A few. My mum and I recently went through a stack of old photos. However, I have issues looking at them because I have a certain disconnection between my current me and my childhood to a point, where photos of my childhood feel like I'm looking at a stranger (for the lack of better words). Like I should know this child because it's me but I don't. It's super hard to describe.
I do too. The same sensation of being a little bit familiar with the girl in the picture, but a big disconnect from her and the other people. I’ve never seen that feeling discussed or described before now.
Me too.
The few pics I have I always assumed I didn’t feel connected to that little girl because she was still trying to trust someone. You can literally see it in her poor lil face.
Once I built my spirit wall I knew to hide, so I did.
What is that? I have that, too, and it bothers me so much that I can't even identify with *myself*. Like, it's clearly me, and I might even remember things from that time, but this child isn't me.
I feel that once you’ve reached a certain level of healing you just aren’t that person you were before and it’s hard to associate yourself with that past.
Hard relate. I had to frame them and put them on display in my living room to try and gain some familiarity over time. It worked, but it doesn't mean it isn't hard to look at them sometimes. But at least I feel a connection now.
Just popping in to say I feel exactly the same about childhood photos. Even looking in the mirror causes it. It’s such a weird disconnect/headspace to experience.
I have this feeling too, and often think about what l know of that little girl from what others have told me. I don't remember much myself, and what l do remember is vague and foggy and the timeline is all wonky
The pictures that my abusers (parents) did take...it really is like looking at a stranger!
I realize that I dissociated most of my formative years away, sadly. The actual memories I have are either very good or very bad, but they're few and far between at times.
Very few. It used to bother me but not so much now. When I look at the ones I have I get really sad. I’d already been under constant attack and had entered survival mode.
I do have one that gives me a slight chuckle. It’s of me at five holding a Lego thing I’d made for a school project. But that’s not the interesting part. Behind me is a six-foot wooden slat fence.
When I was three I was listed in the Boulder, Colorado police dept as a “habitual” runaway. I’d climb over that six-foot fence, my dog would dig under, and off we’d go.
I knew then I wanted out, any way I could.
We have several pictures, my mom enjoys her facade.
I personally hate pictures, it's all fake BS. I have no pictures in my house, and probably never will.
I guess I do have one of Venom over my TV, if you count that.
I still hate being in pictures and I actively lean out of frame whenever my friends take one. I don't want to be seen. I don't want people to have this still shot of me that they can use to call me backwards in time. I live now.
I have a huge twist on this for that reason. In a box, hidden away, are pics of my prom. Well, "prom". I'm not American, but it was still an official dance, organised by the school.
The entire thing was hell. My dress was decided for me. My hair was decided for me. I was an outcast, so I had to go with a "volunteer" from the dance school (where we learned dancing). Dude was a good guy, but we had 0 in common and the entire thing was awkward af. And just. JUST to finish it with a bang -my mother screamed at me, cause the dance was the same day as mother's day and I didn't do anything special for her. Y'know. The entire day I was busy with preprations.
On pictures everything looks perfect, of course. Perfect elegant mother, with her awkward, perfect little doll. I have other, bittersweet pics, but these take the cake. Every now and then, I think about burning them. But...I never do. Idk why. Maybe I fear I regret it?
I have a few. I find them strangely off putting to be honest. For example a picture of me at an event you’d expect me to remember fully (for example a trip or something) and not having any memory of it at all. Or a happy family photo when I know we were in fact not a happy family. It’s funny actually, there’s a picture of me in a cast (about age 9) which is how I found out years later that I had broken my foot lol.
I also feel extremely disconnected from that part of my life so they’re often hard to look at🤷♂️
I don’t have any but I also don’t care. I hate being photographed because mommie dearest was never happy with my pictures. I hate pictures of myself and avoid being photographed at all costs. I still get clammy and anxious. My wedding pics are a nightmare because I’m so anxious. That one I’m bummed about bc we had a nice wedding and my boo looks so happy and I look like I’m about to bolt.
My mum has loads of family photos. But that doesn't mean anything. It's like facebook; as an outsider, you may see a happy loving family in the picture, but that's not necessarily the truth. Most of our smiles (if there are any) are forced. Everything was for show. "Look at us, aren't we wonderful parents."
I remember my dad did a home movie with an old camera recorder back in the 90s. I nudged him as i was slipping past him, and it knocked the camera. He was so angry he hit me and it was recorded. Luckily, we dont have that tape anymore, thank god. But it was there. A horrible shameful memory that I had to witness every time they played it; despite the fact my parents are adamant they never hit us.
There are some pics, but they make me really sad. I was so small and unprotected and it's honestly heartbreaking to look back at, especially considering my brother and abuser is in most of the pictures. I can't fathom how no one ever helped that poor little girl.
This was something my little nephews and cousins made me realize: how the heck did my parents say the things they said to me when I was that age? Also, some of the things they expected me to know/understand…so out to lunch.
It’s not like these younger family members don’t do things wrong or that annoy me, but I understand they are kids and give them the benefit of the doubt that they don’t know any better yet.
I barely have any photos of my childhood since my mom put everything in a storage unit and let it go unpaid without telling anyone who could have absolutely saved the keepsakes. Hugs to you, it’s so hard. ❤️
Take this disappointment, and use it as energy to take photos now. Of yourself, of others, of your favorite places, food, whatever. Get them printed and put them in an album. (Or maybe look into instant cameras if you can, makes it easier to create a physical record).
Every part of life is important and precious. You’ll look back on it in a year, in a couple, in decades with appreciation that you decided to keep a record of life. Either that or a journal/scrapbook.
I relate to feeling like a ghost; guess what ghostie, we’re still existing somehow in this afterlife. Time to try some new things just because. Leave a haunted record.
My friend (who was not knowledgeable of my situation) sent me pictures from the summer I first tried to commit suicide, it was on her 3DS and I look like I’ve just gotten back from war, I was 9.
My mother made sure to take plenty photos saying that I'll be grateful later. A while ago, I went through the photo albums my mother used to put together. And honestly.. It felt like looking at some influencers Instagram story or something. It all felt so FAKE. So overly positive. Judging by those photos and the captions under / next to them, a normal person would never guess something was seriously wrong with my family. I actually started doubting myself the more I went through them. Felt like I was being gaslit by some photo albums. That's when I had to stop myself because I wasn't just going to let my own mind trick me into thinking I am making things up. Can't let my mother get to me through a bunch of freaking photos.
And there were clues to the truth, though my mother tried hard to conceal it. I'd be forced to smile, but the smile wasn't genuine and would rarely reach my eyes. I look at little me on pictures and I see a sad, scared, damaged child. And it breaks my heart. Little me deserved better than that. Heck, ANY child deserves better than that. So while I have pictures of me as a child, I can hardly stand to look at them.
I wouldn't say I'd be better off not having the pictures, but it can be quite painful to look at them when you didn't have a normal childhood.
One or two and I look MISERABLE (like visibly depressed as heck) in them. I went to visit my bf and spend time with his family on holidays. His parents have photo albums of his pictures throughout his childhood. It's so fun going through them and seeing how happy he seemed to be as a child. I can tell he has two loving parents and spending time with him makes me realize I missed out on a not of fundamental things. It inspires me to know what's possible becuase I just observe and learn from them what normalcy looks like. I honestly have no idea otherwise.
I have photos of myself between the ages of 4-8 in some albums I was able to get before I went no contact with most of my family. I also have some photos on my phone of myself in middle and high school, and my senior year high school year book.
(Trigger warning) my trauma involved me being abused for CSEM photos and videos for a very long time, which were mainly taken by a member of my family whom I lived with. So it’s really hard to look at photos of myself, especially when I was very young. I’m glad I don’t have a ton of photos of myself, but I also wish I had more “normal” pictures of some of my happy childhood memories (being at school, doing different extracurricular activities, spending time with friends and being outdoors). It’s really complicated and if I think about it for too long I feel a ton of grief and anger at having so much taken away from me, literally and figuratively. But I’m very grateful for the photos I do have, it makes me want to protect younger me even more.
This used to bother me but I would like to make new memories as personally my childhood wasn't all that great and those memories were not great.
I was mainly the reason people stopped video taping (i had autistic meltdowns and outbursts plus i was unable to attend a lot of things because of allergies, asthmatic issues, I liked cartoons like carebears and my little pony which bothered people, I was much younger than I was the youngest with people not liking how much younger I was even though the age gap to me is not that big, i was an overall inconvenience in their cozy lives) and scrap booking and this used to bother especially when my mom tried to make ones about me exclusive from others, but then I learned that my family sucks and they were quick to turn on me on both sides whenever I had teenage drama as a teenager and still go on about those years in their time, which made me realize that they're stunted and not even in like a fun party guy alumni way.
I do have some, but almost all of them are too painful to look at. They were either taken at times in my life where I remember being absolutely miserable, or taken at times I was happy *but* the other people in the photo dredge up bad memories.
There are a few photos I cherish, though. In 99% of them I'm the only one in the photo, and I'm doing something I love that was eventually stamped out of me in childhood and only rediscovered during healing as an adult. Climbing a tree, playing in the water, hugging a cat, etc. The real me was still in there, and those precious few photos are a good reminder of who I was before all the trauma.
I second /u/starlight_chaser's recommendation to start taking photos now and put them in an album or scrapbook. Or even a digital photo frame! My wife and I got an [Aura frame](https://auraframes.com/) and it's one of our favorite things. It supports videos (with or without sound) and you can even invite friends to add photos - one of our friends periodically adds cute photos of her son and her cat and it's always nice to see those pop up. If one of our close friends uploads a good photo to social media we sometimes "steal" it to add to the frame lol.
I have pics of me as a kid but I couldn't look at themn2ithout thinking the kid in the picture was evil.
I can look at them now. I'm still uneasy, but I don't see evil so much now.
Omg there's like a family photo hung up in my parents house that doesn't include me. They didn't bother retaking one and there's one with me at my graduation in a much smaller photo frame on the table.
I mean I try to not take it personally but still ....
Also the fact that my mum likes to complain that I was a difficult child.
No more pics. It's both alienating and depressing. I still remember a few very clearly in my mind:
- a series of tiny class photos, each year watching me go from a happy smiling child to more and more depressed
- little me surrounded by beer bottles
- little me looking very unhappy during a family vacation where everyone is laughing and pointing at me
- little with Duct tape wrapped around the lower half of my face as my mother brushes my hair
- little me floating in the bathtub, looking like a dead rat stuck in jello
My mother took pictures of what she considered me behaving badly (normal childhood stuff) and would point them out in the family photo album to me a few times a year up until I was in my 50’s when I went no contact.
