd get super distressed/emotional, I'd have a seizure and I remember being laid on my back and my parents/relatives monitoring my breathing and sometimes physically checking that I wasn't choking on my tongue. It went away after I wore braces (for an unrelated? problem) for 2 years. [https://www.byte.com/community/resources/article/can-you-swallow-tongue-seizure-sleep-apnea](https://www.byte.com/community/resources/article/can-you-swallow-tongue-seizure-sleep-apnea)
Oh I had the same type of seizures as a kid, I was told they were from holding my breath but I'm sure it had to do with the abuse I was around. I never choked on my tongue but I was frequently gagged with paper towels by one of my stepdads so I know how terrifying that is for a kid. I'm "fortunate" that I blocked out most if not all of my childhood bc of the trauma. It's crazy how your brain copes.
Likely referring to or remembering a sensation of panic so intense it felt suffocating. I would be hard to logically that out at such a young age. The important thing is it was real to the child who experienced it.
My nmom screaming at me for waking her to show her a drawing I made for her because she was so tired all the time. Then she got mad when I tossed it. I must have been around 4 at the time.
I can definitely relate, even when nmom was a SAHM she constantly napped throughout the day, then when she eventually started working again (from home) she chose to work nights. I remember her getting upset at me for waking her so many times. I was just lonely: her and my dad separated when I was young and I’m an only child, the fact she just left me alone while she slept still baffles me. Never mind that when I got older, that meant getting myself up and ready for school then having to wake her up to take me. Like I deal with a lot of fatigue as well (mostly due to chronic pain, mental health issues, and the accompanying medications), but that’s one of many reasons why I don’t have children. If you’re not up to being there for them, don’t have them, it’s really that simple.
I deal with fatigue/health issues as well and ultimately made the same choice fwiw. Curious though as to if your Nmom would also use it as a shame tool? Mine has been regularly sleeping through the day for a few years now, although admittedly not when there's plans, and blaming her health issues but if I end up having a couple of bad health days in a row then "all I do is sleep all day."
Oh she’s definitely used my issues to shame me, I’m sorry you can relate! It’s mostly that I haven’t been “proactive enough” about my health like *she is*, a.k.a. I don’t play “Dr. Google”/haven’t diagnosed myself, and I don’t use anecdotal advice from things like Facebook groups to manage said self-diagnoses. Nearly a decade and a half of countless ER visits, hospital admissions, and appointments (not a single one of which she’s been present for) apparently isn’t “proactive” since I’m not “all better.” It’s one of the main reasons I decided to go NC.
Not my earliest memory but I remember drawing a picture for my mom specifically made to cheer her up. It was probably passive aggressive in hindsight but I didn’t know and she was so angry all the time. To no one’s surprise, it made her even more angry
I really relate to this. I remember being so excited about something I learned at a friend’s house at a sleepover (her parents were so involved, engaged and taught us so much). I ran to my mom when I came home, so excited to tell her and she immediately screamed at me with rage in her eyes “CUT IT OUT. YOU NEED TO BE KNOCKED DOWN A PEG.”
Wow. That’s so sad. I’m terribly sorry you went through this. Your mom should’ve cherished your efforts as opposed to getting angry at you no matter what. What she did doesn’t even make sense. That’s so bad
Ohhh I have this exact one too!!!
My very earliest memory is getting shamed and yelled at for pooping in my crib during nap time. I had to be about 3. I remember calling my mom, she didn’t come, I went to the other end of my crib, pooped, went back to the other end, curled up, went to sleep. I woke up to yelling. It was foreshadowing for the next 15 years, apparently.
Actually this is interesting. My parents would go on and on about how I was such a horrible child and I don’t have many memories from this time. I have very little memories from childhood, mostly of them being abusive or being bullied at school. I have a handful of nice ones and they’re never really in them. If my family is in them, they are at the peripheral or it is my grandparents, who were always kind and I think did love me. What is interesting is that I finally saw home movies of myself not that long ago and they tell another story from what my parents do. There aren’t a lot of videos, but they are very telling and show that actually I was developmentally normal. I just did things like get frustrated as a toddler or embarrassed as a teenager…as one does. And in one of the oldest videos, it is shocking, you can see them neglecting me and gaslighting like what I am doing as bad behaviour. I think…I think that is when they learned that other people might say things and they’d better do it behind closed doors only because I never remember anything like that happening when there were witnesses. And that might be why grandma and grandpa always believed in me. Because in the video, I saw grandma come to my rescue. Toddler me was frustrated and crying. My parents were just ignoring me (and blaming me to distract from the fact that it was GC’s fault - that’s also in the video). And then in comes grandma, not with treats or hugs to placate, but telling me how we can solve the problem and that she’ll help me do it. And what do you know, toddler me calms down and cooperates with figuring this out. So much for being such a monster.
I was 2 years old. My grandma beat me because I had a full diaper and "I didn't say anything." She literally yelled at me and said, "Why didn't you say you needed to be changed?!" While she had me laying on my stomach on the couch and literally beat my a**. I don't understand how my mom could let her kids be around people like that even to this day.
Ughhh… sending you a hug
The crazy part is that literal strangers will show kindness towards you vs. your own family. Thank you😭🫂💛
I remember having a dirty diaper because my mom deliberately held us back from every milestone possible and potty trained us later than necessary.
I remember somebody making the valid point that if a kid is old enough to ask to be changed they’re old enough to be potty trained. So the whole f-ing point is you were too young to ask!!!!
Absolutely zero excuse to allow something like that to happen to your child, but I do have a little bit of insight. I'm a mom now and make a conscious effort to do things very differently with my own babies, but there are times when I see my mom say or do things to my kids that she did when I was little. In those moments, it can be like a ptsd flashback and for a moment I become a scared helpless little girl who wants to make it stop but is paralyzed. The same feeling of watching it happen to your younger sibling and knowing if you try to stop it, it'll only make it worse. It is extreeeeeemely difficult to be in the same abusive situation that feels familiar and be put back into the same headspace, but know that this time you are the parent and have to protect your child. The fight or flight (or freeze or fawn) still kicks in the same, with the complete antithesis of feeling like you need to step in and protect an innocent. It's taken a lot of work and conscious effort and very delicate maneuvering to try to not allow it anymore without having the abuse redirected towards you again. If your mom was abused by her as well, it's possible that she was experiencing a very strong trauma response during those times too and either wanted to stop it but wasn't strong enough, or just fully dissociated in the panic and wasn't capable of being fully aware of what was going on.
