I have asked in this space before what your first memory is and that can be part of it again today. Apparently researchers say 40% of people have a fictional first memory. Do you think yours is true?
Yes I remember jumping in the deep end of a public swimming pool and my father jumping right in after me to get me out. It's true because I have a picture of me at that pool that day.
I was quite sick at 18 mo and my parents talked about getting my bottles back out because I wouldn't drink anything. My mom confirmed it. My next memory is my mom washing my hair, I asked how old I was and she said "Two". She didn't remember that one, but it was pretty inane to just make up.
Yes, I escaped from my crib and wandered in the house, where I encountered my mother and her friend. Mom picked me up and plopped me back in the crib. I was less than a year old but my mom remembered that too.
Pretty sure my first memory is true. Being on the beach with my mom and drinking Goofy Grape Funny Face drink (Funny Face was a competitor to Kool Aid WAY back in the day).
Yes and confirmed by my mom. A Countess tying bells on my ankle while visiting her chateau in Germany. The previous time I got lost and they found me crying on the second floor. I was 3. Don't remember getting lost but I do remember the Jingle Bells! Mrs Nina was very nice and very silly.
I swear I remember the sun in my eyes, in a double baby stroller with my twin, as a baby. By that might not be true. I DO remember watching our house burn down when I was three, standing on the right hand side of my mom telling her "don't cry mommy" and she was on her knees looking out the neighbors front door. My twin was on the left. That really happened. So three years old for sure
Talking to my mother on the phone when I was 18 months old and my brother was born. I remember standing on a chair while my aunt handed me the phone. I especially remember the confusion that they didn't know his name yet. I couldn't understand how a human could exist without a name.
Being lifted up to pop a balloon on my 2nd birthday. I think I may have a few memories from that night that I got from just hearing things about it, but I actually remember being lifted up. The memory is from my point of view, too, so I'm pretty sure it's real.
Its weird that you ask this, because I have been trying to figure out what my first memory actually is. I can trace lots back to kindergarten, but anything before then... well I can only dregg up one weird memory, that I associate with my mom taking me to daycare. Its hazy and I was hideously unhappy. I cried relentlessly when she dropped me off and other than that I only recall that there were dark paneled walls, leading to a basement. Mom says she never took me to a daycare with a basement. I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a real memory at all.
Being potty trained at about 18 months old and wanting to master the big people toilet. I was not shy about hating diapers. Mom confirmed as I would refer to my clothe diapers as "filth". She never knew where I learned that word.
Yes, I remember and yes, it was true. I was doing the dishes for my mom because she was pregnant. We had the old dishwasher that you hook the hose to the faucet. To add silverware, I had to stand on a tall stool and reach way down to load the rack. I remember her filling the sink first with rinse water so I could get the food off before loading. I talked her into adding some Palmolive dish soap to the water so I would have soft hands for the baby. I was 4 and a half.
My long term memory is scary good. My short term memory however, what was I saying? JK, but yea it’s bad. I don’t know which of my earliest memories co,es first, they aren’t in chronological order in my head...I remember being told my little brother was born (I was 2 yrs 9cmonths) and where my dad took me to tell me, but my other early memories don’t have a date stamp like that such as the first time my mom gave me a time out, I remember seeing the “We are the World” video for the first time, my first BIG play date where we made soft pretzels in the shape of our na,es, and some other insignificant memories around 2-3 years old that are ingrained in my brain for some odd reason. They are all true. My parents don’t remember the odd details I do, but they remember the situations or events the basic way I do. If my short term memory compares to my long term one, I’d probably be pretty awesome at life. As it stands, I tend to forget everything that occurred more than like a day ago unless it was quite significant OR the way I know I’ll never forget something and it will replay in my brain forever is if it in any way may have embarrassed me-outwardly or just like “ugh why did I say that?!”
Yup. I remember watching JFK'S funeral. What I specifically remember was the riderless horse with boots placed backwards in the stirrups. I was about 3. It was real.
I have two, both of which my mother confirmed to be true, and I was just over a year old for the first and two for the second.
@mercy I'm grateful on your behalf that you don't remember anything before four. What an awful collection of things for someone to have to carry around.
I have several memories from before I was 3. One was waking up in an oxygen tent with my mother sleeping in a chair next to the bed. There was a steam radiator behind her and the walls were soft green and slits of light from the window blinds fell across her
another was watching my mother cry while watching the JFK funeral. I could tell you exactly how the furniture in that room was arranged.