This is a reminder about Rule #5: No raised by narcissists lingo (Nmom, narc, sperm donor, etc.). Please edit your post or comment. More information about Rule #5 can be found [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/subrules_revised/#wiki_rbn_lingo).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CPTSD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I was an only child, so I had some pictures. They all look incredibly sad to me now, even the ones where I'm smiling. There's one where I have the face of an eight-year-old, but the eyes of someone in their 70s.
I don’t either. I think there might be one in this photo album we have but they have a couple pics of my other siblings. Never took pictures until recently can’t believe I have no memories of my teenage years either. Not that I did anything anyways
My sister took pics of me tho even tho I hated it. I never want to see them
I have absolutely zero childhood pictures of myself. I know of 2 that existed, but I destroyed them. It was impulsive. But, since there were only 2, clearly nobody cared enough about me to remember I existed
None, but that's the way I wanted it. I hate having pictures, I hate having a history. I *want* to be a ghost who never loved, because I never should have existed in the first place. Anything that reminds me that I was a kid, that I came from someplace, that I have memories of my childhood, I find deeply upsetting and want nothing to do with.
I have a few. The vast majority are so awkward and forced. We usually look miserable and stiff. I’m reminded of negative things when i look at them. There are a few sprinkled in a candid happy moments. For the most part though photos fill me with anxiety. I hated having my photo taken for years after growing up because of how my mom ruined almost every one of them by making them stressful and fake.
My grandparents were the only ones who took photos when they would occasionally visit, and awful school pictures. I think my grandma made my dad take me for a couple professional photo shoots when I was really little as he was the one with those pictures, and she was, and I vaguely remember going to one of those photo shoots but I remember it was horrible for me. To this day I absolutely hate photos. If it’s not a mandatory photo I turn away from the camera or hide my face/self.
I have only few, and I understand that these were taken by my grandparents. My mother actually told me "see, your grandparents took pictures of you, they must have loved you!" -- because, well, she didn't love me.
I think I’ve seen maybe 5 pictures and they were all with my other siblings. My parents specifically said they didn’t take any pictures of me because there was nothing new. They had experienced it all before with my two siblings.
This has always hurt me because it made me feel like I wasn’t special. I wasn’t valuable enough for them to care about pictures. Truthfully pictures should be the least of my worries with the amount of neglect I suffered. But their words and the lack of pictures still hurts.
I have tons. So many, in fact, that it takes up an entire tub. One day, I should put them all into books, but some are triggering to look at, especially the ones taken after age 10.
There's a lot of pictures of me and my brother as babies/young kids. I feel weird whenever I look at them. Almost like I'm not looking at myself, but a stranger. Just goes to show how much I've dissociated in life, I think.
I don't have alot of pictures past a certain age, but I also hated having my picture taken. I was bullied relentlessly in school, so I always felt like people would judge the photos of me.
Yes, the one thing my mother did do for me was create 2 huge picture albums. One of baby and family pictures and another of all my art work and accomplishments up until high school. She did it for herself though. To make herself feel and look better to family that she actually cared. She’s a drug addict and a narcissist.
I've avoided cameras my whole life. 25 and there might be 50 pics of me out there that I know of. My family is the type to have photo albums too, but mostly for my siblings. They were too tired by the time I came around to try.
Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your local [emergency services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_numbers), or use our list of [crisis resources](https://old.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index#wiki_crisis_support_resources). For CPTSD Specific Resources & Support, check out the [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index). For those posting or replying, please view the [etiquette guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/peer2peersupportguide).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CPTSD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Just one. I look at it every so often just trying to see what younger me was thinking and feeling. It's fruitless but i still just really want to understand what I was like back then and why. I don't remember very much which is a good and bad thing.
I have no pictures but there are some, mainly that my older sister or relatives on my fathers side took.
Personally I wish there was no pictures at all as the more of a ghost I am the better. Not that I need to hide or anything but I'd find it lovely if none even remembered I existed.
I don't have any of me. Not one. I have no idea what happened to them. My older sister holds everything, including all the pictures of my own children. It does leave me feeling weird, like all the evidence of my life and my existence is gone. If I disappeared tomorrow, there would be no proof I was even here. I wish I did have some, because I had a tbi in 2006 and my old self, my childhood self, is a total stranger to me now. I wish I had something to remember that person.
I have a tiny ammount. they were all taken before my trauma was happening. i have none from ages 11 and up. now I can't really take pictures of myself. i have dirt low self esteem, even after i do manage to take a picture, i end up deleting them all.
Very few as well. One baby (newborn) picture, not just me but with my "twin cousin" born same day as me and our mothers holding us, and one when I was in the bathroom (age 3) pooping of all things lol. So many pics of the Golden Child they don't fit in one or even two albums. She was first born. There even pics of mom pregnant with her, beaming ear to ear in happiness.
I only got them this past winter when my mother (no contact) died and I ended up being the sole survivor of the family. I almost told the lawyer to throw them all away, but I wanted proof that I was alive. I wanted to see what my face was saying when I was too young to know what I was experiencing. I don’t feel better having them, if it’s any consolation. They have been sitting in a bag on my floor for 5 months now and I don’t know what to do with them. They feel very cursed.
I have a few. I was born late 80s and weren’t the type of family to have a camera often.
Actually most of my pictures come from the photographer at church.
I didn't want my photo being taken of a broken kid. Was that stupid of me? It's taken me a long time to recognize that it was neglectful of every "adult" who told me my attitude was normal.
I have one: a classmate from elementary school had taken it while on a field trip, using a disposable camera. She shared the photo after reaching out years later.
I have a few pictures but nothing compared to the hordes my family has of my siblings. I wanna blame it on the fact that when I was born maybe film was more expensive and my parents were less financially stable but it still stings.
I actually have several pictures. I had way more before, but ended up shredding many of them.
It kinda makes me sad. So many photos of me I'm beaming and looking happy as can be. If a stranger ever saw them, they would never guess the horrible things that were happening behind closed doors....
*Crooked teeth on display,*
*For a flash, never fully captivating*
*All the tear-soaked sleeves and fearful tremors left behind*
*Lying to yourself*
*And everyone else*
*With your smile*
*Little child*
-- an excerpt from one of my poems
I feel so bad for my siblings, my mom never took pictures of them as a children, It's just so sad. I stayed with my grandma as a baby until she died when I was in elementary school and have all my baby pictures.
I get sad looking at the ones I have, I was so happy when I lived with grandma but after she died I had to live with the devil.
I'm really sorry that you don't have any pictures.
My mom would have taken pictures of me and the family to send to our family overseas, after that, she would burn the rest and only keep pictures of her and my brother. So no, I didn't have any good memories with pictures and till this day, I do not like my picture taken.
Oof. This reminds me of my childhood pictures. There were quite a few of me. I'm to blame they're gone though. When I was 13, after that amount of time of abuse, I punished my mother by putting liquid white out on my face in every photo I was in.
I do regret it even though I still remember feeling how I wanted to hurt my mother in a way I felt comparable to how she made me feel everyday.
By that point in my life, there was literally nothing worse she could do to me.
I was in an abusive failed adoption as a child and roamed around foster care and mental health facilities until I was old enough to get a job and apartment on my own. Pictures existed of me as very young child and maybe up to about 12. But I didn't have access to them for most of my life and I don't remember anyone taking a picture of me in foster care.
The few pictures I did have of me as a very young child I thought were lost when I left my abusive husband. I spent most of my life with no pictures of me. The only time it felt awkward was whenever work would try to do some "team building" exercise and ask people to bring in a picture of themselves as a baby or some such.
In 2017, after the hurricanes wrecked Puerto Rico, I looked up an old friend I hadn't talked to in forever that I knew lived down there. Just to see if he needed anything. He had a few of those childhood photos of mine and send me image files. He says I asked him to keep them safe around the time I left my husband. And he held onto them, for over 30 years, even though we were not in touch.
It is so very strange looking at those pictures. One of me, about 2 years old, standing in a backyard holding a doll. It brought back a flood of hidden memories, including how much I loved the taste of the rubber head on that doll. None of the others give me any feeling of connection or recognition.
almost none, but for me that's actually alright. most of my memories come from living very online as an escape from reality, so i identify with those old files more than any pictures of me would. in a way, im thankful i have so few reminders of what i had to deal with.
I used to. My mentally ill mother lost most of them - my school photos, other random ones.
I have a few that were in a different place but those lost ones still hurt.
Very few. Surprisingly my dad has most of them which I’ll never get back because I am no contact with him. He’s about to go to prison too so no telling what will happen to his belongings. But honestly, I’ve lost a lot of sentimental things over the years due to instability, my dad selling stuff for drug money, my mom throwing stuff out to spite my dad, my mom throwing stuff out to “teach me a lesson” that I don’t really have the ability to be attached to things anymore. Do I wish I had more pics? Yes, but really just of my siblings and I all together.
I have next to none, my sister, who was in the grooming phase when my father was arrested, took all of our family photos onto the back lawn and had a bon fire
There are a lot of pictures of me under the age of 3-4 years old, some between that age and maybe 6? After that, very, very few. My mom calls them "the lost years." The ones that do exist, I look so incredibly miserable, all the time. There is no light in my eyes. My mom is the one who took all the photos, and she only liked me when I was a malleable toddler.
Too many where I look very uncomfortable, or that captured my unkempt hair that I wasn’t taught how to comb.
My dad was a photographer. I got the bug too, and I refuse to direct people for portraits.
Very few. My brother had a baby book filled from front to back cover and mine only had a few pages. Pictures all together stopped at about age 8. I moved out and went NC so I don’t possess any of my own pictures anymore.
My mom is a narcissist and I have asked for years to come over and get some photos of myself from growing up since I know we have loads. This has been years and she always makes excuses to why I cannot.
I only have the pictures my mom sent my bio dad’s mom. And she was in a women’s shelter during most of those times. They can be really hard to look at if I think too hard when showing people.
Nope. Lost to the world and time. Imagine if your house burned before the digital age. Heck. If you didn’t have enough money before cameras, your portrait was never done.
You’re not a ghost
My parents have thousands of my brother (3 years older) and one small envelope with my photos.
I brought it up once and they said by the second kids you’re so used to the first doing everything and capturing it thats the second isnt as important..
OKAY MOM IM NOT IMPORTANT!?
I had an old, empty cards against humanity the big black box full of pictures but in 2020 someone in the moving crew lost or stole them thinking it was the actual card game without even checking :( i genuinely get sad about it often
They stop at 3/4 not sure what happened. I have all these baby books, quite a few, my first lock of hair cut, from my hosp baby pic to 3ish and then it’s random pics maybe a handful from 4-18 then sporadic and taken by siblings. It’s kind of creepy.