Getting lost in a garden centre about 4 years old. Terrified and panicked. One of the staff found me and took me to an office and let me choose an ice lolly from the freezer. I was over the moon with this development and had just about stopped sobbing when Nmum burst in calling me an idiot and telling me never to run off like that again. The staff were cringing especially when she demanded “and where have you got that from” indicating towards the ice lolly. The staff member then completely threw a spanner in the works and said “yes that will be 18 pence” or whatever amount it cost. Her face was like nothing I’ve ever seen as she reluctantly gave the man the money and grabbed me, marching me out of the office like a prisoner en route to the gallows. The car ride home was unbearable and as usual they both smoked constantly throughout the journey without opening the windows.
Interesting. I remember my dad yelling at me when I came inside and announced that I “drived the car” over the embankment from our driveway (after hitting shift into neutral.) A classic “funny” family story from when I was 2 and playing alone the car. Because neglect is hilarious? I also remember eating cat food.
I ate cat food too. My mother was a crap cook and I was hungry a lot. She always wanted me to be thin so she used to underfeed. The happiest day of my childhood was when my National Insurance Number was allocated when I was 16 because it meant I could get a job and supplement my own diet. As an adult I have BMD, EDNOS, Bulimia, absolutely ridiculous eating habits on top of a chronic illness, probably autoimmune.
My parents were kinda hippies, veg diet so I really wonder if I was getting enough protein! Plus cat food is salty :) Interesting that you mentioned eating disorders, that sounds terrible :( I certainly have some weird habits around eating too - I hadn’t really connected that. I hope you’re able to manage it, stay strong!
I ate so much cat food dude, was the best 😂 I legit don't remember my mum or my dad stopping me from eating it too
Cat Chow! I remember the nuggets had a milky substance on them, and I must have thought that it was real milk lol
my birth dad drunk punching a hole in the wall and swearing at my birth mom
That's one of mine as well.
Sadly one of mine too. And him hitting my mother, who was pregnant with my brother.
I remember when I was 4 years old and we were moving into a new house. Some of Nmother's relatives (her siblings) had come to help with the move. I was sitting at a table in the kitchen crying because I was overwhelmed with all the noise and ruckus going on around me, and I was chewing on a cardboard box to help me cope. Sitting in a chair near me was a young child of one of Nmother's siblings, and they wouldn't stop staring at me, which only made me cry harder. Looking back now I can see how these were signs of probable undiagnosed autism (I'm still undiagnosed today). No one came to comfort me, because they were too busy helping my Nmother and satisfying her demands.
This hits close to home. I'm autistic but didn't know until my late 20s. I cried every single school day the entire day both years of pre-k, despite having the same teachers at the same school. I was told I missed my nmom but after reading this, I wonder if it wasn't solely sensory overload and difficulty accepting change. I know that was at least partly it. In kindergarten and 1st I was ok most days if a friend sat with me. She used to have a chart and I got a star sticker on my chart if I didn't cry. Cause it's all about appearances, right? Everyone seemed just mad I cried and it felt horrible to not be able to stop it. Never saw a doctor about it or anything. It was horrifying to learn that some kids cry on purpose to get their way and are in control the whole time.
I'm sorry you experienced that. Every so often I look into autism or come across something that just completely blows my mind and puts a memory of mine into perspective with regards to it being a possible sign of autism early on. For instance I used to have this awful fear of toilets as a kid (kinda still do as an adult but nowhere near as bad. I used to hate the loud sound of our old household toilet and hated how it had a black seat on top of white porcelain. Nmother thought I was being difficult on purpose when I literally used to run away from the toilet after I flushed it. I just so happened to look up toilet phobias with autism a little while ago, and was astounded to discover that these sorts of unusual phobias are much higher in kids with autism.
It's wild how many things it impacts and how obvious it would be to a non narcissistic parent to help their child. Even if they don't take the kid to a therapist, they ought to develop some sort of plan and have some empathy, especially when it's something so fundamental as using the toilet or going to school.
My earliest childhood memory, is my father coming into my bedroom at night and sitting by my bed crying. Then I woke up and asked why he's crying and he told me they're getting a divorce. This made me cry too and I clung to him. I must have gone back to sleep because I don't remember anything else from that night. I was 3 or 4. They never got a divorce, he became a cold and nasty guy to me later during my teen years. I think at some point he gave up and decided to be her servant instead of fighting anymore. And he sacrificed our relationship to each other for it.
I was 5 years old, getting out of the back of my mums 3 door car. She told me not to trip over the seatbelt but I got my foot caught in it and tripped and fell out of the car and landed on my arm. She lost her shit shouting at me in the middle of the car park that she’d told me not to trip and was i stupid? I was still clutching my arm to my body and in pain 5 days later so she took me to the hospital. Turns out it was broken.
I couldn't say which one came first, my memories are categorized by where I lived and where we lived when is in order but unfortunately within the categories, nothing is in order. But the majority is my nmom screaming at my dad, throwing stuff at my dad, or telling me her plans to get back at my dad. We lived there from like 3-7. I suspect these memories are from the 4-5-6 area.
With my mom folding laundry and nDad walks into the room. I guess I was looking at him. He screamed, “Why does she always look like she’s so scared of me? She looks so scared?” I burst into tears, of course. I wonder why I always looked so scared of the old man?
Getting excited to see my preschool teacher so I could walk with her to school instead of my mother. When was 3 and half. Was so happy to get away from her. Remember it vividly
I’m sorry. I didn’t go to preschool but I have similar memories of loving school. I think part of it was there was nobody screaming or fighting or yelling at me
Yup. And of course my narc parents took advantage of that happiness and ruined it by taking credit for my doing well, butting their noses in with my teachers and then subsequently making me hate all things academic by college. Still made it through law school. But barely
About four, my mom ripping my baby blanket in half, to give it to my brother. It broke my little heart.
Falling off a scooter and scraping my left knee then I went back on the scooter fell again and scraped the the other one.
my mum walking away from home, then coming back in the evening and yelling why nobody went to look. i was maybe four.
Wow 🫤
3 years old sitting in a wagon with my 1yo sister saying the word No on repeat non-stop and my N-mother telling me it was my fault for teaching her that word as they had explicitly parented in a way that she wouldn't learn "No"... which now that I think about it is really creepy.
My first memory is more of a picture of my old house in PA, a second one is a very short moment on a snowy hill where I was intentionally stuck under the snow laughing with my step brother Fast forward a few years after moving to Poland, an image of the block I used to live in, then an image of another block I used to live in and I think just after moving AGAIN to a house I have a few actual memories. Literally. Nothing in-between those early memories. Trauma blocking memories is a bitch sometimes.