I do have a potty training memory of falling asleep on the potty and my father laughing as he picked me up and noticed that the potty left a round ring around my bottom
I have a memory of getting an enema when I was 2 LOL I was MAD
I remember getting my picture taken in the back yard with my brothers wearing my new Easter clothes and I remember loving the clothes SO much. pretty shoes and a dress with a satin belt and a bonnet with matching satin ribbon and a matching coat. I would have been about 19 months.
When I was 3 my parents lived in a row house in Rock Creek Park in Washington DC. Two brothers about my age (Erick and Derek) wandered down the alley and into Rock Creek Park. One of our parents found us and took us home. I think they were just happy we were safe.
Also from around the same time I remember my father crying because JFK was assassinated. That is the only time I ever remember him shedding tears.
I don't remember anything before age 8 years old, I always wondered why. Few years ago I recalled something though, being molested in a kids pool by one of my moms friend's bf when I was 5. I also recalled playing with a tea set in a house with stairs and a man stepped upon one of the little plates and plastic cup and he broke it. I have no f clue if these memories are real. I was molested several other times when older than 8 so I guess that pool thing probably happened. There must be a reason that I don't remember earlier memories than 8 years old, you guys are lucky to remember so much.
These are just the FIRST memories we remember pixie. You are not alone. I don't remember anything after 5 years old until several years later. I remember exactly what that memory was though, and also what terror tastes like. Im glad I don't remember what happened next, I've always told myself I got out of there. But I know I didn't because there was no good reason for me to ever hate men the way I did for the next 30 years. There's 38 comments here, I bet at least half that are with you. Anyway, just wanted to say that. Not all of us remember much, just perhaps what was FIRST. xo
Thank you so much for your reply @rosie, you don't know how much your words mean to me right now!!! I left that comment yesterday hoping that maybe someone maybe dealt with the same problem and know the reason why, I feel like a legit freak for not remembering early memories memories and then when I remember something it's horrible :( maybe it's my brain trying to protect me. It's good to know that I'm not alone though. Thank you *hugs* 🌹💝
First birthday. I was seated in a highchair at the dining nook table of my paternal grandparents. There is a cupcake with a single unlit candle stuck in it on the silvery metal tray of the high chair. An uncle at the far end of the kitchen, where it has an entryway into the living room, sets up his camera to take my picture and it flashes. Other relatives are fanned out around him, so as to not walk into the shot and obscure it. When the flash completes they all then walk to the dinner table. It is about a 5-10 second fragment of my first birthday. A photograph exists to confirm this.
I suspect the claim the many first memories are "false" is yet another propaganda attempt by a particular philosophical faction to prove a specious point that they've been hammering on for decades. Uncorroborated does not mean false.
My first solid memory was the moon landing in 1969. Whether or not that happened, I guess that depends on your personal level of conspiracy. I remember my parents watching it on TV.
I was bitten by a German Shepherd at a gas station where my mother was getting her car fixed. I was told not to go near it, so I thought the dog would like to smell the clover where I was standing. I tossed the little flowers to him until he growled. I remember turning to run further away, but he caught me by my ass (he wasn't tied up). I remember sitting in the hospital waiting room on my mother's lap. There was a little boy there who was crying. His mother told him not to cry then pointed at me and said, "See? That little boy isn't crying!" That's when I started to cry and said, "She called me a boy!" (Damn pixie cut.) My mother claims I was 2 years old. I thought maybe 4 because my next memory was of my 5th birthday party which basically became my last because I cried almost the whole time - my mother had invited my mortal enemy at the time to come with us. But because I cried, no more birthday parties.
The first memory that I can date, is sitting in a high chair at my grandparents home in Memphis. The high chair was light blue, I believe. My grandmother was doing dishes to my right. There was a small tv on the counter to the left of the sink and she was pointing out the moon landing. I was just over a year old. I also have memories of my maternal grandfather who died 3 months before I turned two. My crib. I remember my crib and the struggle to climb out at night and climb into bed with my parents. So many memories of being a toddler. I remember learning to walk and using the furniture to move about and my cousin that is a year older pushing me down and his subsequent spanking. It was at his home in Alabama. I have awful memories, too. My mother locking me in our vehicle in some parking lot at night. Alone. Her returning drunk and passing out across the seat. I would hold her lips together and pinch her nose trying to wake her. One time running across a huge soybean field to my neighbor. I couldn't find my mother and I was panicked. The neighbor found her passed out in my bed. The heaping plates of food that I hated that she forced me to eat and the abuse, slaps, spanks and berating i received when I didn't. The full glasses of milk served in a beer Stein that I had to finish. I wish she had died when I was 7 instead of my dad. They had been long divorced.