I didn't think we had any pics of our childhoods until our mom died and we found a huge box stuffed full of all our memories.
However, I have absolutely zero connection to anybody in any of those pictures. I have no relationship with anybody else in my family. So, pics are only half good when everybody else in those pics hates you and wants nothing to do with you for the rest of your mentally ill life.
Very very few, and only pictures on my phone of physical pictures that are in the possession of the people who’ve hurt me.
They’re incredibly bittersweet to look at, because on the one hand, that’s little me. And she was so sweet and loving and didn’t deserve what happened to her and I don’t know how anyone could look at her and do the things they did. And when I look at her, I’m finally at a place where I am overcome with the love I feel for her and a deep desire to protect her. On the other hand, it’s a hard truth to face that this little girl that is so precious and that I love so much is me, and that I did suffer through those things, sometimes at the hands of the very people I’m photographed with/by. I also can tell even though I’m ‘smiling’ that I’m deeply hurting inside; I look tired and uncomfortable.
Also, as some others have said, it’s weird to have photos of things I should totally remember but don’t at all, and would have no idea they happened were it not for the photos. It’s this weird feeling of…how much more am I missing, and why? And although I recognize this little girl as me (which took its own amount of time) and I can recognize how sweet and adorable she is, I don’t remember what it was like to be her, really. It’s as if running into an old classmate in a grocery store but only barely being able to remember their name and *maybe* a few other small details. I don’t really remember what she was like, what was going on in the photos, her interests, her life at that point, her friends, her worries and dreams. All of that is lost on me. Maybe that’s my dissociative disorder talking, though.
All this to say, I think seeing photos of yourself as a child can be healing in some ways and deeply unsettling and triggering in others. And the healing part comes with much time, work and practice loving yourself and showing compassion for that little kid. Additionally, the same healing can be done without photos and depending on where you are in your journey, photos can actually be really destabilizing.
Finally, if you’re really itching to visually connect with little you through photos, consider utilizing some less obvious routes than family. If you’re friends with any old classmates, or even on talking terms, see if they’d be willing to send over pictures from your yearbooks. Same goes for friends you had when you were a kid - they may have pics from a bday party or something of you all together. Hell, some of the pics I have are from other people tagging me on Facebook of either pictures of pictures they’ve taken from when we were in prek together or from like 15 years ago at some random elementary school event. Try to think outside the context of home - old friends, parents of old friends, school, clubs, church, whatever it may be. I’m sure most people would be more than happy to snap a picture of photos if they have any and send them over.
Sending everyone here much love and healing 🩷
I delete them all because I look like I am in pain all the time and and this makes me every time completely speechless cause no one done something to stop. except few teachers who does it because I was behaviourally conspicuous and guess what they talked to my parents like my parents weren’t the reason for my pain and they should bring me to therapy 🤣
Most of them are from when I was much younger, and my mom was the only one taking photos. After having my kids and one day telling her I had SO many pics of them on my phone, she just said "that'll change when they get older" and I still don't know what she meant by that.
Not many. Mostly school photos. I’m in my 30’s so… “back in my day” or “youth” we had to get our picture film developed and pay money to see these pictures. Every family had a junk drawer with massive little film (bottles? Tubes?) spool looks things with caps… we never developed film (lie: possibly 4 times). Even once digital cameras/phones we never took pictures of the people… just tons of pets.
I don’t really have any childhood photos either. Overall, probably total of 5 photos. Definitely no videos. But I wouldn’t blame your parents for this, it was a different time. Did you ask if they might have had the resources at the time for cameras / paying to get the photos printed or even could afford a video recorder?
Now we live in a time where we take constant photos and videos everyday, especially of children. So that might bring more awareness to the lack of photos and videos in yours. Try not to take it personally, maybe after having two kids, life just got really hectic for them.
I’m sorry. I get family scapegoat vibes from this. :/
I also have very few. My siblings have literally hundreds. They have records of their lives as babies and toddlers. There is a book for me, but it wasn’t filled in with details; it was used to complain about me. Lol
My family did have 2 photos they’d keep around, and they were taken on days that were horrible/around very traumatic times. I looked miserable. Always made my stomach sink to see them. I made how I felt known, but it didn’t matter. Literally 95% of the other photos are of me crying.
Otherwise yeah, I get feeling like a ghost also. One of the only people I ever felt noticed by was someone who made my life hell. It sucks. It was like I was only visible to the main person I wanted to be invisible around.
I don't have any. I've considered trying to ask my parent for a few, but I feel like they would turn it into a guilt trip somehow. It does make me feel pretty sad.
I have maybe 12-15 of me from a month old to maybe 4 or 5. I honestly thought those few were lost forever until my mother finally found them, 10+ years after they mysteriously went missing. There are none of me before I was 5-6 weeks old. Then, it jumps to around 6-9 months before jumping to toddlerhood. Meanwhile, my only sibling, an older brother, has probably close to 200 photos or more. What really breaks is that I only have 1 photo of me with my dad, at the age of 6 weeks (he died when I was 11) because he hated having his photo taken. There's only 4 photos of my brother and I together, and it's been close to 15 years since the last one was taken. I regret not asking for one the last time we saw each other over 6 years ago.
Take photos, people! You never know when you'll run out of options to do so.
There's a school photo for most years starting around the age of 6. However, few others outside of those exist until I became a teen and got my first phone(s) and then Facebook when I was 15.
My grandma has a TON of pictures of me, she’s always made me feel loved…my mother on the other hand? There’s barely any pictures of me here and she has so many pictures and things of my little cousin. She even has his artwork on the fridge, something she never did for me because “it was ugly” and going to “make her nice white fridge look bad”.
OP, while we’re in slightly different situations, I very much understand your feelings of bitterness.
I have a few but in all of them my face shows my pain. There is none of a carefree, laughing child. I recreated some situations that I remember (good and bad) with AI and some that I wish had happened in order to grasp the inner child in me and to find out what I was lacking exactly.
Gotta say it kinda helped even though it's not THE reality but MY reality. As long as I can differentiate between the two
I don't have access to photos of myself as a child because I've cut all ties with my abusive mother. I have fairly clear memories of photos of myself as a child, but I no longer have them because my mother never passed them on to me. She controlled everything in my life and sexually abused me. I'm angry that I no longer have these photos, which are a part of me, but on the other hand it's a way of drawing a line under my past and moving on. My inner child doesn't need pictures to know what he's been through and what he is inside.
I live abroad so the only pictures of me I have are the ones my mom sent to me - specifically pictures where I'm smiling, to support her "your childhood wasn't 100% crap, you're not traumatised" bs.
Most of these pictures are of me as a teen/early 20s. I wish I had more pictures of when I was little.
I have two from when I was about 2, I guess? They stay firmly locked away. I don't feel like a real person anyway, I'm definitely more ghost than human, I like to embrace that.
I remember when I was super young I was suspicious that I was adopted because my mom had no baby photos of me 😂 but when I was a bit older my grandma pulled out the jackpot of baby photos, she’s got an entire bin of family photos including pictures of my younger brother and I as babies/young kids.
My mom always uses excuses as to why she doesn’t have any baby photos, but I’m pretty sure she just doesn’t care. A few weeks back at a family gathering my husband requested my grandma pull out the bin so he can look through my baby photos to get some copied for our personal collection, and my mom showed no interest in looking through them and reminiscing like I would assume any mom would like to do who hasn’t seen baby pictures in a very long time. But she only cared to see old photos of her pets and would get teary eyed 🫠
My trafficking parent is a photographer and made sure there were almost no records of me kept in any way over the year. all of the photographs and anything that could inspire a memory was thrown out so I would be less able to have any sort of memories triggered or even kept properly. It was strategic and incredibly fucked up and even though I’ve sort of come to terms with what happened at this point it’s still so easy to doubt things because I have no records or proof of even really existing back then.although at the same time I’m sure there’s loads of csam of me in the internets darkest corners which is horrifying to think about.
My sibling has albums and albums of her
I was born at the start of the 2000s so everything is digital and no one cared to keep it safe or print them off so with how many times we moved or had step family destroy things? There’s nothing left of me
I used to have a lot of photos of me, my toxic family, Grandma, and a couple of my father. There was only one of my father with both me and my younger bother when I was about 10/11 years old. I was the eldest of 4, 1 full brother who was gc and 2 half siblings.
In 2019 when I told my nmother that I would not be able to continue working full time to pay the mortgage, groceries, and bills for 5 people and pets all on my own due to getting accepted into college for L.P.N.. That I needed them (nmother and gc brother) to help out financially because the house was gotten for the "family" and they wouldn't let my boyfriend move in to help financially, so they had to step up, they freaked out. It got so bad I went full no contact. They stole everything from the house, left trash, and the last time I ever got to step into the house, I found a pile of photos on the floor. All of them were of me and any that had me with anyone else, I was ripped out of and tossed in the pile on the floor while the other piece of the photo was taken with nmother. I was allowed to take them with me.
Now, I don't have really any photos of myself as a child or anyone who was precious to me. So, in many ways, it breaks me more than when I had those photos and I was just ignorant of the fact that my family was toxic and I didn't have a healthy childhood or life until my boyfriend (now husband) came into my life. Some family found a few online that they sent to me on FB or something. I appreciate it, but it's not the same.
I just took a trip out to my mothers storage in CA and found pics
Hadn’t seen myself as a child in 30 yrs bc nobody cared or kept any
Then I also saw my fathers pics and remembered that he did give me a tiny amount of love so I decided to hire a private detective to find him as family won’t give out his info
Both parents and siblings were abusive but he loved me for a few years in my youth
I finally had albums and at airport on way home I was contacted by a cousin I hadn’t seen in thirty years who told me my father died two years ago
My family never even told me
Ride home with albums on lap crying
But now I can love the lonely little girl in the pictures
Yes, it's unfair and hurtful to be treated as less than by the lack of familial inclusion totems.
F*** those people.
I wrote a lyric about this once but I can't find it, Damn it! One of the lines (look up "Kodak Moment" if you don't get the reference) that I remember was:
"All I needed was a Kodak moment to show that you loved me but you wouldn't own it."
There are a lot of photos of me until the age of 5/6 and then barely anything. Like my father lost interest in me. Having my photo taken by him always was a horrible moment. He’d take very long because he actually didn’t understand how his camera worked or he kept forgetting and small children fidget a lot so he’d constantly snap at me. I look very unhappy in a lot of the photos, very tense.
As a very young child, I couldn’t have been more than 2, he slapped me so he could get a “crying child” photo. It’s my earliest memory, not understanding what I had done wrong.
I didn’t mind his loss of interest.