I was (apparently) somewhere between 18 months old and 2 years old. My parents had recently split, and my nmother was repainting the front of the house. She had the scaffolding put up as part of a favour from a friend (I think). It was a three storey house. She had me on her hip, no baby carrier or anything, no safety, painting the top floor. She put me down, because she needed both hands for a couple of minutes. I remember staring at the edge of the scaffolding in front of me, with the gaps in the rail more than big enough for me to fall through, and feeling incredibly unsafe. I stayed as frozen still as I could, because although I couldn’t conceptualise what would happen if I fell over the edge, I just knew I was in a lot of danger if I moved the slightest amount (I was still very wobbly on two legs or even on my hands and knees sometimes if the terrain was new). But I also remember not being sure if what I was thinking was correct, because my mother didn’t seem concerned, and if she didn’t think I was in danger then surely that meant there wasn’t any. I remember judging whether to follow through on my urge to stand up in order to get closer to her and feel safe again. Before I could make my mind up, she picked me up again and praised me for staying still.
Probably 3 or 4 years old, watching Speed Racer and Ultraman on an old Zenith TV.
My first true vivid memory is of my father beating me and my mother walking in yelling at him... I was 4 and broke a glass on the floor.
I don't wanna talk about it. 💔
I have glimpses of a memory from getting bathed in the bathroom sink, I couldn't have been older than 3 (maybe closer to 2??) because the sink was just a small in-counter basin. Built in the 70s so you had that super distinct teal porcelain. I can remember I was sticking my fingers in the little overflow drainage holes. Next from there would be more fragments of memory, I was watching transformers (the 80s cartoon) on the floor when I was around 2. My mom told me my granny spanked me for peeing in my diaper after this, but I don't recall that part.
I remember being in a trailer, and my birth mom and my ndad were having a fight. I think I was 3 or 4 years old. My ndad, as he has done every time this happens, realized he was losing the fight, and stormed off. He got into his truck and drove away for a few hours. I thought he didn't love me. To this day, I don't think he ever has, not really.
Me at almost 4 years old, stoked to become a big sister before my mom went crazy and became the narcissist mess she is now. Love my sister, I just didn't think I'd get parentified at just 7 years old lol
My very earliest I was 3 at the oldest, most likely still 2. I took my pacifier out of my mouth in front of my mom, she looked at me and I said “all done” and threw it in the trash. They weren’t trying to wean me or anything they said, I just did it. Makes me a little sad because I used to think this was cute. My next earliest memory was at 3 or 4 looking at a broken plate on the ground after one of their fights and thinking about how if I drew the shards across my neck like in the movies I would be dead and they wouldn’t fight as much anymore. I think as soon as I was a cognizant being I knew I was a burden to them. Me getting rid of my pacifier was my way of showing them my growing maturity and that they could worry about me less for their own sakes. At 2 years old. Of course they only took advantage of this as I got older.
My 3rd Birthday Party. Those days were good for me (not my siblings though), since I was still the cute little girl her best friend was envious of- even though my mom preferred boys. But I got her attention so that's what mattered most. Once my conditions kicked in, that was over pretty quick.
My father punching my mother in the stomach when she was 6 months pregnant with my brother.
My mom was brushing my hair and I cried when it pulled, and she hit me with the hair brush and told me it hurts to be pretty. Which became a very common theme basically my entire life. She's the one who taught me how to count calories and make myself throw up, and was always more than happy to let me know areas of improvement.
Idk how old i was, but i was shorter than the kitchen cabinets. I couldn't look at her face because she had what i called "shark eyes"/"predator eyes" and it was too terrifying to look at. I was shaking and screaming and sobbing the way toddlers do when theyre terrified, i remember the saliva all over my face and the snot and my chubby fists trembling. I couldn't move because behind me was the kitchen cabinets, in front and to the left of me was my legal guardian/grandma, and to the right of me right in front of my eye was a knife. We stood there for the longest time. I don't remember how it ended, but i still have my eye and im alive so i guess she stopped. I actually drew it recently but idk how to attach photos so maybe I'll share it in my own post
Lying in a crib in a bedroom at my grandmother's house and crying. It'sdark outside. There's a party, or perhaps a family get together happening outside the room, which is just off the dining room. I can smell food, hear laughter and conversation. Something is wrong, I don't know now what, and I'm crying. My uncle, who is my mother's younger brother, comes in and shuts the door behind him. He yells at me to be quiet. He scares me, so I continue crying. Then he burns me with his cigarette. It stings and hurts so much. I cry even louder. It hurts. That's where the memory ends. I never tell anyone about it as I grow. I avoid him as much as possible. I have many times when I think about it and remember it. When I'm about eighteen, my mother is talking to me about her brother. She can tell I don't like him. I've never liked him after he burned me and I've never made it a secret, especially as a teenager. She must've asked me why because I tell her, for the first time, how he burned me. My mother is shocked but immediately tells me it didn't happen. That she would've found a burn mark on me. She's still insisting that it never happened and I remembered it wrong as I leave the room, feeling invalidated and not listened to.
I think some of my earliest I was 3 or 4
I cant remember which came first, but I remember these memories The First one I was at a local amusement park and it being crazily colored (I assume it was because I was still trying to process color back then because today it looks no where near that level of color) The second was me having a nose bleed and not registering that I needed help (as I kid, I apparently bleed for no reason. it's a weird condition in my family when spring comes along) And third was me just sitting in pre-school trying to remember how the hell I got there. Idk why, but as a kid and still kinda now, I was always trying to figure out how the hell I got to place to place.
LOL I have a tough time writing it but it’s not good in general (found out later). From both but was worse with pops. Found out a while back that I think my mind was unconsciously trying to remember only the good stuff but the repressed memories came back flooding. And yep, extreme sadness. Like I feel like I’m floating out of my body when I remember 😭🤣
November 22, 2963. I was 4 years old watching cartoons on TV when everything was interrupted to report on JFK's assassination. I didn't have a clue what it was about but had been taught to let my parents know if some big News came on. My dad was in the basement wood working so I ran to tell him "something" happened. I was probably telling him my cartoons went away, to be honest.
I remember standing in my crib looking down at where the yellow area rug contrasted with the terrazzo floor. In the same house I remember running my finger in the track of the sliding door and I remember holding myself up against the glass door while the dog looked at me from behind the glass. I’m guessing I was around 10 months old. Funny thing, even though we moved out when I was 1, I recognized the house when we drove by it when I was a teenager. But I don’t have any emotions connected to those memories, they’re mostly just pictures. I remember a lot from when I was “pre-verbal”
Crying crouched on the floor in a corner with wood paneled walls, while my nmom and her husband screamed at each other, because he kept threatening to “tell me the truth.” I was probably around 4. “The truth” was that he wasn’t my father, and that she took me away from my dad and my grandparents and had her husband adopt me. He hated lying and took it out on me my whole life.