I developed this weird coping mechanism where I would fall asleep when situations became uncomfortable. My older cousins, my mom's age, said years later "Thank God you slept through so much" but wouldn't elaborate. It evolved into a deep daydream type thing as I grew older. It lessened when an abusive boyfriend OD'd and went away completely when my mother died.
my mom uneasily confirmed my first memory, but it scared her because i wasn't even a year old. i don't know what sparked that night because my next full-on memory didn't happen until i was 4 or 5. i've been trying to forget almost everything since then...
I was in my parents bedroom standing in a crib. The door to the bedroom was cracked and light was coming in...also noise of a party. I wanted to be out there not in here so climbed out of the crib and fell, hitting my head. Mom runs in and scoops me up. That's it. My memories are in color and very clear, like I am there and I think this memory is true because it is so real and many parts of it are accurate. Mom says my crib was in their room, the layout of things is accurate. My second memory...you don't want to know.
Yes, because my Mom confirmed it was true.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYes I remember jumping in the deep end of a public swimming pool and my father jumping right in after me to get me out. It's true because I have a picture of me at that pool that day.
ReplyDeleteAll I remember is the carpet in the playroom. It was a mix or red, white, and blue. Apparently very popular around the bicentennial era.
ReplyDeleteI was quite sick at 18 mo and my parents talked about getting my bottles back out because I wouldn't drink anything. My mom confirmed it. My next memory is my mom washing my hair, I asked how old I was and she said "Two". She didn't remember that one, but it was pretty inane to just make up.
ReplyDeleteI was about 2 sitting in a high chair. Laughing to myself while I spooned my food into my plastic cup. I thought this was hilarious.
ReplyDeleteYes, I escaped from my crib and wandered in the house, where I encountered my mother and her friend. Mom picked me up and plopped me back in the crib. I was less than a year old but my mom remembered that too.
ReplyDeletePretty sure my first memory is true. Being on the beach with my mom and drinking Goofy Grape Funny Face drink (Funny Face was a competitor to Kool Aid WAY back in the day).
ReplyDeleteI remember a trip to Knott's Berry farm with my parents and siblings. I was 8 months old. My mother confirmed it after her shock wore off.
ReplyDeleteYes and confirmed by my mom. A Countess tying bells on my ankle while visiting her chateau in Germany. The previous time I got lost and they found me crying on the second floor. I was 3. Don't remember getting lost but I do remember the Jingle Bells! Mrs Nina was very nice and very silly.
ReplyDeleteYes but I wish it wasn’t.
ReplyDelete@Mindrew2, FunnyFace, for those of us too poor to pay 10 cents for real Kool Aid!
ReplyDeleteI have clear memories of the house my family left when I was 2. There are no pictures of it but when I describe it, my mother confirms.
ReplyDeleteI swear I remember the sun in my eyes, in a double baby stroller with my twin, as a baby. By that might not be true. I DO remember watching our house burn down when I was three, standing on the right hand side of my mom telling her "don't cry mommy" and she was on her knees looking out the neighbors front door. My twin was on the left. That really happened. So three years old for sure
ReplyDeletei was 2 in Glasgow Montana. The sound of the crickets was very loud and it drove me crazy and I started screaming kill the crickets!!
ReplyDeleteLeaning out of my baby buggy to stroke a dog and it snapped at me...still scared of dogs!
ReplyDeleteTalking to my mother on the phone when I was 18 months old and my brother was born. I remember standing on a chair while my aunt handed me the phone. I especially remember the confusion that they didn't know his name yet. I couldn't understand how a human could exist without a name.
ReplyDeleteI remember my mother changing my diaper and peeing on it so she had to get a new one :-o I felt embarrassed obviously felt embarrassed already...
ReplyDeleteBeing lifted up to pop a balloon on my 2nd birthday. I think I may have a few memories from that night that I got from just hearing things about it, but I actually remember being lifted up. The memory is from my point of view, too, so I'm pretty sure it's real.
ReplyDeleteIN A STROLLER....frustrated that I didn't have language.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned this when I gave the eulogy at my Dad's funeral back in 1998.
ReplyDeleteThe very first memory I have (or can remember) was of my dad.
I was sitting on the garage floor as my dad worked on the engine of the car.
I remember seeing him as he looked at me and smiled.
Then, next memory is of my dad carrying me into the house.
Years later, when I was a teen, I was describing this to my mom.
She confirmed that my dad was watching me that day as she went shopping.
When she arrived home, I had fallen asleep on the garage floor, my dad picked me up and brought me into the house, handing me off to my mom.