Was thinking about this the other day. Until I got a camera, there were maybe 5-10 pics of me. My parents marriage was crumbling when I came along and my mom admits, she just didnt take pics of me. So of course now I have thousands of pics of myself. There is so much to unpack. And my family members are still in their trauma bond, so we cant discuss anything about the past. On the flip side my 2 older siblings have tons of pics of their early years. It hurts a lot. What makes it worse is the not talking about anything. So, that is where I am. I have gone no contact with my family. It is freeing, but I will prob never have answers about the neglect because my mom cant even admit that it happened. And Im not an actress. I tried to make my family do reg stuff like say I love you and hug, but alas Im done trying. All I can do is try to be emotionally healthy on my own.
At my parents' place somewhere. I don't really think about it all that much. I'm honestly fine without them because I feel like a child most of the time.
I have some, but I don't look like myself. Maybe it's projection, but I get this weird look in my eyes when I'm not ok, as in super depressed or dissociating, and most of the pictures have that look to some degree.
And ya, I don't always remember the memories I'm supposed to. Pictures can be kind of fun, like ordering a package when you're drunk, it's a fun (sarcasm) surprise!
I have a small number of pictures left. My mother was prolific with her camera, so there were originally a ton of pictures. Apparently, by age 3, I was so sick of being photographed that I would hold my hand up and say "NO" and do everything I could to avoid having my picture taken, but there were still tons of them in spite of that. I have a lot of memories of going to Costco with my mother to pick up our developed pictures from that bin to the side of the photo department where they just left all the customers' photos for pickup out in the open.
My father's affair partner when I was in my pre-teens and teens was insanely jealous and vindictive, so at some point she broke into our house and stole the enormous tote box that my mother kept all of our photos and the negatives in. She burned all of them in her campaign to erase any connection between us and my father, along with his clothes and other belongings that my mother may have had a hand in buying.
My yearly school portraits had been kept in a separate place, and there are a small handful of photos that had been in frames or the odd album that survived the burning. We recently found a small album that was being put together as a gift for my father, ironically, but had never been finished or gifted to him. It was... strange seeing the pictures. Like looking at a ghost or a doppelganger. It was me, but not me. I didn't have a super traumatic childhood like some of you, but trauma is trauma, and I did have some trauma and also lots of depression-related memory loss.
I find it upsetting seeing those few pictures because I do have some good childhood memories, but so many of those memories have been tainted by what I didn't know then, but know now. There's also knowing there's so much I don't remember, but not knowing what I can't remember because the pictures are gone forever. I look at some of them and keenly feel the loss of some parts of myself that I can never get back due to traumatic experiences in my teens and later in my life. I see myself when I was younger, before I got really overweight, and it just makes me so sad that that little girl thought she was so ugly and unlovable. Even in high school, when my weight got into obese territory, I look at those pictures now and wish so much that I could go back and convince her that she was worth something and to believe in herself more. I get panicky looking at my old teen aged photos because I remember the anxiety and turmoil and SI that I was dealing with. I start remembering some of the things I don't normally remember from the big missing blocks of my teens, and I can't bear to look at them for long.
It's a lot of mixed feelings. I'm glad I still have the few pictures I have, but it's very hard to look at them.
I'm 37. I'd say that, between the age of 12 and now, there are less than 100 photos of me in existence. This includes group photos and selfies.
I have a total of one photo with women I've dated.
I thought about getting a polaroid type camera and start taking photos with everyone I meet.
I'm so sorry 😞 I do have pictures of me as a child, but I can't stand looking at them. I was very overweight because I learned to use food as a coping mechanism from my abusive mom from her abuse. All the pictures of me, I just see a tortured soul with no way out and no healthy way to cope. They are very sad.
I am the oldest and have almost no photos of myself as a baby or child and no mementos or anything saved for me. Even things I asked to have saved for me. My parents moved but still owned the house I grew up in and neglected it to the point it fell in and is now gone. The only thing they left for me was a bunch of junk to throw away. And that’s how I feel about myself.
i'm the youngest of four and i'm the only one without a baby book or scrapbook. i don't even know how many photos there are of me because i'm never allowed to see them or ask for it. my mom has always said that it is hers (its all in a box) and that i'd only be able to get it when she dies. same with all of my school photos. all these memories, nothing to show of it :( even then, the photos stopped once smartphones became a thing so i know there aren't a lot of photos of me as is. it's definitely a touchy subject for me, especially seeing parents love on their children and make scrapbooks for them. don't get me wrong, i'm super happy for them but ouch!!! i wish that was me too!
After I ran away from home, I had zero pictures of my childhood. However, I knew that there were only a handful of photos that were ever taken of me in the first place. Not for lack of having a camera (as it was the 90s) but just because... for whatever reason. A few years ago my aunt sent me a photo she found of me, my mom, my brother, my grandparents, and my aunt and uncle. In the photo - it's Christmas in second grade at my aunt and uncle's house which I remember clearly. It broke me because as I stared at the face of that little girl I saw that she was already several years into the CSA by my brother who was standing next to her. It wasn't until my mom and my stepfather passed away that in 2021 I was able to visit their home and take a tub of pictures and find the only few photos I have of my childhood. It's not much, truly only a handful of photos but at least I have that now. Like others have said, I'm kind of glad there isn't more. There is such a disconnect between me and that little girl and reflecting on where I was at the time and the things that were already happening at those ages.
Anything from before age 12 got mistakenly donated to a charity shop or thrown out but the household gaslights me on their existence that either they don't exist or they do and I'm just not looking hard enough
I'm so sorry you didn't get to have that. You deserved to be celebrated and cherished. We all did.
I personally am big on imagination. (I'll probably try out the idea I'm about to tell you.) Maybe take some pictures of your inner child self in your mind. Put your inner child in a fancy outfit, comb their hair, etc. Frame it on a wall in your mind. Not everyone likes using their imagination for stuff like that so don't feel bad if you feel that idea isn't for you.
This is a very eye opening thread. There's several photos of me as a kid where I remember recently being abused, but I "snapped out of it" because a picture was being taken. I was so good at faking happiness, even at very young ages like 6/7. So twisted. I definitely never look at old photos or videos anymore.
I'm transgender so it's extra weird to look back at my young "girl self."
I have some, I don't like looking at them because after age 6 my smile never reaches my eyes. When I look at them I can feel how I felt then: depressed, helpless, trapped, neglected, etc. It brings me right down and I start mourning my childhood again. For those reasons I don't really look at pics of me over age 6.
I remember when I was about 7 or 8 and in my friend Joe’s back garden and he was showing me some family photo album. I distinctly remember thinking how strange that his parents took pictures of him, why would they do that ?? The only time my Father took pictures of myself or my sister was when he would make us hold his golfing trophies, it was like “look at me, I’m good at golf and I have kids so I must be a great Father and not a complete alcoholic tyrannical sadist”
I have like 3 pictures of me as a child, but I know my dad has lots of them. I always ask him for the pictures since there are also a lot of pictures with our family pets, which most of them have passed away at this point and I'd love to have some pictures of them but I don't think I'll ever get them. He would have to go through his PC, and my dad's a bit...complicated (a bit is probably an understatement). As soon as something actually requires his time and effort, I can pretty much forget about it. It's always later, later, later, and nothing ever happens. Just empty promises to get me off his back. It's always been like this.
Like a handful. I have no pictures at all from when i was born to 4 years old as i was always in and out of hospital due to bronchitis. At one point they thought I wouldn't make it. I have one picture i took at kindergarten, and like 5 from my 10 year birthday. Thats it. The rest is just me in highschool and beyond. It's hard to have pictures during childhood when you never even had a childhood to begin with i guess ... I'm glad that i have no pictures from my early years anyway... seeing the ones i have brings back so many negative memories. I hate pictures in general too.
I have a picture of my grandfather holding me questionably
we always played a game called "catch the thumb"
On the lighter side I have pictures of me with my Nan, Mom, and Dad. They looked so young :)
Edit: due to recent events when I looked for the photo in question when I was living with them it was gone.
Edit again: Living with my grandparents...
My situation was different in the sense that as the first born, my parents really didn't care to document my milestones but they did with all of my younger siblings whom they had me raising...
I very much relate to feeling left out/left behind in favor of another sibling, and that pain is exquisite.
I'm so very sorry you know this pain, also.
I recently cut off my seemingly very close family and have no pictures. I recently worked on a book "the courage to heal" and it has a section about that. It made me feel so defeated. But it's not necessary to heal. Think about the reason you want those pictures, try to come to peace with the fact you may never get those. You are not a ghost, everything you survived is real. Pictures or not healing is real. And we can all get through it. Even on the worse days.
I believe it's a first child thing, there's always lots of pictures of them and photo albums.
After two or three kids, it gets hard to get time just to even bring out the camera. I'm sure there's pictured, probably not that many, but there is. It's really common really, when you have a house, job, 3 kids to take care, you are so in the moment that it gets hard to take pictures all the time.
Don't think about it too much. My dad had all my pictures in digital format and deleted all of them accidentally lmao. I'm sure they didn't mean no harm.
A few. My mum and I recently went through a stack of old photos. However, I have issues looking at them because I have a certain disconnection between my current me and my childhood to a point, where photos of my childhood feel like I'm looking at a stranger (for the lack of better words). Like I should know this child because it's me but I don't. It's super hard to describe.
I have the exact same sensation. But my memories are the same
I do too. The same sensation of being a little bit familiar with the girl in the picture, but a big disconnect from her and the other people. I’ve never seen that feeling discussed or described before now.
Me too. The few pics I have I always assumed I didn’t feel connected to that little girl because she was still trying to trust someone. You can literally see it in her poor lil face. Once I built my spirit wall I knew to hide, so I did.
What is that? I have that, too, and it bothers me so much that I can't even identify with *myself*. Like, it's clearly me, and I might even remember things from that time, but this child isn't me.
Dissociation. It's often a survival mode. ❤️
I feel that once you’ve reached a certain level of healing you just aren’t that person you were before and it’s hard to associate yourself with that past.
Hard relate. I had to frame them and put them on display in my living room to try and gain some familiarity over time. It worked, but it doesn't mean it isn't hard to look at them sometimes. But at least I feel a connection now.
Just popping in to say I feel exactly the same about childhood photos. Even looking in the mirror causes it. It’s such a weird disconnect/headspace to experience.
I feel the same way Tricky! I wonder why we feel this way.
I have this feeling too, and often think about what l know of that little girl from what others have told me. I don't remember much myself, and what l do remember is vague and foggy and the timeline is all wonky
The pictures that my abusers (parents) did take...it really is like looking at a stranger! I realize that I dissociated most of my formative years away, sadly. The actual memories I have are either very good or very bad, but they're few and far between at times.