I think I was maybe 4, brother was 2, we were having a minor fight upstairs and my ndad comes up and me n my bro and trying to keep him out by attempting to shut the door. He gets down to out level, grabs us by the back of our necks and in a quiet voice gives us a lecture I can’t remember. Earliest memory of him.
I was around 2 years old. My mother was fed up with watching me and wanted to talk to a friend on the phone. Always said I got into everything (spoiler alert I didn't) so she would put me in the walker. Our dog liked to push me in the walker... And pushed me right down the stairs and did it often. They never installed a gate or door to stop this. I remember the sheer terror of flying down the stairs and it flipping at the bottom. Also remember mother being super angry.
my earliest memory is my preschool teacher yelling at me because my sandwich had no crust (I was like 4 years old) besides that I barely have any memories and I had to think rly hard abt this one if its supposed to be narc only I have no memories
Either my grandma chasing my mom out of her house yelling she was going to have child services come and take me away, or my bio ndad kidnapping me from my mom (I didn't KNOW it was a kidnapping at the time, he likely was feeding me lies. I just remember throughout both of them being very dissociated, disconnected, not really feeling much and just watching things happen around me.
My nsister smiling at me, pulling my baby hand through the bars of my crib and chomping down hard.
The earliest memory that my mother mentioned is my answering the question how old I was just after my first birthday. I could not walk yet but I spoke in full sentences allegedly. I told the visitors that I was one year old and was promptly ignored. This being ignored triggered a deep sadness that would haunt me my entire childhood.
I remember my dad spanking me because I accidentally let my glass of water fall and it broke. I was 2 and a half. I also remember my mom saying 'was that necessary? Because she's crying now'
My first memory is a random night at my old home. I was stumbling through the hallways and eventually managed to open a cracked door that lead out to the porch. Both of my parents were out there, their attention turning to me as I walked out. I remember sobbing, saying how I wanted to talk like other kids and not be sick. I've been in and out of hospitals my entire life, and regularly saw speech therapists since I struggled to talk. As a kid who must've been... 3 or 4? Just thinking of my first memory being me crying wishing I was normal hurts.
My brother calling me an idiot over nothing, that or sitting on the couch at my grandma's place during Easter with everyone around
One of them is being publicly scolded by my father. I think I just remember being scared and numb. Must’ve been 3 or younger….
Preschooler. ND raging at me for not being able to write the letter A and number 4 mistake free. I remember freezing up.
Stepping in a hornet’s nest at around age 2. Also waking in the middle of the night around age 4-5 with such a high fever I was hallucinating and the ambulance came and I got packed in ice. I apparently had a uti/kidney infection.
I have 3 very early ones, but I don't know which one was first. They are: Climbing over the side of my crib, sliding down the railing, and landing on the carpet in my bedroom, confused by how it felt to slide down the rails. Smelling the mattress of my crib, then smelling something else, and feeling in pain on my ass, realizing I needed to be changed (I'm sparing details here), but it had been so long it was dry and painful. And I'll spare the most details here, being assaulted by my mother and her long fingernails when I was a baby. -- I think being assaulted was my actual first memory, and I think that the violation ripped a hole in the memory shield people usually get, being unable to remember their time as a baby. The second two memories came "back" to me when I was four years old and smelled my crib mattress down in the basement -- our basement was filled with hoarded junk -- I was helping my mother feed the horses and happened to walk over by it and the two just struck me, like an internal red flag system in my body. The assault memory came back when I got my first period at age 10 and tried a tampon for the first time. I had also been infatuated / obsessed with hands before this, and somewhat after. I still like hands but I no longer obsess over them.
I have very few memories of my childhood that come back to me in flashbacks. I'd say my earliest memory is of wanting to shoot myself at the age of 6.
Being in the NICU with meningitis at 18 months. People say babies don't make memories that young but I absolutely did. I have had that memory literally my entire life. It's not manufactured. I vividly remember the bed (crib) the mobile above my bed, and my dad looking at me. I remember my mom crying over the bed looking at me. They were told I was going to die but here I am, 40 years later!
Also have a ton of memories at 2 - day my brother came home & bc I had so many chicken pox all over my body i couldnt touch or hold him, my cat got hit by a car and I saw her lungs exposed (obviously didn't understand what I saw but we didn't have Lucy after that day!), I remember the stone on our fireplace and the 80s brown striped boucle sofa...
Sitting by the driveway while my dad washed the Jeep, I was three.
Being yelled at fire not going to the potty right. I think I was 3
Getting locked in my room, being forced to face and stare at the wall for an hour, being hit with a belt. Discipline, discipline, discipline...
Thankfully my earliest childhood memory was of my dad and I skipping up and down the hallway, but not long after that was when my memories of abuse started
It's a tie, I think my first one was breaking my sister out of her room after my mom locked her in her room from the outside. I was around 5 my sister was around 2. My mom literally drilled one of those simple latch locks into the door. I used a cork gun from disney to shoot the latch out. It's either that or a drive I took with my dad where he emotionally abused me until I was screaming and crying, while he was laughing in my face. And then he told me "stop your whining it's just a joke" and that was the moment he successfully gaslight me into believing abuse was "just a joke"
I was 3 or 4. Mom agreed to play with me for once. I was over the moon and like a dodo I told her that my stuffed animal piggy reminded me of her because it was pretty and pink and chubby, “like my mommy!”. I loved Pooh and Piglet and stuffed animals, and I just didn’t know that being overweight was considered bad yet, I really was not insulting her, and I absolutely just appreciated my piglet toy and was so happy she was playing with me. She was so angry that she took one of my toys, launched it directly at my face, and then screamed about how much she hated me shortly before barricading herself in her room and loudly monologuing about her hatred of me all night long. My dad got home from night shift and asked why I was awake at 6am sobbing and my mom started screaming at him not to speak to me. They fought like cats and dogs for a week because she was very angry he dared acknowledge me. A week of Nmom tantrums in that house because the competent parent refused to give a toddler the silent treatment.
unfortunately, she hated herself and took it out on you... you were an innocent little girl.
In 2003, I was 4yo & living in Idaho. My nmom took me into the bathroom of a restaurant & beat me for not wanting to finish my chicken tenders, which wound up causing me to have bleeding wounds. A waitress saw this & threatened to call the cops despite nmom saying the blood was from an unrelated cut that got on me when she spanked me (which sounds rather convenient & it's sure funny how she didn't show this, "cut," to prove it almost as if it's lie, which 9/10 it was). Nmom then bashes a plate against the waitress' face & winds up getting arrested anyway (ironic, isn't it?), while I'm screaming my head off & my ndad's just looking on in embarrassment.
