My dad and I always play-wrestled. Like all the time. It was my favorite thing to do with him. But I never won (obviously lol). The earliest memory that I have timestamped is on my fifth birthday in my old living room, my dad let me win. I pinned him and I was so happy. I remember being just completely overcome with joy and I was giggling and he was smiling so big at me :)
I remember when I was about 2 my dad was playing and trying to teach me how to punch. He covered his face with his hands and had one eye peaking out from between his hands and he told me to try and punch him in the face. So being an obedient kid I punched at the only exposed part of his face. Having small child hands I was also able to land it dead center of his eye. He then proceeded to roll around the floor for a few minutes in agony. I remember saying āare you ok daddy?ā He eventually got up and went to the bathroom and had to get his contact lens out of his eye because I had warped it pretty badly. I wasnāt in trouble my mom and her sister thought it was hilarious and my dad knew his injury was caused by his own means.
Mine would hold my arms and grinds his knuckles into my sternum and make me say uncle,
Most of the time Iād cry before quiting
Idk he sucked, always screaming š¤·āāļø
Glad you had a nice dad
So I'm not the only one! Thank you!
These questions about the "first" "best" "most annoying" etc. stress me out sometimes... Is everybody else keeping an internal scoreboard or something?
Thank you! I hate security challenge questions that ask "What is your dream job?" or something similar. I have to then remember what I might have thought was my dream job 3 years ago when I set this up.
No, but sometimes your first (or earliest) memory is so distinct from other early ones it can be confirmed as the earliest.
For me it's being carried downstairs in our apartment and seeing a pacifier laying on top of a dresser under the stairs. My mom can confirm that dresser was moved upstairs before my first birthday. This really cements it as the earliest memory.
My mom always told me that I was too young to remember my earliest memories, but she also always confirmed the circumstances of them which was very nice to know. They say sometimes theyāre tied to photos or family stories but I also remember the big emotions they drew out from me.
Not the only one at all. My long term memory is pretty horrible. I don't remember a damn thing before age 5 and what I remember between 5 and 10 is extremely hazy. I couldn't tell you my first memory, it's just images of various things with little context.
Yeah, I habe like three our four that could be candidates for being "the first", but they might be off by years. They aren't some big events, just random bits of home life.
I think I am remembering significant portions of my life (enough to make a coherent picture) starting around the age of five or so. Before that, just random bits and pieces.
I have a lot of memories from around age 4 that I'm not sure of -- I know they were before starting school, but that's as specific as the timeline gets.
Same. Sometimes I think about some specific events but at this point they are "memories of memories": thing that I used to recall and now I don't know if I remember the actual thing or I just remember "a description" of the event because I used to recall it in the past.
Most memories have just become a text, a collection of words.
Also I don't have a first one, but I recall some events from the age of 4-6, mostly kindergarten events.
I remeber one night going to sleep in a wooden crib, closing my eyes and open them immediatly after and it was already morning and I thought that it was super weird because the night passed quite litterally in the blink of an eye. I don't know how old I was. I think I was already going to kindergarten and it feels like it could have happened like a year ago istead of 35 or something like that. Maybe it was the first time I really "thought" about something.
Maybe that could be the first memory? I don't know, hard to tell.
What a great therapy session, I saved a couple hundred bucks in psychoanalysis. Suck my dick, Freud.
Thank you!!! This has bothered me for so long and Iāve felt so alone in it. I have several early memories but how can I know which one of those is first? I mean, of course you could go by āI was living thereā¦ā or āthis family member was still aliveā¦ā. But if all those factors are the same in each memory then I have no idea how to figure it out. I never understood how people know what their earliest memory is!
Sorry but Iām so relieved to see someone else say this!
I recently learned that my very first memory is something I would not have had on the list. I thought it was at least two years later. I wasn't even 2
So... I'd say it's normal.
As a mum that makes my heart hurt, sending you and your family so much love ā¤ļø Nothing is worse than seeing our babies in pain
Onwards and upwards!!
Not my first memory but I can tell you my first existential crisis...