Odd since I must have been 2 years old, maybe!?
Its weird that you ask this, because I have been trying to figure out what my first memory actually is. I can trace lots back to kindergarten, but anything before then... well I can only dregg up one weird memory, that I associate with my mom taking me to daycare. Its hazy and I was hideously unhappy. I cried relentlessly when she dropped me off and other than that I only recall that there were dark paneled walls, leading to a basement. Mom says she never took me to a daycare with a basement. I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a real memory at all.
ReplyDeleteBeing potty trained at about 18 months old and wanting to master the big people toilet. I was not shy about hating diapers. Mom confirmed as I would refer to my clothe diapers as "filth". She never knew where I learned that word.
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember and yes, it was true. I was doing the dishes for my mom because she was pregnant. We had the old dishwasher that you hook the hose to the faucet. To add silverware, I had to stand on a tall stool and reach way down to load the rack. I remember her filling the sink first with rinse water so I could get the food off before loading. I talked her into adding some Palmolive dish soap to the water so I would have soft hands for the baby.
ReplyDeleteI was 4 and a half.
Yes brief visual memories of a family vacation as a baby, confirmed by photos and relatives.
ReplyDeleteIt is a fascinating topic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_amnesia
Somehow I got up onto my grandmother's kitchen counter and grabbed a bar of soap and I was eating it, and I was sick.
ReplyDeleteMy long term memory is scary good. My short term memory however, what was I saying? JK, but yea it’s bad. I don’t know which of my earliest memories co,es first, they aren’t in chronological order in my head...I remember being told my little brother was born (I was 2 yrs 9cmonths) and where my dad took me to tell me, but my other early memories don’t have a date stamp like that such as the first time my mom gave me a time out, I remember seeing the “We are the World” video for the first time, my first BIG play date where we made soft pretzels in the shape of our na,es, and some other insignificant memories around 2-3 years old that are ingrained in my brain for some odd reason. They are all true. My parents don’t remember the odd details I do, but they remember the situations or events the basic way I do. If my short term memory compares to my long term one, I’d probably be pretty awesome at life. As it stands, I tend to forget everything that occurred more than like a day ago unless it was quite significant OR the way I know I’ll never forget something and it will replay in my brain forever is if it in any way may have embarrassed me-outwardly or just like “ugh why did I say that?!”
ReplyDeleteYup. I remember watching JFK'S funeral. What I specifically remember was the riderless horse with boots placed backwards in the stirrups. I was about 3. It was real.
ReplyDeleteAttending with my mother her job interview - I was three years old at the time and she did get the job and worked there for eighteen years.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, my first memory is a traumatic one. We had an abusive father. I was about four at the time. A real mess of a family.
ReplyDeleteI have two, both of which my mother confirmed to be true, and I was just over a year old for the first and two for the second.
ReplyDelete@mercy I'm grateful on your behalf that you don't remember anything before four. What an awful collection of things for someone to have to carry around.
I have several memories from before I was 3. One was waking up in an oxygen tent with my mother sleeping in a chair next to the bed. There was a steam radiator behind her and the walls were soft green and slits of light from the window blinds fell across her
ReplyDeleteanother was watching my mother cry while watching the JFK funeral. I could tell you exactly how the furniture in that room was arranged.
I do have a potty training memory of falling asleep on the potty and my father laughing as he picked me up and noticed that the potty left a round ring around my bottom
I have a memory of getting an enema when I was 2 LOL I was MAD
I remember getting my picture taken in the back yard with my brothers wearing my new Easter clothes and I remember loving the clothes SO much. pretty shoes and a dress with a satin belt and a bonnet with matching satin ribbon and a matching coat. I would have been about 19 months.
Mine is true. I remember very well getting away from my mother and running and hiding between parked cars so I could avoid getting shots.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 3 my parents lived in a row house in Rock Creek Park in Washington DC. Two brothers about my age (Erick and Derek) wandered down the alley and into Rock Creek Park. One of our parents found us and took us home. I think they were just happy we were safe.
ReplyDeleteAlso from around the same time I remember my father crying because JFK was assassinated. That is the only time I ever remember him shedding tears.
I don't remember anything before age 8 years old, I always wondered why. Few years ago I recalled something though, being molested in a kids pool by one of my moms friend's bf when I was 5. I also recalled playing with a tea set in a house with stairs and a man stepped upon one of the little plates and plastic cup and he broke it. I have no f clue if these memories are real. I was molested several other times when older than 8 so I guess that pool thing probably happened. There must be a reason that I don't remember earlier memories than 8 years old, you guys are lucky to remember so much.