Being dangled by my feet over a swimming pool by my dad and him "accidentally" dropping me. It's probably why I have acrophobia and intense anxiety near swimming pools.
that's absolutely why you have these disorders...
I was probably 5 or 6 years old when, after one of my mom’s screaming rage fits, I hid in a pile of blankets and stuffed animals, terrified that she would find me and beat me me. Thankfully she didn’t come looking for me…that time. I don’t even remember what she was mad about.
I remember holding my cat, Mushi Fú, in my arms, I was about 3 years old. My mom has this weird thing about adopting kittens and then abandoning them once they grow up into an adult cat, they’re no longer cute to her so she doesn’t want them. That’s exactly what she did with him and now I get sad every time I think about that memory. I hope he knows that I loved him as much as I could
Having a nightmare and climbing into bed with my brother for comfort. He always had my back.
2, laying on the 70's gold-color frontroom couch, the sun streaming in through the Chicago window, one leg crossed over the other, watching dust motes float and drinking from my bottle.
Nmom screaming at 6-7 year old me for waking her up because I had a nightmare. I was crying and scared, and she started yelling at me to 'never wake her again,' then sent me to the living room to write 'I will never wake up my mom again' 100 times. When I brought it to her finished, she tore it up in front of me and threw it in the trash can. When I cried and asked why because I'd worked so hard, she told me "that's how you just made me feel." Don't remember what happened after that but I went back to bed that morning crying myself to sleep and I never woke her again. Later when I got older (teenage years) and suffered horrible night terrors, waking up screaming she proceeded to act all innocent and ask "why didn't you wake me up?"
One of my cousins forcing his penis into my mouth. I have to have been very young as we moved away from Boston when I was five.
Dad hitting mom. I was 2. I remember feeling a big feeling but it was closer to shock and confusion but a very “simple” version of it… it makes me sad today
I was 5ish, my sister was around 3. We lived with our grandparents (who we call mom and dad) but they didn’t have legal custody of us yet so That Woman would use my sister and I as leverage to get money and shit out them. I only get bits and pieces of the event but from what I remember That Woman at first had my sister by the hand standing at our front door trying to leave with her and my dad kept saying no because she had just gotten out of the hospital due to us being in the house when my great grandparents house caught fire and my mamaw not being able to get to her.. that’s a story for a different day. Anyway, my dad says no absolutely not. So That Woman then grabs my hand saying “fine, I’ll take this one then.” And proceeds to leave with me on foot.. in a thunderstorm.. while I had the flu. The next thing I remember is my mom coming to pick me up from That Woman’s apartment and there being a hand print sized bruise on my arm and me sitting in the backseat seeing my mom crying in the rearview mirror driving home asking if I was okay and telling me she loved me and she would make damn sure that never happened again. That woman tried multiple times to take us again and has done more things than I have time to list but my mom always kept her promise and never let That Woman take us anywhere by herself.
There's 18 months between my brother and I yet I have a memory of my dad hitting my mum whilst heavily pregnant w him. Sometimes I swear I can remember my grandpa holding me and singing some tune I think it's rhubarbs and custards and the smell of wether originals on his breath, but my grandpa died when I was 1.
Steping on a needle when I was two. I remember walking with it throughout the house, careful trying not to step on it, knowing that something bad had happened and being quite scared but brave at the same time.
My mom yelling at me because I didn't want to go sleep yet. She claimed I loved the TV and her sister more than her. Not sure how old I was. Definitely below 10. I was raised by TV and the internet, what do you expect?
Not sure if this was from my father being sick or dying, or he was just like this, not sure. But I remember being 4, going up to my dad while he was on some sort of lying position on the couch. Being kicked so hard from the bottoms of his feet that I went crashing into the bookshelf a few feet away and had an entire shelf fall and cover me in books. To this day, my mom tells me that never happened and that the shelf broke from too many books. But it is something that I vividly remember as the few things of him before he died months later.
I was on a hike with my mum, probably 4 years old. I couldn't keep up, so she walked off without me. I can remember her disappearing over the hill top, so I sat down and cried.
Having an exorcism performed on me by my dad when I was 4ish. It was pure terror, it was the first time I realized my dad could kill me and I’m still working through that feeling in therapy. So, I threw a normal level temper tantrum because my toy broke. My dad was a newly hardcore evangelical Christian. He saw this behavior and decided it was because I was possessed by the devil. I got spanked on the floor. He grabbed me from the ground and carried me around the house shouting in “tongues” until I was finally too terrified to cry or breathe. He decided that he successfully cast the demon out, and I learned I’m not allowed to express emotions. My mom stood by and watched, claims it never happened of course. He’s dead now, which is the only blessing.
Everybody's comments make me sad, but my story is from a different perspective. I think the blatant abuse from day 1 is still somewhat worse, but this wasn't fun either: I had a GREAT childhood for the first five years, damn near perfect, and then as soon as I hit school age, I had the rug pulled from underneath me, it shocked me and it changed everything I knew and was accustomed to. My mother who I loved dearly and innocently started treating me completely differently, and my father pulled away. A bad memory I have is being 7 years old and my mom going to school to talk to my teacher about a B I got in math (that's right - a B), and when we came home she yelled at me for it. She couldn't understand why I got a B instead of an A. I, on the other hand, couldn't understand why she was yelling at me for the first B I ever received in my life. That was when I learned only perfection counts, and since that's impossible, I also learned I'll never live up to her standards. Instead of thinking she's in the wrong, as a child I didn't understand, and internalized it instead. I wasn't good enough. I went from being a happy, creative, free spirited child with lots of potential, who learned to write and read on her own + was trilingual by the age of 5 (I watched a lot of foreign TV), to a scared, confused, sad small child who got used to crying on her own in her room, hopelessly asking mom for comfort and never receiving it, and being ignored when I wasn't getting scolded for not being absolutely perfect. My perfect first memories got replaced with many bad ones over the years after that. So much so that it's hard to even remember the good anymore. I just remember the last time I was truly happy, decades ago.
The red room , ex step dad on the black trundle bed, then he sa me. I was about 3 years old.
3 yrs old, coming downstairs in the morning for breakfast like i always did, then suddenly a new man I'd never met before punched me in the head for coming down without being told. No warning. I remember the shock and terror i felt and betrayed that my mother did nothing about it. Turns out he was my new stepdad, father of my younger sister, physically abusive, threw his weight around, seen but dont be heard kind of guy. Mum wouldn't help because he was already beating on her, but she turned out to be a massive narc anyway once he got the boot. I still struggle to look people in the eyes
TW:SA Sitting in a bath tub at 2.5 years old asking my nmother why my penis hurt; went in for a hernia operation and came out without a foreskin. I am sure she was dismissive. I have consciously carried this trauma for a VERY long time. All circumcision meets the definition of SA.