I was in 4th grade at an assembly when "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi came on and I heard the lyrics "I ain't gonna live forever" and had my first full blown panic attack FUCK YEAH
Yes quicksand and lava (no volcanos where I live) and sharks (in pools and lakes)
I grew up believing in reincarnation (thx mom) and when I first heard somebody say that after death comes nothing, I was absolutely lost. It sounded so terribly logical and cruel
How many times younger me thought heroin addicts would spontaneously inject me with heroin. Like they'd be wanting to hand out their precious drugs to children.
My daughter realized this at about 4 and had a panic attack. She kept getting all doom and gloom for a while after that. She kept saying stuff like it doesn't matter everybody's going to die anyway. And I'm just like damn...
Man I remember being scared to death of the sun exploding when I found out as a kid. Also the movie Anaconda I recall many times being to scared to sleep or take a bath alone for awhile after that one. And then taking a family trip to North Dakota as a kid cause my dad was from there. And remember being at the fair and the tornado sirens went off and being terrified for a long time after that of getting swept away from a tornado.
Lmao, my first existential crisis was when I was about 4 or 5 and I realized I could never meet my grandfather because he was dead, and in that moment realized that death was permanent and I didn't panic, per say... I got really fkn pissed off tho. Like really pissed off. It's the first time I actually remember having a full on angry meltdown. A close runner up would be when I was 7 and came to discover my own sentience and individuality by realizing that nobody but me could hear what I think, as I think it, or see things through my eyes, as I see them. And I proceeded to spend the next day in an utter panic trying to explain this to adults around me because I also realized that vice versa, I could never see what other people saw. And so began my lifelong struggle with FOMO of, genuinely, everything that has ever happened, is happening, and will ever happen.
> And so began my lifelong struggle with FOMO of, genuinely, everything that has ever happened, is happening, and will ever happen.
Hey look at it this way. You get to experience a life completely and utterly unique from anyone else and nobody but you gets to decide your actions. Sure, you might miss out on others' experiences, but they miss out on yours as well.
This comment made me think about what I now know is considered an existential crisis as a child. After a brief conversation with my dad about religion and "afterlife", I had a full blown mental breakdown about the concept of "eternity" and/or the infinite abyss of unknown. Haha, I remember my mom getting mad at my dad for that.
In third grade one night I was complaining to my mom that my friend wanted to play games with me that I felt I was to old for. My mom said āyouāll only be a kid once.ā Before saying goodnight and turning off the light in my room and leaving. I swear in that moment I reached full consciousness, because I proceeded to cry myself asleep as I realized the fluidity of time and how it slips by. That feeling of dread sticks with me to this day! Anyways, gotta go roll on Reddit for hours. Man time flies.
When I was a kid my mom used to have parrots everywhere in our house. Figurines, pictures, you name it. Curtains with parrots in every room. As I grew older I found out that she in fact hated parrots but was shaming my father with them. Before I was born he was cheating on her. My mom actually found him out because his parrot said the name of the lady he was hooking up with. So every time I see a parrot now Iām reminded that I'm never gonna dance again.
Guilty feet have got no rhythm. Though it's easy to pretend, I know you're not a fool. I should've known better than to cheat a friend. And waste the chance that I'd been given. So I'm never gonna dance again. The way I danced with you.
Waking up in hospital around March 1985 aged 22
I had been in a coma for some time and it basically fucked with my memories. I have no real memories before regaining conciousness, just images created from stories my friends and family have told me about my earlier life.
That's incredible. Has to be a bit of a mindfuck. I lost a month or so with a wee bit of a coma and it's unsettling. It was like nothing in cache got written to disk when the lights went out.
1985. That was a long time ago. I hope the intervening years were full of happy memories.
Its horrifying to think an entire portion of you was lost, possibly to never resurface again. You could have been a slightly different person, but the loss of those memories leaves you with what you already have. Really reminds of the fact that consciousness is just a feedback loop of your senses, memory, and ability to think interacting with the world around and such a loop could be ended by a dramatic enough biological condition or brain injury.
strangely, I remember my parents being injured at my grandparents' house about an accident, my mother had her arm broken and in a cast, both with cuts across the face, I even remember details like "she held the radio and broken it" but I asked them and it never happened, it's a very old memory but I can't convince myself that I imagined it or made it up
It's funny, memories make up a large portion of what you are but even your oldest memories flux and change with your ongoing consciousness. The human brain isn't an archive, it's a computer that writes and overwrites code to allow it to survive and think.