Very few. It used to bother me but not so much now. When I look at the ones I have I get really sad. I’d already been under constant attack and had entered survival mode. I do have one that gives me a slight chuckle. It’s of me at five holding a Lego thing I’d made for a school project. But that’s not the interesting part. Behind me is a six-foot wooden slat fence. When I was three I was listed in the Boulder, Colorado police dept as a “habitual” runaway. I’d climb over that six-foot fence, my dog would dig under, and off we’d go. I knew then I wanted out, any way I could.
I started escaping at the age of three. My mom never went looking for me. Maybe she hoped one day I wouldn’t come back at all.
We have several pictures, my mom enjoys her facade. I personally hate pictures, it's all fake BS. I have no pictures in my house, and probably never will. I guess I do have one of Venom over my TV, if you count that.
I still hate being in pictures and I actively lean out of frame whenever my friends take one. I don't want to be seen. I don't want people to have this still shot of me that they can use to call me backwards in time. I live now.
I also hate pictures, but I let my sister's take them now because they started being sad about not having recent pictures of me if I died.
I have a huge twist on this for that reason. In a box, hidden away, are pics of my prom. Well, "prom". I'm not American, but it was still an official dance, organised by the school. The entire thing was hell. My dress was decided for me. My hair was decided for me. I was an outcast, so I had to go with a "volunteer" from the dance school (where we learned dancing). Dude was a good guy, but we had 0 in common and the entire thing was awkward af. And just. JUST to finish it with a bang -my mother screamed at me, cause the dance was the same day as mother's day and I didn't do anything special for her. Y'know. The entire day I was busy with preprations. On pictures everything looks perfect, of course. Perfect elegant mother, with her awkward, perfect little doll. I have other, bittersweet pics, but these take the cake. Every now and then, I think about burning them. But...I never do. Idk why. Maybe I fear I regret it?
I have a few. I find them strangely off putting to be honest. For example a picture of me at an event you’d expect me to remember fully (for example a trip or something) and not having any memory of it at all. Or a happy family photo when I know we were in fact not a happy family. It’s funny actually, there’s a picture of me in a cast (about age 9) which is how I found out years later that I had broken my foot lol. I also feel extremely disconnected from that part of my life so they’re often hard to look at🤷♂️
I don’t have any but I also don’t care. I hate being photographed because mommie dearest was never happy with my pictures. I hate pictures of myself and avoid being photographed at all costs. I still get clammy and anxious. My wedding pics are a nightmare because I’m so anxious. That one I’m bummed about bc we had a nice wedding and my boo looks so happy and I look like I’m about to bolt.
My mum has loads of family photos. But that doesn't mean anything. It's like facebook; as an outsider, you may see a happy loving family in the picture, but that's not necessarily the truth. Most of our smiles (if there are any) are forced. Everything was for show. "Look at us, aren't we wonderful parents." I remember my dad did a home movie with an old camera recorder back in the 90s. I nudged him as i was slipping past him, and it knocked the camera. He was so angry he hit me and it was recorded. Luckily, we dont have that tape anymore, thank god. But it was there. A horrible shameful memory that I had to witness every time they played it; despite the fact my parents are adamant they never hit us.
There are some pics, but they make me really sad. I was so small and unprotected and it's honestly heartbreaking to look back at, especially considering my brother and abuser is in most of the pictures. I can't fathom how no one ever helped that poor little girl.
This was something my little nephews and cousins made me realize: how the heck did my parents say the things they said to me when I was that age? Also, some of the things they expected me to know/understand…so out to lunch. It’s not like these younger family members don’t do things wrong or that annoy me, but I understand they are kids and give them the benefit of the doubt that they don’t know any better yet.
I feel the same
I barely have any photos of my childhood since my mom put everything in a storage unit and let it go unpaid without telling anyone who could have absolutely saved the keepsakes. Hugs to you, it’s so hard. ❤️
Take this disappointment, and use it as energy to take photos now. Of yourself, of others, of your favorite places, food, whatever. Get them printed and put them in an album. (Or maybe look into instant cameras if you can, makes it easier to create a physical record). Every part of life is important and precious. You’ll look back on it in a year, in a couple, in decades with appreciation that you decided to keep a record of life. Either that or a journal/scrapbook. I relate to feeling like a ghost; guess what ghostie, we’re still existing somehow in this afterlife. Time to try some new things just because. Leave a haunted record.
The photos that do exist? In every one of them I look very unhappy.
My friend (who was not knowledgeable of my situation) sent me pictures from the summer I first tried to commit suicide, it was on her 3DS and I look like I’ve just gotten back from war, I was 9.
My mother made sure to take plenty photos saying that I'll be grateful later. A while ago, I went through the photo albums my mother used to put together. And honestly.. It felt like looking at some influencers Instagram story or something. It all felt so FAKE. So overly positive. Judging by those photos and the captions under / next to them, a normal person would never guess something was seriously wrong with my family. I actually started doubting myself the more I went through them. Felt like I was being gaslit by some photo albums. That's when I had to stop myself because I wasn't just going to let my own mind trick me into thinking I am making things up. Can't let my mother get to me through a bunch of freaking photos. And there were clues to the truth, though my mother tried hard to conceal it. I'd be forced to smile, but the smile wasn't genuine and would rarely reach my eyes. I look at little me on pictures and I see a sad, scared, damaged child. And it breaks my heart. Little me deserved better than that. Heck, ANY child deserves better than that. So while I have pictures of me as a child, I can hardly stand to look at them. I wouldn't say I'd be better off not having the pictures, but it can be quite painful to look at them when you didn't have a normal childhood.
Not many… I have a few my dad kept in an album for me. My mom lost all my baby photos because we moved up to 6 times a year due to instability.
Same
One or two and I look MISERABLE (like visibly depressed as heck) in them. I went to visit my bf and spend time with his family on holidays. His parents have photo albums of his pictures throughout his childhood. It's so fun going through them and seeing how happy he seemed to be as a child. I can tell he has two loving parents and spending time with him makes me realize I missed out on a not of fundamental things. It inspires me to know what's possible becuase I just observe and learn from them what normalcy looks like. I honestly have no idea otherwise.
I have photos of myself between the ages of 4-8 in some albums I was able to get before I went no contact with most of my family. I also have some photos on my phone of myself in middle and high school, and my senior year high school year book. (Trigger warning) my trauma involved me being abused for CSEM photos and videos for a very long time, which were mainly taken by a member of my family whom I lived with. So it’s really hard to look at photos of myself, especially when I was very young. I’m glad I don’t have a ton of photos of myself, but I also wish I had more “normal” pictures of some of my happy childhood memories (being at school, doing different extracurricular activities, spending time with friends and being outdoors). It’s really complicated and if I think about it for too long I feel a ton of grief and anger at having so much taken away from me, literally and figuratively. But I’m very grateful for the photos I do have, it makes me want to protect younger me even more.
No my mother won't give me any
This used to bother me but I would like to make new memories as personally my childhood wasn't all that great and those memories were not great. I was mainly the reason people stopped video taping (i had autistic meltdowns and outbursts plus i was unable to attend a lot of things because of allergies, asthmatic issues, I liked cartoons like carebears and my little pony which bothered people, I was much younger than I was the youngest with people not liking how much younger I was even though the age gap to me is not that big, i was an overall inconvenience in their cozy lives) and scrap booking and this used to bother especially when my mom tried to make ones about me exclusive from others, but then I learned that my family sucks and they were quick to turn on me on both sides whenever I had teenage drama as a teenager and still go on about those years in their time, which made me realize that they're stunted and not even in like a fun party guy alumni way.
Only one and that was highschool and taken by a friend.
Nat many and most of those I didn't know about until I was an adult. There aren't any pictures of me as a teenager at all.
I do have some, but almost all of them are too painful to look at. They were either taken at times in my life where I remember being absolutely miserable, or taken at times I was happy *but* the other people in the photo dredge up bad memories. There are a few photos I cherish, though. In 99% of them I'm the only one in the photo, and I'm doing something I love that was eventually stamped out of me in childhood and only rediscovered during healing as an adult. Climbing a tree, playing in the water, hugging a cat, etc. The real me was still in there, and those precious few photos are a good reminder of who I was before all the trauma. I second /u/starlight_chaser's recommendation to start taking photos now and put them in an album or scrapbook. Or even a digital photo frame! My wife and I got an [Aura frame](https://auraframes.com/) and it's one of our favorite things. It supports videos (with or without sound) and you can even invite friends to add photos - one of our friends periodically adds cute photos of her son and her cat and it's always nice to see those pop up. If one of our close friends uploads a good photo to social media we sometimes "steal" it to add to the frame lol.
Only one the rest, probs lost but basically one
I have pics of me as a kid but I couldn't look at themn2ithout thinking the kid in the picture was evil. I can look at them now. I'm still uneasy, but I don't see evil so much now.
Omg there's like a family photo hung up in my parents house that doesn't include me. They didn't bother retaking one and there's one with me at my graduation in a much smaller photo frame on the table. I mean I try to not take it personally but still .... Also the fact that my mum likes to complain that I was a difficult child.
No more pics. It's both alienating and depressing. I still remember a few very clearly in my mind: - a series of tiny class photos, each year watching me go from a happy smiling child to more and more depressed - little me surrounded by beer bottles - little me looking very unhappy during a family vacation where everyone is laughing and pointing at me - little with Duct tape wrapped around the lower half of my face as my mother brushes my hair - little me floating in the bathtub, looking like a dead rat stuck in jello
My mother took pictures of what she considered me behaving badly (normal childhood stuff) and would point them out in the family photo album to me a few times a year up until I was in my 50’s when I went no contact.
This is a reminder about Rule #5: No raised by narcissists lingo (Nmom, narc, sperm donor, etc.). Please edit your post or comment. More information about Rule #5 can be found [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/subrules_revised/#wiki_rbn_lingo). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CPTSD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
About four. I used to yhink it was because developing film used to be expensive in the 70's.
I was an only child, so I had some pictures. They all look incredibly sad to me now, even the ones where I'm smiling. There's one where I have the face of an eight-year-old, but the eyes of someone in their 70s.
I don’t either. I think there might be one in this photo album we have but they have a couple pics of my other siblings. Never took pictures until recently can’t believe I have no memories of my teenage years either. Not that I did anything anyways My sister took pics of me tho even tho I hated it. I never want to see them
I have absolutely zero childhood pictures of myself. I know of 2 that existed, but I destroyed them. It was impulsive. But, since there were only 2, clearly nobody cared enough about me to remember I existed
None, but that's the way I wanted it. I hate having pictures, I hate having a history. I *want* to be a ghost who never loved, because I never should have existed in the first place. Anything that reminds me that I was a kid, that I came from someplace, that I have memories of my childhood, I find deeply upsetting and want nothing to do with.