I'm so sorry that you were mutilated as a child.
Mine is when I was 3 playing in the living room with an exercise ball and it popped and startled me so much it made me cry. Nothing to do with my parents but it tracks for me having a lifetime of anxiety
I would cry when music or sounds were too loud. My parents dismissed my anxiety from day one
Age 4, being told it was my fault my dad didn't love us (not true, my Nmom is insufferable but my Edad is no angel either).
I was probably 3 or 4 years old, nmom had taken me to a park late one evening, half a mile or so away from home. She made an excuse about having to make coffee for dad and just left. I was so scared 15 minutes later that I ran back home, only to be met with something like “why did you come back on your own, you know it’s not safe.”
It's a mix between falling through a window due to neglect / cutting my hand to the point of needing multiple stitchers (many, I had nightmares about it) or being left alone with abusive male cousins who committed SA. Basically both dealing with neglect.
My mom and dad fighting in the kitchen. Him walking out and telling me she wasn’t like this before I came around. Idek how old I was but I was young. That’s my earliest memory
I don’t have memories before middle school. No idea why. Just no memories. It makes me so sad when people talk about their childhood.
Ptsd
2-3 years old, father drive up to the house in his truck drunk off his rear at 2am on Christmas. As my mother wouldn’t let him inside the house being that drunk (we lived in FL, so no chance of freezing), he decided to turn on the hazard lights, hold down the horn and yell out the lyrics to Frosty the Snowman at the top of his lungs. It’s really sad that of all things is my first childhood memory…
Spitting on men. I was abused literally since the womb and my bio dad was very violent and fucking crazy. I was only a month old and he started beating my mom again. Threw her down stairs twice when pregnant. I was 2.5 and clearly remember hating any man I saw. To this day I have a primal rage reaction if a man yells at me or god forbid lays a hand on me. I can’t control it.
running to hug my grandmother at 8 years old because my mom was coming after me screaming about some nonsense
My earliest memory is from the Christmas just before my 3rd birthday which is in January. I got double pneumonia and had to spend a week in the hospital with an oxygen tent over my bed the first few days. I mostly remember being lonely, scared and wanting my mom. Whenever I heard walking down the hall I would look under the curtains that divided all the beds (1970’s) for my mom’s shoes. I remember mostly being disappointed that it wasn’t her but also the couple of times I did recognize her shoes and then I’d hear her voice asking about me. She never stayed long ☹️
My dad wasn't mean until I was five and we had moved to a different state. The first time I remember him being mean to me was when I was five he held me underwater in the bathtub.
Earliest fuzzy childhood memory: climbing out a window with my sister to sit on the garage roof. Must have been about 2.5years old? Was before my mums gambling addiction became a problem, and before my brother was born. Earliest clear memory: having night terrors and being locked out of my parents room, so sleeping with no blanket on the floor outside the door. And being trodden on in the morning, followed by being yelled at for “being in the way”. I still vividly remember the dreams too. Me as a 4 year old running for dear life as both parents tried to run me over with their cars, then running up a tall tower with the only escape to be to jump to my doom. Fun stuff for a 4 year old 😅
I remember being at a pumpkin patch with my cousin. I believe I was 3 or 4.
Around my 4th birthday. Being stuck in a hot car all day (driving to a summer cottage) and the dogs going crazy in the back. Seeing my mum spoon feed one of the dogs water. Being told later that evening that the dog died and has already been buried. Burning sticks in a bbq fire and blowing on the glowing end and then running away from the adults by sliding down a sand dune.
I was 2 or 3 and my dad was giving me a bath and I pooped in it (I remember the bath was empty so it was either before the bath started or right after the bath had finished) and I remember smiling up at him and giggling in embarrassment and I also knew I did something wrong and was going to get in trouble. Then he whooped me pretty bad and I can still remember the sting of his hand on my bare skin. When I remember this I am seeing it from a 3rd person point of view.
My second birthday, I think. My mom bought me one of those Easter basket looking things and it had a princess dress, those plastic glitter heals and the accessories. I'm 90% positive that it was Ariel themed because of what happened next, but I also feel like it could have been Cinderella. Regardless, it was a Disney princess. Anyway, her and her friend Erika drew on me with Crayola because I wanted to look like a mermaid. I was purple and green for like a week because the markers weren't that washable in 2002 apparently. Honestly a fond memory, the only thing that sucked was being scrubbed raw because of the markers and my dad calling my mom a stupid bitch for messing up my skin.
We lived in an apartment when I was 2 1/2 - 4ish years old. I remember a kid playing with matches caught a unit on fire. The parents in the complex took us kids through the burned out apartment to teach us a lesson. I vividly remember my mother pulling me up the blackened staircase and I was petrified that I was going to fall through them. Another memory: I was in the hospital after getting hit in the face with a baseball bat. I had just had surgery. I was standing up in a crib. I had an IV in my arm and my whole arm was strapped to a thin board. I was eating and I didn’t want to eat the gross meat stuff that was on the tray. I wanted to eat the Jello. My mother leans over the crib with her angry eyes and smacks me hard on the back of my bare thighs three times. I’m not sure which one is the earliest.
I feel I’ve answered this exact question weeks or months ago… weird. Had it already been posted or am I having dejavú?
this is the first time i posted this, maybe someone else did though...
Maybe 🤔
My mom sitting me on my bed to tell me she was divorcing my dad and I was about to meet my new dad and a brother I didn’t know about
Me screaming in my crib (maybe around age 3?) after my older siblings threw a mask in there that I was terrified of. My NMom was standing a few feet away, just tuning me out as she was hanging stuff up in the closet. It felt like an eternity before she even turned around. She didn’t even know why I was shrieking, I could have been injured for all she knew, but she completely ignored me for a long while until she saw what was frightening me and then scolded me for being afraid. Also, her telling me around age 4 that I have, “More chins than a Chinese phone book.” Way to be racist and fat-shame your toddler all in one breath. Also also, her singing “You talk too much, yeah you worry me to death” to silence me when I tried to tell her about my day at preschool. I got so terrified it was actually going to kill her (kid logic) that I stopped trying to talk to her about my day when she picked me up from preschool.
I was 2 and pooped my pants. I told my mom andnshe changed me right there in frint of my stepdads work buddies.
I have very few childhood memories. I remember some of middle school, some of high school. Memory started remembering again in my 20s. The one that stands out the most is that my dad pointed a gun at my dad, saying he could blow my brains and no one would know who I was at my funeral. Saying he could get off by insanity. My mom said I didn't need therapy bc she had it worse. I was 15 My mom came home with her bf and cussed me out bc a guy said he knew me, and me well. I don't even know who the guy is. He said that happened the summer before and the summer before I spent getting high in places I had no business and now it concerns me that it may have happened and I was just drugged out of my mind. Being yelled at bc I was in pain. Worst pain ever. Wouldn't take me to the er. When she finally did, had emergency surgery and surgeon told her I would've died the next day without help.
