forgetting traumatic stuff-adolescence

[spikeyannie]

My recent DIY diagnosis has prompted me to think more about my adolescence and what the various meds I was on, might have done to me to make it worse. I actually don't feel that bad about it, just curious. I mean, I can't get those years back...so screw it.

Comments

[spikeyannie]

Ha I misread that as the "brian way of protecting you" and was making a mental note to thank my friend Brian before being like, "...!"

Anyway, yeah, I guess that makes sense. I just wonder if the meds might have exaggerated this effect to a degree. I do remember when I was on them, it felt like nothing that happened to me, was real...and that everything was sort of through this fog.

[kisekileia]

I've heard of this as well. I don't think I remember the full impact of some of the shit that happened between me and my mom in my early university years, and a lot of people forget about sexual assault/abuse and then remember it years later.

[notadate]

I don't know if it's an Aspie trait, but I have piss poor episodic memory. I can remember facts easily, and there are some events of my life that I remember fairly well, but in general trying to remember my life is like reading a really vague book. My brain is like, "So then you went to middle school and, like, stuff happened and junk. And then you went to high school. Stuff happened there too." Not especially helpful. ;) I can't blame it on trauma. I think it's more a result of me being so wrapped up in my own head that my mind never really took in the details of what was happening around me.

[sparkly_stuff]

Same here. I could never write an autobiography because I don't recall enough detail about my childhood/adolescence. I've always felt my brain just never found it necessary information to hold on to :(

[finnyb]

I don't remember much of my life before late teens, and what little I do remember (flashes that I don't know for sure if they're actual memories or just stuff people've told me so often it seems like it) is bad stuff. The current--and supported by what facts we've got--theory that the husband and I have for that is that so much even worse stuff happened, likely a good deal of it sexual, that my brain just blocked as much as possible (some of which tends to leak out in dreams and flashback-type things, now that I'm in a safer situation).

Don't know if it's related to being Aspie or not (other than the fact that Aspies seem to get bullied an awful lot, and awfully badly, and so thus might have more to block out, I suppose), but that's what little input I've got to give.

[ask_my_stars]

I think that's more post-traumatic stress disorder than your asd. I have PTSD and autism/aspergers (depends on whom you ask..haha) and there are lots of things and times I just don't remember. I have blocked a lot out. Also I don't know what meds you took however I was on meds for a while and I don't remember hardly anything from that time. The medicine really messed up my thinking and memory. I was on effexor, xanax, rhisperdall, etc. Quitting the pills was the best decision I have ever made.

[bobby1933]

I have almost no memories of childhood. The few I do have were reconstructed from adult conversations with family and friends and from photographs. I may have been subjected to emotional (and perhaps other kinds of) abuse. I do not know. Like old cutter john said in another thread, I have to infer some things I don't know from things I do know. However, my memories of adult life are not all that clear either. I missed lots of important stuff about my marriages and my children. Part of it is Asperger's I'm pretty sure. One of the symptoms is if it isn't interesting to me, it might as well not exist. I don't know whether my life was too traumatic to remember or just too boring. It might be a combination of both.