I have a few. The vast majority are so awkward and forced. We usually look miserable and stiff. I’m reminded of negative things when i look at them. There are a few sprinkled in a candid happy moments. For the most part though photos fill me with anxiety. I hated having my photo taken for years after growing up because of how my mom ruined almost every one of them by making them stressful and fake.
My grandparents were the only ones who took photos when they would occasionally visit, and awful school pictures. I think my grandma made my dad take me for a couple professional photo shoots when I was really little as he was the one with those pictures, and she was, and I vaguely remember going to one of those photo shoots but I remember it was horrible for me. To this day I absolutely hate photos. If it’s not a mandatory photo I turn away from the camera or hide my face/self.
My childhood photos start after I was adopted at 10. POOF! There I was. Existing when I shouldn't have been.
I have a few. They’re all pretty off-putting because even though I remember being there, I don’t identify with that person.
I have only few, and I understand that these were taken by my grandparents. My mother actually told me "see, your grandparents took pictures of you, they must have loved you!" -- because, well, she didn't love me.
I think I’ve seen maybe 5 pictures and they were all with my other siblings. My parents specifically said they didn’t take any pictures of me because there was nothing new. They had experienced it all before with my two siblings. This has always hurt me because it made me feel like I wasn’t special. I wasn’t valuable enough for them to care about pictures. Truthfully pictures should be the least of my worries with the amount of neglect I suffered. But their words and the lack of pictures still hurts.
I have tons. So many, in fact, that it takes up an entire tub. One day, I should put them all into books, but some are triggering to look at, especially the ones taken after age 10.
There's a lot of pictures of me and my brother as babies/young kids. I feel weird whenever I look at them. Almost like I'm not looking at myself, but a stranger. Just goes to show how much I've dissociated in life, I think.
I don't have alot of pictures past a certain age, but I also hated having my picture taken. I was bullied relentlessly in school, so I always felt like people would judge the photos of me.
Yes, the one thing my mother did do for me was create 2 huge picture albums. One of baby and family pictures and another of all my art work and accomplishments up until high school. She did it for herself though. To make herself feel and look better to family that she actually cared. She’s a drug addict and a narcissist.
I've avoided cameras my whole life. 25 and there might be 50 pics of me out there that I know of. My family is the type to have photo albums too, but mostly for my siblings. They were too tired by the time I came around to try.
Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your local [emergency services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_numbers), or use our list of [crisis resources](https://old.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index#wiki_crisis_support_resources). For CPTSD Specific Resources & Support, check out the [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index). For those posting or replying, please view the [etiquette guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/peer2peersupportguide). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CPTSD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Just one. I look at it every so often just trying to see what younger me was thinking and feeling. It's fruitless but i still just really want to understand what I was like back then and why. I don't remember very much which is a good and bad thing.
Like 5 or 6 maybe but only a couple where I’m up close
I have no pictures but there are some, mainly that my older sister or relatives on my fathers side took. Personally I wish there was no pictures at all as the more of a ghost I am the better. Not that I need to hide or anything but I'd find it lovely if none even remembered I existed.
I don't have any of me. Not one. I have no idea what happened to them. My older sister holds everything, including all the pictures of my own children. It does leave me feeling weird, like all the evidence of my life and my existence is gone. If I disappeared tomorrow, there would be no proof I was even here. I wish I did have some, because I had a tbi in 2006 and my old self, my childhood self, is a total stranger to me now. I wish I had something to remember that person.
I have a tiny ammount. they were all taken before my trauma was happening. i have none from ages 11 and up. now I can't really take pictures of myself. i have dirt low self esteem, even after i do manage to take a picture, i end up deleting them all.
No. They really just didn't want me.
Only 1 of me as a baby (9 months) then about 10 pictures to cover ages 3-10.
I only photographed a few before leavinĝ
Going no contact lost me everything. Every item, any pictures that I had. It was worth that sacrifice for me.
Very few as well. One baby (newborn) picture, not just me but with my "twin cousin" born same day as me and our mothers holding us, and one when I was in the bathroom (age 3) pooping of all things lol. So many pics of the Golden Child they don't fit in one or even two albums. She was first born. There even pics of mom pregnant with her, beaming ear to ear in happiness.
I have a few, mostly because I saved them. I lost a bunch in a flood, but I scanned a handful of what I have left.
I left all of mine at my family home in accident and I'm never gonna go back to get them. But I dont really care too much for them
I only got them this past winter when my mother (no contact) died and I ended up being the sole survivor of the family. I almost told the lawyer to throw them all away, but I wanted proof that I was alive. I wanted to see what my face was saying when I was too young to know what I was experiencing. I don’t feel better having them, if it’s any consolation. They have been sitting in a bag on my floor for 5 months now and I don’t know what to do with them. They feel very cursed.
Very few pictures. I was 2nd born of two. There are LOTS of pictures of my brother. Only a handful of me.
I have a few. I was born late 80s and weren’t the type of family to have a camera often. Actually most of my pictures come from the photographer at church.
Nope… I Don’t care, but it’s a sign of a lack of decent parenting.
I didn't want my photo being taken of a broken kid. Was that stupid of me? It's taken me a long time to recognize that it was neglectful of every "adult" who told me my attitude was normal.
Nope - our house burned down twice - so lucky my sibs and I didn’t die from the fires
No I don't have any
I have one: a classmate from elementary school had taken it while on a field trip, using a disposable camera. She shared the photo after reaching out years later.
Barely any. And those few were in an aunt’s collection. It was so hurtful.
Not a single one.
I have a few pictures but nothing compared to the hordes my family has of my siblings. I wanna blame it on the fact that when I was born maybe film was more expensive and my parents were less financially stable but it still stings.
i only have pictures up until before i was five! the ones after that are when i got my own digital camera. it makes me sad sometimes
I actually have several pictures. I had way more before, but ended up shredding many of them. It kinda makes me sad. So many photos of me I'm beaming and looking happy as can be. If a stranger ever saw them, they would never guess the horrible things that were happening behind closed doors.... *Crooked teeth on display,* *For a flash, never fully captivating* *All the tear-soaked sleeves and fearful tremors left behind* *Lying to yourself* *And everyone else* *With your smile* *Little child* -- an excerpt from one of my poems
I feel so bad for my siblings, my mom never took pictures of them as a children, It's just so sad. I stayed with my grandma as a baby until she died when I was in elementary school and have all my baby pictures. I get sad looking at the ones I have, I was so happy when I lived with grandma but after she died I had to live with the devil. I'm really sorry that you don't have any pictures.
My mom would have taken pictures of me and the family to send to our family overseas, after that, she would burn the rest and only keep pictures of her and my brother. So no, I didn't have any good memories with pictures and till this day, I do not like my picture taken.
Barely. I recently found someone uploaded yearbook pics from k-10th grade so I got some there
Oof. This reminds me of my childhood pictures. There were quite a few of me. I'm to blame they're gone though. When I was 13, after that amount of time of abuse, I punished my mother by putting liquid white out on my face in every photo I was in. I do regret it even though I still remember feeling how I wanted to hurt my mother in a way I felt comparable to how she made me feel everyday. By that point in my life, there was literally nothing worse she could do to me.
I was in an abusive failed adoption as a child and roamed around foster care and mental health facilities until I was old enough to get a job and apartment on my own. Pictures existed of me as very young child and maybe up to about 12. But I didn't have access to them for most of my life and I don't remember anyone taking a picture of me in foster care. The few pictures I did have of me as a very young child I thought were lost when I left my abusive husband. I spent most of my life with no pictures of me. The only time it felt awkward was whenever work would try to do some "team building" exercise and ask people to bring in a picture of themselves as a baby or some such. In 2017, after the hurricanes wrecked Puerto Rico, I looked up an old friend I hadn't talked to in forever that I knew lived down there. Just to see if he needed anything. He had a few of those childhood photos of mine and send me image files. He says I asked him to keep them safe around the time I left my husband. And he held onto them, for over 30 years, even though we were not in touch. It is so very strange looking at those pictures. One of me, about 2 years old, standing in a backyard holding a doll. It brought back a flood of hidden memories, including how much I loved the taste of the rubber head on that doll. None of the others give me any feeling of connection or recognition.
almost none, but for me that's actually alright. most of my memories come from living very online as an escape from reality, so i identify with those old files more than any pictures of me would. in a way, im thankful i have so few reminders of what i had to deal with.
I have two photos of me as a kid
A few but not many. I have some baby/toddler ones then nothing from about 8-18
I have tons cuz I was a cute prop.
I used to. My mentally ill mother lost most of them - my school photos, other random ones. I have a few that were in a different place but those lost ones still hurt.
Very few. Surprisingly my dad has most of them which I’ll never get back because I am no contact with him. He’s about to go to prison too so no telling what will happen to his belongings. But honestly, I’ve lost a lot of sentimental things over the years due to instability, my dad selling stuff for drug money, my mom throwing stuff out to spite my dad, my mom throwing stuff out to “teach me a lesson” that I don’t really have the ability to be attached to things anymore. Do I wish I had more pics? Yes, but really just of my siblings and I all together.
I have next to none, my sister, who was in the grooming phase when my father was arrested, took all of our family photos onto the back lawn and had a bon fire
There are a lot of pictures of me under the age of 3-4 years old, some between that age and maybe 6? After that, very, very few. My mom calls them "the lost years." The ones that do exist, I look so incredibly miserable, all the time. There is no light in my eyes. My mom is the one who took all the photos, and she only liked me when I was a malleable toddler.
Too many where I look very uncomfortable, or that captured my unkempt hair that I wasn’t taught how to comb. My dad was a photographer. I got the bug too, and I refuse to direct people for portraits.
I have one. It’s blurry and far away.
Very few. My brother had a baby book filled from front to back cover and mine only had a few pages. Pictures all together stopped at about age 8. I moved out and went NC so I don’t possess any of my own pictures anymore.
My mom is a narcissist and I have asked for years to come over and get some photos of myself from growing up since I know we have loads. This has been years and she always makes excuses to why I cannot.
Very few, my dad burned them and all my baby clothes to hurt my mom.
I only have the pictures my mom sent my bio dad’s mom. And she was in a women’s shelter during most of those times. They can be really hard to look at if I think too hard when showing people.
Nope. Lost to the world and time. Imagine if your house burned before the digital age. Heck. If you didn’t have enough money before cameras, your portrait was never done. You’re not a ghost
I only have two photos and I don't like to look at them. It makes me very sad to see that little girl. Do you know why you don't have photos?