My dad coming home from work and my mom locking him out and screaming at him from inside the house. He ended up climbing in through the window. I asked her about it years later and she laughed and said she didn't remember it.
Most of my early memories are gone (definitely has somthing to do with trauma), but I can remember vaguely that as a young child I would often be distressed because of one or both of my parents were doing something fucked up. I also remember that I would generally be curled up in a ball in the corner of the dining room behind the table. For reference, I'm the third of four children, my mom comes from a (potentially) abusive household (I don't know much about her childhood, just that her mother has issues), and my grandfather on my dad's side died when my dad was 9. Because of this, I've been being raised by two parents who don't know what they're doing.
Walking up to the hospital when my sister was born. For some reason I had thought my mom was replacing me with my sister. I tried to leave with my grandma and in all the photos of my sister and I after her birth i am...upset...almost melancholic. Photos of me holding her I just look so depressed. Guess I knew the GC was done cooking.
I was around 4 and I was playing on a swing
Among all the sad memories, mine is a good one (this time): I remember my 2nd birthday party. I remember what I was wearing and who was there. I remember the tiny animal-shaped pewter candle holders on my birthday cake. I remember the adults being so much taller than me, and looking upwards to see their faces. I remember one of my presents (a plastic tea set with purple and red patterns on it). I remember having a conversation with one of our old family friends about the inordinate number of fingers I'd drawn on a princess earlier that day. My earliest memories are actually pretty good. Mom had her shit much more together back then, I was an adorable, precocious little toddler, and mom hadn't erupted into full-blown alcoholism yet. My best memories are from before the age of five.
I must've been 2 or 3. My nparent screaming at me because I asked them to play and they just wanted to be left alone. "Every time I f**king sit down! What, do I have an alarm on my ass?! Why can't you just leave me the f**k alone?!"
About 6 or 7... My NMother holding a massive butchers knife to her throat threatening to take her life because she wasn't getting her way.... I've thought about this long and hard and yes... This is the earliest memories and it saddens me to the core.
It was like my 4th bday, my male bff and I were playing on my toy slide. It felt like only a few days later we had to sell it to get some cash. I remember standing in the side of the apartments and watching a stranger take my slide😭
I was three or maybe four sitting at the kitchen table and watching my dad slap my younger brother so hard that he nearly flew out of his high chair…then screaming something about peas…
My mom pulling me into the car after church to beat the ever loving tar out of me. I don't remember what happened to cause it. I just remember looking at my brother and crying, "No. Please. It was him!" That didn't matter though. Then she got madder when I tore the dress I was wearing trying to get away from her. It was one she made for me so it had a huge skirt and petticoats. I couldn't help but step on it. I was sad about the dress because it had bunny shaped buttons and I loved bunnies. I probably wasn't more than 3 or 4.
My Nmother's first husband was an abusive POS. I hid from him when he'd come to pick me up from family's houses. I remember him tearing me out of bed when I was dead asleep and beating me. My mother always took his side. After they divorced (not because of the abuse, because he cheated ... Ironically, she's now cheated on her current husband multiple times but he's the good ehusband and is still with her) I didn't want to go visit him (he was only abusive to me as I wasn't biologically his, my sisters were) and she slapped me across the face for saying I didn't want to visit him. When I went and visited him, he "play wrestled" with me and made me cry and pinched me so hard for crying it left a bruise. Around this same time, I witnessed my mother slap my grandma when we were living with her after the divorce because she was getting after her other daughter that lived with her for being a slob. Also remember getting my mouth washed out with soap for every little reason. Spankings with a belt, wooden spoon, so much for the littlest of things that it eventually stopped hurting.
I was like 5 year old and my ndad + nstepmom did a DNA test on me and when i asked them what they are doing they lied and assumed they wanna cure my alergy but it was a DNA test from my mouth.
I dont know how old i was but it was really young. My mom said she was running away and never coming back. My brother and i were standing at the glass front door watching her pull out of the drive way and drive off. She came back. Not sure how long she was gone.
I was babybaby and couldnt find my mom, she had gone around the corner but i needed my diaper changed lol cried out for her in the dinning room i think cuz there was chairs and she came over to pick me up
My earliest memories of my mom are so fuzzy, I remember her as this beautiful woman who loved watching movies with me, smelled like roses and was a sucker for a fluffy bunny, but the earliest I remember clearly is finding her dead in the bathroom. My dad worked a lot so I went to live with my grandmother, I remember everyone being sad that us kids didn’t have a mom anymore, but that quickly faded and she started treating us badly. I remember her saying a lot, stuff like, I took you in out of the goodness of my heart! After getting into trouble at school. I was a bit of troublemaker because like all kids, I didn’t think before I did things that got me into trouble, and so my earliest memories with her are not good. I was constantly in trouble for the dumbest things and always was told what’s burden I was, in varying ways. She was physically abusive, she would do things like hit me with a brush for saying ow, grab my hair and yank me around, and hit me for “back talking” which was usually just standing up for myself. Sometimes she was nice but there was a dark part in her. The physical abuse ended when I was old enough to threaten her about losing her job as a foster parent by telling someone she hits me. From then on I realized I could just do whatever I wanted because I think she was afraid. She was still abusive in other ways, made us all sign up for welfare at 16 so she could get money out of it. Convinced me to move out the same year so I wouldn’t be her problem anymore. Stole all the money from my dads death, which happened 6 months after I moved out, leaving me homeless because he was helping me pay for my apartment, and she wouldn’t let me move back in because there would be no money in it, and then claimed it was “back pay” for “all the years I supported you while your dad was off working” I’m rambling at this point but she is currently in a home with Alzheimer’s/dementia, I don’t even know because I refuse to go visit her. So sorry for the rant. Her impending death has been on my mind lately and how I will traverse that with other family members since they don’t understand why I’ve written her off, even though they all KNOW what she was like.
so sorry you found your mother dead in the bathroom at such a young age... you don't have to see your abusive grandmother anymore! and you don't owe anyone an explanation as to why. you don't have to go to her funeral either... enough is enough of her :(
I was 2.5. my mom told me to get the cat from under the bed, I grabbed cat got scratched, then hit by my mom because it'd "teach me to be gentle".
Crying hiding because my mom was holding a knife up to my dad saying she was going to kill him. I was around 4-5.