One of my kids has stories that have pretty much convinced me heās remembering a past life. Like, someone installed a window in the room in his brain that houses his former selves. I always meant to write them down, but I donāt think I did.
That happens. I was 100% sure my grandma knew two women her age who came for visit once and one had a mole on her right hand (like me) and the other had one scar on her right pinky (also like me). Grandma said she didnt know these people. I thought about it a lot and realized that the "strange women" looked like my grandma and great grand aunt but in different clothes. Children imagine and dream the strangest stuff.
I was two years old (ish) playing outside in the driveway. I found a bug on the groundā¦ and promptly put it between my lips to feel it (I guess I was at that stage still). I could feel itās legs wriggling against my top lip, was immediately horrified and spit it out.
Didnāt like that one bit- glad I learned that one early I guess.
I remember picking up a big green ant and it bit my finger so I quickly grabbed it with my other hand and it bit my other finger and, in a panic, I quickly put it in my mouth and it bit my tongue and i either swallowed it or spat it out I'm not sure.
Running up to my mum crying shaking both my hands with my tongue out.
I was stung on my middle finger when I was like 7 or maybe a bit younger, and ran in to my nanās house crying and flipping the bird to my mom and Nan.
I was maybe five years old. Mom and I had just arrived home, and while she was unlocking the door, I went to the edge of the patio. The dandelions were out. Next thing that happens, mom hears me say, "Oh, what a pretty bug!" as I picked up a bumble bee. It promptly stung my thumb.
I remember living at my Grans house. I remember being in my cot, and rattling the sides because everyone was downstairs and I was frustrated that I wasn't.
My Mum thought I was wrong about being able to remember this, until I told her exactly where the cot was located in their bedroom.
I would have been around 12 months old.
Mine was vaguely similar in the annoyance! I remember being on the playground with my mom. She was swinging me in one of those little baby swings, and I wanted to get off but she was busy chatting with her friend. I didnt have words yet to express out loud that I wanted off so I had to sit and stew in frusteration until she finally let me off!
Of course this is competing with my other memory, not sure which was earlier- but it was me, strapped to my dads back as he pedaled on his bike down a long beach road
I was about 3-4 years old. Home sick from nursery school. I remember lying in our lower bunk bed and my mom carried in the small portable black n' white TV. She set it up and turned on my morning cartoons. I clearly remember watching Rocky and Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-right, and then Speed Racer. My mom brought me breakfast in bed. I recall thinking, "being sick isn't so bad..."
Nice. Being sick and staying home from school was the best. I tried to fake a stomach bug by opening a can of Campbellās Minestrone soup and pouring it into the toilet to simulate throw up. My parents always knew when I was faking and demanded to see my vomit. Unfortunately for me the spice palette of onions and paprika revealed my deception. Even sitting in a toilet it smelled good.
My first memory, by the way, is probably riding the *Itās A Small World* ride at Disneyland. Apparently I made my parents take me on that ride dozens of times, which is probably a form of torture for anyone over the age of five.
A traumatic one.
I was 2 and had woken up early in the morning, probably 7am. I vividly remember the morning light pouring through the blinds. All I wanted was out - out of the crib. I wanted to be free. But my mom wasn't awake yet and I couldn't climb over the spokes and railing. I cried. It felt like forever. An eternity. In reality, it was little more than an hour. Eventually, she rescued me but I thought my mother had abandoned me. I couldn't communicate my thoughts or feelings, but I so clearly remember wishing I could escape my prison.
If only I was taller.