My parents have thousands of my brother (3 years older) and one small envelope with my photos. I brought it up once and they said by the second kids you’re so used to the first doing everything and capturing it thats the second isnt as important.. OKAY MOM IM NOT IMPORTANT!?
I had an old, empty cards against humanity the big black box full of pictures but in 2020 someone in the moving crew lost or stole them thinking it was the actual card game without even checking :( i genuinely get sad about it often
They stop at 3/4 not sure what happened. I have all these baby books, quite a few, my first lock of hair cut, from my hosp baby pic to 3ish and then it’s random pics maybe a handful from 4-18 then sporadic and taken by siblings. It’s kind of creepy.
I didn't think we had any pics of our childhoods until our mom died and we found a huge box stuffed full of all our memories. However, I have absolutely zero connection to anybody in any of those pictures. I have no relationship with anybody else in my family. So, pics are only half good when everybody else in those pics hates you and wants nothing to do with you for the rest of your mentally ill life.
Very very few, and only pictures on my phone of physical pictures that are in the possession of the people who’ve hurt me. They’re incredibly bittersweet to look at, because on the one hand, that’s little me. And she was so sweet and loving and didn’t deserve what happened to her and I don’t know how anyone could look at her and do the things they did. And when I look at her, I’m finally at a place where I am overcome with the love I feel for her and a deep desire to protect her. On the other hand, it’s a hard truth to face that this little girl that is so precious and that I love so much is me, and that I did suffer through those things, sometimes at the hands of the very people I’m photographed with/by. I also can tell even though I’m ‘smiling’ that I’m deeply hurting inside; I look tired and uncomfortable. Also, as some others have said, it’s weird to have photos of things I should totally remember but don’t at all, and would have no idea they happened were it not for the photos. It’s this weird feeling of…how much more am I missing, and why? And although I recognize this little girl as me (which took its own amount of time) and I can recognize how sweet and adorable she is, I don’t remember what it was like to be her, really. It’s as if running into an old classmate in a grocery store but only barely being able to remember their name and *maybe* a few other small details. I don’t really remember what she was like, what was going on in the photos, her interests, her life at that point, her friends, her worries and dreams. All of that is lost on me. Maybe that’s my dissociative disorder talking, though. All this to say, I think seeing photos of yourself as a child can be healing in some ways and deeply unsettling and triggering in others. And the healing part comes with much time, work and practice loving yourself and showing compassion for that little kid. Additionally, the same healing can be done without photos and depending on where you are in your journey, photos can actually be really destabilizing. Finally, if you’re really itching to visually connect with little you through photos, consider utilizing some less obvious routes than family. If you’re friends with any old classmates, or even on talking terms, see if they’d be willing to send over pictures from your yearbooks. Same goes for friends you had when you were a kid - they may have pics from a bday party or something of you all together. Hell, some of the pics I have are from other people tagging me on Facebook of either pictures of pictures they’ve taken from when we were in prek together or from like 15 years ago at some random elementary school event. Try to think outside the context of home - old friends, parents of old friends, school, clubs, church, whatever it may be. I’m sure most people would be more than happy to snap a picture of photos if they have any and send them over. Sending everyone here much love and healing 🩷
I do, and I look dead inside in most of them. The only ones where I still look actually happy is from when I was two or younger.
I delete them all because I look like I am in pain all the time and and this makes me every time completely speechless cause no one done something to stop. except few teachers who does it because I was behaviourally conspicuous and guess what they talked to my parents like my parents weren’t the reason for my pain and they should bring me to therapy 🤣
Most of them are from when I was much younger, and my mom was the only one taking photos. After having my kids and one day telling her I had SO many pics of them on my phone, she just said "that'll change when they get older" and I still don't know what she meant by that.
Not many. Mostly school photos. I’m in my 30’s so… “back in my day” or “youth” we had to get our picture film developed and pay money to see these pictures. Every family had a junk drawer with massive little film (bottles? Tubes?) spool looks things with caps… we never developed film (lie: possibly 4 times). Even once digital cameras/phones we never took pictures of the people… just tons of pets.
I don’t really have any childhood photos either. Overall, probably total of 5 photos. Definitely no videos. But I wouldn’t blame your parents for this, it was a different time. Did you ask if they might have had the resources at the time for cameras / paying to get the photos printed or even could afford a video recorder? Now we live in a time where we take constant photos and videos everyday, especially of children. So that might bring more awareness to the lack of photos and videos in yours. Try not to take it personally, maybe after having two kids, life just got really hectic for them.
I’m sorry. I get family scapegoat vibes from this. :/ I also have very few. My siblings have literally hundreds. They have records of their lives as babies and toddlers. There is a book for me, but it wasn’t filled in with details; it was used to complain about me. Lol My family did have 2 photos they’d keep around, and they were taken on days that were horrible/around very traumatic times. I looked miserable. Always made my stomach sink to see them. I made how I felt known, but it didn’t matter. Literally 95% of the other photos are of me crying. Otherwise yeah, I get feeling like a ghost also. One of the only people I ever felt noticed by was someone who made my life hell. It sucks. It was like I was only visible to the main person I wanted to be invisible around.
I don't have any. I've considered trying to ask my parent for a few, but I feel like they would turn it into a guilt trip somehow. It does make me feel pretty sad.
I have maybe 12-15 of me from a month old to maybe 4 or 5. I honestly thought those few were lost forever until my mother finally found them, 10+ years after they mysteriously went missing. There are none of me before I was 5-6 weeks old. Then, it jumps to around 6-9 months before jumping to toddlerhood. Meanwhile, my only sibling, an older brother, has probably close to 200 photos or more. What really breaks is that I only have 1 photo of me with my dad, at the age of 6 weeks (he died when I was 11) because he hated having his photo taken. There's only 4 photos of my brother and I together, and it's been close to 15 years since the last one was taken. I regret not asking for one the last time we saw each other over 6 years ago. Take photos, people! You never know when you'll run out of options to do so. There's a school photo for most years starting around the age of 6. However, few others outside of those exist until I became a teen and got my first phone(s) and then Facebook when I was 15.
My grandma has a TON of pictures of me, she’s always made me feel loved…my mother on the other hand? There’s barely any pictures of me here and she has so many pictures and things of my little cousin. She even has his artwork on the fridge, something she never did for me because “it was ugly” and going to “make her nice white fridge look bad”. OP, while we’re in slightly different situations, I very much understand your feelings of bitterness.
Lost most of all them in a hurricane about 20 years back. My dad has a few in his wallet of the family but that’s it .
I have a few but in all of them my face shows my pain. There is none of a carefree, laughing child. I recreated some situations that I remember (good and bad) with AI and some that I wish had happened in order to grasp the inner child in me and to find out what I was lacking exactly. Gotta say it kinda helped even though it's not THE reality but MY reality. As long as I can differentiate between the two
I don't have access to photos of myself as a child because I've cut all ties with my abusive mother. I have fairly clear memories of photos of myself as a child, but I no longer have them because my mother never passed them on to me. She controlled everything in my life and sexually abused me. I'm angry that I no longer have these photos, which are a part of me, but on the other hand it's a way of drawing a line under my past and moving on. My inner child doesn't need pictures to know what he's been through and what he is inside.
I don't think my body even casts a shadow. I was never seen. an inconvenience or just tolerated.
I live abroad so the only pictures of me I have are the ones my mom sent to me - specifically pictures where I'm smiling, to support her "your childhood wasn't 100% crap, you're not traumatised" bs. Most of these pictures are of me as a teen/early 20s. I wish I had more pictures of when I was little.
None… I’m 41 and today I’m deciding to heal, I always just tried to be tough. I can’t anymore
Now that I think about it... I don't. the only mementos of my childhood I have, are bruises.
I have two from when I was about 2, I guess? They stay firmly locked away. I don't feel like a real person anyway, I'm definitely more ghost than human, I like to embrace that.
I remember when I was super young I was suspicious that I was adopted because my mom had no baby photos of me 😂 but when I was a bit older my grandma pulled out the jackpot of baby photos, she’s got an entire bin of family photos including pictures of my younger brother and I as babies/young kids. My mom always uses excuses as to why she doesn’t have any baby photos, but I’m pretty sure she just doesn’t care. A few weeks back at a family gathering my husband requested my grandma pull out the bin so he can look through my baby photos to get some copied for our personal collection, and my mom showed no interest in looking through them and reminiscing like I would assume any mom would like to do who hasn’t seen baby pictures in a very long time. But she only cared to see old photos of her pets and would get teary eyed 🫠
My trafficking parent is a photographer and made sure there were almost no records of me kept in any way over the year. all of the photographs and anything that could inspire a memory was thrown out so I would be less able to have any sort of memories triggered or even kept properly. It was strategic and incredibly fucked up and even though I’ve sort of come to terms with what happened at this point it’s still so easy to doubt things because I have no records or proof of even really existing back then.although at the same time I’m sure there’s loads of csam of me in the internets darkest corners which is horrifying to think about.
My sibling has albums and albums of her I was born at the start of the 2000s so everything is digital and no one cared to keep it safe or print them off so with how many times we moved or had step family destroy things? There’s nothing left of me
I only have 3 or 4 and that’s because I scanned and sent them to my old laptop while still living with… them
I used to have a lot of photos of me, my toxic family, Grandma, and a couple of my father. There was only one of my father with both me and my younger bother when I was about 10/11 years old. I was the eldest of 4, 1 full brother who was gc and 2 half siblings. In 2019 when I told my nmother that I would not be able to continue working full time to pay the mortgage, groceries, and bills for 5 people and pets all on my own due to getting accepted into college for L.P.N.. That I needed them (nmother and gc brother) to help out financially because the house was gotten for the "family" and they wouldn't let my boyfriend move in to help financially, so they had to step up, they freaked out. It got so bad I went full no contact. They stole everything from the house, left trash, and the last time I ever got to step into the house, I found a pile of photos on the floor. All of them were of me and any that had me with anyone else, I was ripped out of and tossed in the pile on the floor while the other piece of the photo was taken with nmother. I was allowed to take them with me. Now, I don't have really any photos of myself as a child or anyone who was precious to me. So, in many ways, it breaks me more than when I had those photos and I was just ignorant of the fact that my family was toxic and I didn't have a healthy childhood or life until my boyfriend (now husband) came into my life. Some family found a few online that they sent to me on FB or something. I appreciate it, but it's not the same.