ReplyDeleteThese are just the FIRST memories we remember pixie. You are not alone. I don't remember anything after 5 years old until several years later. I remember exactly what that memory was though, and also what terror tastes like. Im glad I don't remember what happened next, I've always told myself I got out of there. But I know I didn't because there was no good reason for me to ever hate men the way I did for the next 30 years.
DeleteThere's 38 comments here, I bet at least half that are with you. Anyway, just wanted to say that. Not all of us remember much, just perhaps what was FIRST. xo
Thank you so much for your reply @rosie, you don't know how much your words mean to me right now!!! I left that comment yesterday hoping that maybe someone maybe dealt with the same problem and know the reason why, I feel like a legit freak for not remembering early memories memories and then when I remember something it's horrible :( maybe it's my brain trying to protect me. It's good to know that I'm not alone though. Thank you *hugs* 🌹💝
DeleteFirst birthday. I was seated in a highchair at the dining nook table of my paternal grandparents. There is a cupcake with a single unlit candle stuck in it on the silvery metal tray of the high chair. An uncle at the far end of the kitchen, where it has an entryway into the living room, sets up his camera to take my picture and it flashes. Other relatives are fanned out around him, so as to not walk into the shot and obscure it. When the flash completes they all then walk to the dinner table. It is about a 5-10 second fragment of my first birthday. A photograph exists to confirm this.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the claim the many first memories are "false" is yet another propaganda attempt by a particular philosophical faction to prove a specious point that they've been hammering on for decades. Uncorroborated does not mean false.
My first solid memory was the moon landing in 1969. Whether or not that happened, I guess that depends on your personal level of conspiracy. I remember my parents watching it on TV.
ReplyDeleteI was bitten by a German Shepherd at a gas station where my mother was getting her car fixed. I was told not to go near it, so I thought the dog would like to smell the clover where I was standing. I tossed the little flowers to him until he growled. I remember turning to run further away, but he caught me by my ass (he wasn't tied up). I remember sitting in the hospital waiting room on my mother's lap. There was a little boy there who was crying. His mother told him not to cry then pointed at me and said, "See? That little boy isn't crying!" That's when I started to cry and said, "She called me a boy!" (Damn pixie cut.) My mother claims I was 2 years old. I thought maybe 4 because my next memory was of my 5th birthday party which basically became my last because I cried almost the whole time - my mother had invited my mortal enemy at the time to come with us. But because I cried, no more birthday parties.
ReplyDeleteThe first memory that I can date, is sitting in a high chair at my grandparents home in Memphis. The high chair was light blue, I believe. My grandmother was doing dishes to my right. There was a small tv on the counter to the left of the sink and she was pointing out the moon landing. I was just over a year old. I also have memories of my maternal grandfather who died 3 months before I turned two. My crib. I remember my crib and the struggle to climb out at night and climb into bed with my parents. So many memories of being a toddler. I remember learning to walk and using the furniture to move about and my cousin that is a year older pushing me down and his subsequent spanking. It was at his home in Alabama. I have awful memories, too. My mother locking me in our vehicle in some parking lot at night. Alone. Her returning drunk and passing out across the seat. I would hold her lips together and pinch her nose trying to wake her. One time running across a huge soybean field to my neighbor. I couldn't find my mother and I was panicked. The neighbor found her passed out in my bed. The heaping plates of food that I hated that she forced me to eat and the abuse, slaps, spanks and berating i received when I didn't. The full glasses of milk served in a beer Stein that I had to finish. I wish she had died when I was 7 instead of my dad. They had been long divorced.
ReplyDeleteI developed this weird coping mechanism where I would fall asleep when situations became uncomfortable. My older cousins, my mom's age, said years later "Thank God you slept through so much" but wouldn't elaborate. It evolved into a deep daydream type thing as I grew older. It lessened when an abusive boyfriend OD'd and went away completely when my mother died.
ReplyDeletemy mom uneasily confirmed my first memory, but it scared her because i wasn't even a year old. i don't know what sparked that night because my next full-on memory didn't happen until i was 4 or 5. i've been trying to forget almost everything since then...
ReplyDeleteI was in my parents bedroom standing in a crib. The door to the bedroom was cracked and light was coming in...also noise of a party. I wanted to be out there not in here so climbed out of the crib and fell, hitting my head. Mom runs in and scoops me up. That's it. My memories are in color and very clear, like I am there and I think this memory is true because it is so real and many parts of it are accurate. Mom says my crib was in their room, the layout of things is accurate. My second memory...you don't want to know.
ReplyDelete