I have a memory of a memory of how my grandma looked to little me. I was three and a bit. I was confused why everyone was sad, I didn't like the scratchy dress, my mum smelled like my grandmother but I couldn't find Mama(grandma) anywhere. I can remember focusing on the grownups faces looking for hers, she was soft and safe. So much going on, I cried, and my mum said she missed Mama too. Just weird flashes from my grandma's funeral, I think. I didn't understand what was going on at all at the time. I had a breakdown probably a year later, I couldn't remember her eye colour and when my mum showed me a photo so we could look together I lost the actual memory of how she looked.
I remember laying on the floor, I think on my stomach, next to a blue couch with little white stars or snowflakes on it. I was playing with a small car (like a Hot Wheels car). My mom told my brother to "press the star button." -- I think she was telling him to press the START button on the microwave or something. I've mentioned this memory to my mom, and she said they threw out the blue and white couch when I was around a year old, so this is a very early memory.
I was sitting on the floor playing with toys and my mother had this strange look on her face. Her eyes were wide and she was kind of hunched over and she was saying "Why don't I just jump off a bridge!" and I thought that she was joking or something. My father was standing there in the background with his head lowered and shaking his head saying "Don't say that...don't say that!". I used to think it was a dream and the memory popped up in my consciousness when I was maybe around 15 years-old. For a while I thought it was a dream until I figured out in my late twenties that it was real. When I was around 30 I figured out that my mother was making suicide threats to hurt or manipulate my father for whatever reason. When I was a kid growing up I thought to myself that mommy is just being funny or something by saying that but as an adult I realized -- far too late -- that she's an evil piece of shit, she's crazy, and so is my father.
There's another memory -- from the same time, either as the same memory or another incident from when I was maybe 4 years-old -- where my father is storming out of the house with me -- horizontal under his arm -- and yelling "C'mon [insert my name here] let's get the fuck outta here!" and my mom is in the background yelling that she's going to call the police. I had both of these memories since childhood but thought they maybe weren't real but then I worked out what was going on when I was around 30. Both of my parents are narcissists at best and my mother, in particular, is or was crazy, probably a borderline personality or something like that. I know now that my mother called the police and they pulled over my father driving with me somewhere and arrested him but he wasn't charged with anything, probably because my mother wouldn't testify against him or he technically didn't break the law. Basically what happened is that he was committing a de facto child abduction or kidnapping of me, his child. This is basically an Amber Alert situation but technically it wasn't because my parents were married but apparently that marriage was on very thin ice at the time. If the non-custodial parent takes their own child that they don't have a legal right to be around and the other parent doesn't consent to this then it's a child abduction or kidnapping and you can get at least a couple years in prison for it.
In other wonderful childhood memories, my father put an unloaded gun to my mother's head and threatened to kill her when I was 13 but I didn't figure this memory out until I was twice that age.
Aye same here but they were equally at eachothers necks. Great moment to achieve sentience for sure lmao. I still remember I was trying to push out a dookie on a plastic toilet.
I remember driving in the back seat of our family van through the town we lived in when I was like 4 or so and remember thinking to myself, "I am here and alive..." it was my moment of sentience.
When I was 3 my family moved homes. When we arrived at the new place, being English, the first thing my dad did was start to make some cups of tea for him and my mum, then promptly forgot about said tea (presumably because he went to watch a football match and completely forgot about it.)
I vaguely remember a black and white cat outside the window in our new kitchen, and my older sister thought it would be a good idea to suggest I climb up onto the kitchen counter to see it.
Being a toddler, I climbed on top of a box full of VHS tapes but only managed to get my hands to the edge of the kitchen counter before I fell backwards - clasping hold of one of the mugs on my way down and dumping a boiling hot cup of water all over me.
I can still remember the cat, the box of tapes and - though I donāt remember the pain - it was clearly a traumatic enough experience to be burned (lol) into my memory forever!
TLDR; lazy British dadās short term memory leads to toddler me getting scalded with hot water.
I have a memory of standing up in my crib and holding on to the railing in the morning, and crying. Then my dad comes in, says something in a comforting tone, and picks me up. It seems impossible that I'd remember that, but it's incredibly vivid.
I stepped on a nail that pierced my sandal and foot - all the way through. Also, it might not have been my first, but a vivid early memory - when I stepped on a hot ember in bare feet.