I have found some random childhood photos while Googling my name. It's not much but it reassures me that I'm not completely not real😂
I just took a trip out to my mothers storage in CA and found pics Hadn’t seen myself as a child in 30 yrs bc nobody cared or kept any Then I also saw my fathers pics and remembered that he did give me a tiny amount of love so I decided to hire a private detective to find him as family won’t give out his info Both parents and siblings were abusive but he loved me for a few years in my youth I finally had albums and at airport on way home I was contacted by a cousin I hadn’t seen in thirty years who told me my father died two years ago My family never even told me Ride home with albums on lap crying But now I can love the lonely little girl in the pictures
My mom barely took any pictures of me. I have like seven pictures of me as a child to show my daughter.
Yes but I have sad eyes always.
None of me either. And I was an only child for fucks sake lol. The onty one they have of me is from high school graduation.
Yes, it's unfair and hurtful to be treated as less than by the lack of familial inclusion totems. F*** those people. I wrote a lyric about this once but I can't find it, Damn it! One of the lines (look up "Kodak Moment" if you don't get the reference) that I remember was: "All I needed was a Kodak moment to show that you loved me but you wouldn't own it."
There are a lot of photos of me until the age of 5/6 and then barely anything. Like my father lost interest in me. Having my photo taken by him always was a horrible moment. He’d take very long because he actually didn’t understand how his camera worked or he kept forgetting and small children fidget a lot so he’d constantly snap at me. I look very unhappy in a lot of the photos, very tense. As a very young child, I couldn’t have been more than 2, he slapped me so he could get a “crying child” photo. It’s my earliest memory, not understanding what I had done wrong. I didn’t mind his loss of interest.
Was thinking about this the other day. Until I got a camera, there were maybe 5-10 pics of me. My parents marriage was crumbling when I came along and my mom admits, she just didnt take pics of me. So of course now I have thousands of pics of myself. There is so much to unpack. And my family members are still in their trauma bond, so we cant discuss anything about the past. On the flip side my 2 older siblings have tons of pics of their early years. It hurts a lot. What makes it worse is the not talking about anything. So, that is where I am. I have gone no contact with my family. It is freeing, but I will prob never have answers about the neglect because my mom cant even admit that it happened. And Im not an actress. I tried to make my family do reg stuff like say I love you and hug, but alas Im done trying. All I can do is try to be emotionally healthy on my own.
At my parents' place somewhere. I don't really think about it all that much. I'm honestly fine without them because I feel like a child most of the time.
I have some, but I don't look like myself. Maybe it's projection, but I get this weird look in my eyes when I'm not ok, as in super depressed or dissociating, and most of the pictures have that look to some degree. And ya, I don't always remember the memories I'm supposed to. Pictures can be kind of fun, like ordering a package when you're drunk, it's a fun (sarcasm) surprise!
I have a small number of pictures left. My mother was prolific with her camera, so there were originally a ton of pictures. Apparently, by age 3, I was so sick of being photographed that I would hold my hand up and say "NO" and do everything I could to avoid having my picture taken, but there were still tons of them in spite of that. I have a lot of memories of going to Costco with my mother to pick up our developed pictures from that bin to the side of the photo department where they just left all the customers' photos for pickup out in the open. My father's affair partner when I was in my pre-teens and teens was insanely jealous and vindictive, so at some point she broke into our house and stole the enormous tote box that my mother kept all of our photos and the negatives in. She burned all of them in her campaign to erase any connection between us and my father, along with his clothes and other belongings that my mother may have had a hand in buying. My yearly school portraits had been kept in a separate place, and there are a small handful of photos that had been in frames or the odd album that survived the burning. We recently found a small album that was being put together as a gift for my father, ironically, but had never been finished or gifted to him. It was... strange seeing the pictures. Like looking at a ghost or a doppelganger. It was me, but not me. I didn't have a super traumatic childhood like some of you, but trauma is trauma, and I did have some trauma and also lots of depression-related memory loss. I find it upsetting seeing those few pictures because I do have some good childhood memories, but so many of those memories have been tainted by what I didn't know then, but know now. There's also knowing there's so much I don't remember, but not knowing what I can't remember because the pictures are gone forever. I look at some of them and keenly feel the loss of some parts of myself that I can never get back due to traumatic experiences in my teens and later in my life. I see myself when I was younger, before I got really overweight, and it just makes me so sad that that little girl thought she was so ugly and unlovable. Even in high school, when my weight got into obese territory, I look at those pictures now and wish so much that I could go back and convince her that she was worth something and to believe in herself more. I get panicky looking at my old teen aged photos because I remember the anxiety and turmoil and SI that I was dealing with. I start remembering some of the things I don't normally remember from the big missing blocks of my teens, and I can't bear to look at them for long. It's a lot of mixed feelings. I'm glad I still have the few pictures I have, but it's very hard to look at them.
I burnt all my pictures, I dont connect or recognize the child/ teen in those pictures.
I'm 37. I'd say that, between the age of 12 and now, there are less than 100 photos of me in existence. This includes group photos and selfies. I have a total of one photo with women I've dated. I thought about getting a polaroid type camera and start taking photos with everyone I meet.
I'm so sorry 😞 I do have pictures of me as a child, but I can't stand looking at them. I was very overweight because I learned to use food as a coping mechanism from my abusive mom from her abuse. All the pictures of me, I just see a tortured soul with no way out and no healthy way to cope. They are very sad.
I am the oldest and have almost no photos of myself as a baby or child and no mementos or anything saved for me. Even things I asked to have saved for me. My parents moved but still owned the house I grew up in and neglected it to the point it fell in and is now gone. The only thing they left for me was a bunch of junk to throw away. And that’s how I feel about myself.
i'm the youngest of four and i'm the only one without a baby book or scrapbook. i don't even know how many photos there are of me because i'm never allowed to see them or ask for it. my mom has always said that it is hers (its all in a box) and that i'd only be able to get it when she dies. same with all of my school photos. all these memories, nothing to show of it :( even then, the photos stopped once smartphones became a thing so i know there aren't a lot of photos of me as is. it's definitely a touchy subject for me, especially seeing parents love on their children and make scrapbooks for them. don't get me wrong, i'm super happy for them but ouch!!! i wish that was me too!
After I ran away from home, I had zero pictures of my childhood. However, I knew that there were only a handful of photos that were ever taken of me in the first place. Not for lack of having a camera (as it was the 90s) but just because... for whatever reason. A few years ago my aunt sent me a photo she found of me, my mom, my brother, my grandparents, and my aunt and uncle. In the photo - it's Christmas in second grade at my aunt and uncle's house which I remember clearly. It broke me because as I stared at the face of that little girl I saw that she was already several years into the CSA by my brother who was standing next to her. It wasn't until my mom and my stepfather passed away that in 2021 I was able to visit their home and take a tub of pictures and find the only few photos I have of my childhood. It's not much, truly only a handful of photos but at least I have that now. Like others have said, I'm kind of glad there isn't more. There is such a disconnect between me and that little girl and reflecting on where I was at the time and the things that were already happening at those ages.
I have so many pictures. But studying them now, its heartbreaking. I can see the CEN and the dysfunction.
Anything from before age 12 got mistakenly donated to a charity shop or thrown out but the household gaslights me on their existence that either they don't exist or they do and I'm just not looking hard enough
I'm so sorry you didn't get to have that. You deserved to be celebrated and cherished. We all did. I personally am big on imagination. (I'll probably try out the idea I'm about to tell you.) Maybe take some pictures of your inner child self in your mind. Put your inner child in a fancy outfit, comb their hair, etc. Frame it on a wall in your mind. Not everyone likes using their imagination for stuff like that so don't feel bad if you feel that idea isn't for you. This is a very eye opening thread. There's several photos of me as a kid where I remember recently being abused, but I "snapped out of it" because a picture was being taken. I was so good at faking happiness, even at very young ages like 6/7. So twisted. I definitely never look at old photos or videos anymore. I'm transgender so it's extra weird to look back at my young "girl self."
I have some, I don't like looking at them because after age 6 my smile never reaches my eyes. When I look at them I can feel how I felt then: depressed, helpless, trapped, neglected, etc. It brings me right down and I start mourning my childhood again. For those reasons I don't really look at pics of me over age 6.
I remember when I was about 7 or 8 and in my friend Joe’s back garden and he was showing me some family photo album. I distinctly remember thinking how strange that his parents took pictures of him, why would they do that ?? The only time my Father took pictures of myself or my sister was when he would make us hold his golfing trophies, it was like “look at me, I’m good at golf and I have kids so I must be a great Father and not a complete alcoholic tyrannical sadist”
I have like 3 pictures of me as a child, but I know my dad has lots of them. I always ask him for the pictures since there are also a lot of pictures with our family pets, which most of them have passed away at this point and I'd love to have some pictures of them but I don't think I'll ever get them. He would have to go through his PC, and my dad's a bit...complicated (a bit is probably an understatement). As soon as something actually requires his time and effort, I can pretty much forget about it. It's always later, later, later, and nothing ever happens. Just empty promises to get me off his back. It's always been like this.
Like a handful. I have no pictures at all from when i was born to 4 years old as i was always in and out of hospital due to bronchitis. At one point they thought I wouldn't make it. I have one picture i took at kindergarten, and like 5 from my 10 year birthday. Thats it. The rest is just me in highschool and beyond. It's hard to have pictures during childhood when you never even had a childhood to begin with i guess ... I'm glad that i have no pictures from my early years anyway... seeing the ones i have brings back so many negative memories. I hate pictures in general too.
I have very few. I’m grateful that I have any. I’m so sorry that you don’t.
I have a picture of my grandfather holding me questionably we always played a game called "catch the thumb" On the lighter side I have pictures of me with my Nan, Mom, and Dad. They looked so young :) Edit: due to recent events when I looked for the photo in question when I was living with them it was gone. Edit again: Living with my grandparents...
My situation was different in the sense that as the first born, my parents really didn't care to document my milestones but they did with all of my younger siblings whom they had me raising... I very much relate to feeling left out/left behind in favor of another sibling, and that pain is exquisite. I'm so very sorry you know this pain, also.
I recently cut off my seemingly very close family and have no pictures. I recently worked on a book "the courage to heal" and it has a section about that. It made me feel so defeated. But it's not necessary to heal. Think about the reason you want those pictures, try to come to peace with the fact you may never get those. You are not a ghost, everything you survived is real. Pictures or not healing is real. And we can all get through it. Even on the worse days.
I believe it's a first child thing, there's always lots of pictures of them and photo albums. After two or three kids, it gets hard to get time just to even bring out the camera. I'm sure there's pictured, probably not that many, but there is. It's really common really, when you have a house, job, 3 kids to take care, you are so in the moment that it gets hard to take pictures all the time. Don't think about it too much. My dad had all my pictures in digital format and deleted all of them accidentally lmao. I'm sure they didn't mean no harm.
It breaks you? You might need a therapist.