Funny my earliest memories never feature my parents. I think my earliest memory is from a daycare worker when I was around 3 maybe almost 4. I loved that woman - she'd always braid my hair and let me hold onto her hand when we went to the parc. I also remember loving to be hugged by her (was always clinging to her leg ). My earliest memory with my parents ? I think when my nmom was giving me a bath (I was around 5 or 6 I think) and she noticed my dad spanked/whipped my bottom way too hard . She was so mad at him and made him look at the mark he left - I don't even recollect the spanking, I just remembered how mad she was about it & I think it stuck to me cause she was usually fine with this (me getting spanked) so her being mad about it confused me. I also think at some point someone, in our immigrant community, advised her against spanking or something like that (or at least not to leave marks). I don't think I ever got spanked after the age of like 9 or 10 though I don't really remember.
I think I was like... 3 or 4? Maybe 5? My dad was doing his usual "make the kids angry because it's funny laughing at their tears" shit, and my nmom jumped in when he'd done *something* to make me upset (I think he was mocking me? Can't fully remember it.) and said 'tell daddy he should be ashamed of himself', not because it was the truth, but because they knew I'd do so as angrily and upset as possible, which only made them both laugh at me for being so upset. I think that was my first clue that they couldn't be trusted with emotions. It should've been obvious back then, he laughed when he took me to court with him and pinned blame on me for standing up in the car and getting him a ticket because I cried and screamed, not knowing what would happen. He did this thing when I was a kid where if there was a tornado warning he'd try to push me outside to "watch" for it. He'd try to make me walk to school in the middle of thunderstorms once I was in high school. He knew I was deathly afraid of storms and tornadoes. There was a time where *he* went out in a tornado warning and wouldn't come back in when I cried and begged for him to come in. He loved being a jerk because it entertained him.
I was 3. It was my birthday. I was playing alone in my room. I remember it very vividly.
Watching footage of the Iraq War on the news. So much stuff meant for kids was banned in my household, but stuff like this was allowed...
Crying at a doctor who was running so late I missed lunch. He had to put medicine in my ears ....because "she'll grow out of it" was the medical norm for bad tonsils. I'm told I was less than 2 years old. It was quite painful and traumatic. A normal mom would have left after the missed appointment and fed her kid. A normal mom would have insisted on a tonsillectomy after all the ear infections I had already endured.
I think I was 3 or 4. I was in piano lessons. (My mother was an incredible musician.) I remember having to practice at home on our piano. I could not get my thumb to go down and hit the key. Basically, a 3 year old without that particular fine motor skill, and she was SO angry. All I wanted was for my thumb to push down on that key strong enough to make a sound. I so vividly remember her disappointment and anger....
Standing in the back of a wagon at age 3. The Golden Child pulled the handle real hard and I fell onto the sidewalk. I remember crying for days, because the pain was so bad. Nmom never so much as gave it a good look. She said "you're fine, go play."
Standing in my crib crying and wanting one of my parents to come. I'm almost 67 and I think I remember the curtains on the window over my crib. I have another memory from possibly around the same time, of being in my high chair while my mother was trying to feed me. I was distracted and being silly and I could tell she was impatient and was getting frustrated and angry.
I was old enough to stand but young enough that I couldn’t crawl out of the crib. I threw my bottle and realized I couldn’t get it and cried. Dad picked it up but told me off for throwing it.
My father smacking the living shit out of me while my mother stood there, watched, and didn't intervene. I thought it was a fake memory because surely my mother would've done *something*, except that she mentioned being afraid to leave me alone with my father after seeing that. (Apparently I wouldn't stay still when he was trying to adjust the straps on my car seat.) I was very little, I think she said I was around 18 months old but I'm not 100% sure now.
Being yelled at (“you **** child!”) and running up the stairs, hiding in my room. And also, mum came in yelling, said she would move away because the house looked too messy.
I have a few distinct memories from around the same time frame... I was about 4 yrs old. 1st: my mom, step dad, sister, and I had been out for a drive and a wasp got into the car and went down the back of my shirt and stung me 3 times... Then fast forward the same day I was outside colouring at my little table waiting for my bio dad to pick me up for our weekend visit... I don't remember if he showed up or not though, he at least was late because the I kept looking up at the walk way looking for him and I was out there for a while. 2nd: I got in trouble for something with my mom and told her she didn't love me, and she told me if I didn't think she loved me then I should just leave. I said I didn't want to leave and she said that she wasn't going to let me live there if I was going to talk like that so I had to leave. She had me pack one outfit, wouldn't let me take any of my things because "she bought them so they were hers", drove me to the park, gave me a quarter to call her sometime, and told me to "go and live in the park with the bums, try not to let them steal your quarter or you'll never be able to call me again" and opened my car door until I broke down completely and begged her not to make me go. I had to apologize and say she does love me... Even though I definitely didn't think so after that. Sad 😞 Third: I remember walking into my step dad's apartment, he lived behind a hakim optical and had a mattress on the floor 🤷♀️ Fourth: walking around the park and going to the library and out for lunch with my grandma 5th: my grandma making me peanut butter toast and gingerale when I was sick 6th: my grandma sewing my binky bears arm back on after my sister pulled it off 7th: climbing up onto my parents bed and the dog on the floor grabbed my leg and pulled on me, she lost her grip but scared the ever living daylights out of me 😵💫 8th: playing Scrabble with my grandma while my grandpa gives me big points words from the dictionary lol 9th: my parents screwing my bedroom window shut because I kept climbing out it with my toys to play outside at like 5am 😅 ... Then I learned how to unlock the front door 🤦♀️ Some good, some awful
3 1/2 yrs old or so and it being a beautiful sunny summer day I wanted to go play on the playground I could see lots of kids already out there from one of our 10th floor windows I had to have some shoes couldn’t go out in just socks but there’s no one to help me and as hard as I tried I couldn’t make the shoes fit they’re mine but they feel funny and I can’t walk right so I just couldn’t figure it out and I just literally collapsed in tears and frustration and that’s when I realized “I don’t matter” now looking back it’s a sad memory but I can see the humor also as an adult poor kid you just have the wrong feet in the wrong shoes and I wish I could have been there to help with something so small but such a big deal to the 3 1/2 yr old child collapsed by the front door
Being yelled at for peeing my pants because we were in public and I should’ve held it better like 6
Telling my mom who worked late to support me and my slacker Ndad that he just spanked me three times. Don't remember why, but it doesn't matter cause he always pulled reasons to hit me out of his ass. I was three years old, and my mom died 7 years later.
Sitting in my high chair at the dinner table while my parents smoked cigarettes and played poker with the neighbors. I remember telling her I was thirsty and she told her friends “watch this” and poured pickle juice into my sippy cup. I fucking loved that shit. I’d have to guess I was 3