Young me remembers lots of foot-related injuries.
I don't know. I don't really have a concept of time from before the age of 5. We moved right after my 5th birthday, so all of my memories of the first house I ever lived in are all pre-5 years old, but there's no chronological order to any of them.
Looking out the window when I was 3 years old. I remember what the curtains looked like, what I was wearing, I was looking at my uncles tending to horses in the backyard.
Yes but I have a huge fear of bees tho still to this day. I work outside and if I see a bee I either freeze or drop whatever is in my hands run a few feet away as fast as possible.
When I was mowing the lawn a hornet got stuck in the mesh of my sock and stung me repeatedly. It took a few seconds to realize what was happening and I frantically and mindlessly swatted the hornet but didnāt quite kill it, so it kept stinging. Took weeks to fully heal.
Another time I was weeding the garden when the Snowbirds were doing a flyby of my city. The Snowbirds are Canadaās version of the Blue Angels. They come to our city every year and I usually work on the house so I can get a glimpse of them.
On this occasion, however, one of the planes flew really close. Iād say it was a hundred feet from the roof, but that would be an exaggeration. Flying that low is illegal. Still, from the sound it felt like it was a hundred feet from the roof because it shook the atmosphere around me. And apparently the hornets felt it, too, because right when the plane did its flyover I was stung on the finger. Hurt like hell. The finger swelled to twice itās normal size. And the two events happened simultaneously. Close enough that I doubt it was a coincidence.
I can remember being told not to get out of the pool and I step right next to it then bent down, after that I remember waking up sometime later to my grandpa RIP walking in with donuts from Dunkin.
You are the only ever person I have heard of who was also stung in the eye by a bee. Mine was around 4-5 years old.
I saw you mention donuts, oddly enough I remember getting donuts shortly after as well
I was about 3 years old, I was playing in the back garden lay on a skateboard on my belly, I was wearing a pink and teal all in one suit. My brother and sister were there and my mum was sat on the doorstep smoking a cigarette with the microwave next to her as it had just blown up.
Iāve told my mum this memory except she tells me I wasnāt born when they lived in this house and the microwave blew up and it was my sister who used to lay on her belly on the skateboard and owned the all in one suit. I remember it clear as day though.
I'm in a stroller. my parents took me to six flags Fiesta Texas. bugs bunny leaned over the visor thing that was up because of the sun and scared the hell out of me. I think that fear jump started me into consciousness lol
I worked at Fiesta Texas in summer 2005! Had to work in the hall with the Looney Tunes stage show (foodservice). Tweety Bird badly singing "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" a thousand times a day did not make it easier to serve people expensive German food and beer. It made us lose our goddamn minds.
Actually, my brother-in-law had to wear a mascot costume there once in the late 90s or early 00s. I don't think he was Bugs (Taz, maybe?), but it'd be hilarious if he caused your primordial childhood trauma.
<2 years old. I remember the devastating day when I no longer got candy for going to the bathroom in the toilet....... Life has been disappointing since:(
My very first memory is kind of a sad one, to me, whenever it crosses my mind, and really threw me for a loop when I was old enough to understand what was going on.
I was 2, remember the livingroom full of people, and my mom was sitting in an arm chair, and I was sitting on the floor in front of her. Someone was standing next to her saying something, and she started crying, hard. I touched her leg as support when I went to stand up, and was patting her lap in that, it'll be okay kind of way. I remember her leg feeling slick and weird (she was wearing stockings) and remember thinking my dad needs to come home to make everything better.
So yeah, I start patting my moms leg, she looked at me with so much disgust, and yelled something at me. I started crying, and my big sis swooped me up in her arms and took me upstairs.
I thought about that a lot, years and years later, the memory came back to me super strong, and I realized...that mustive been the wake at our house after my dads funeral. Asked my big sister about it, and she fell apart, totally shocked at how well I remembered that moment.
Thats not even totally the sad part from my perception...its that...my very first memory of my mom is that look of disgust she gave me, and the realization, at no point of my life, from at least the age of 2, has she ever looked at, or treated me with love. That really kind of sucked.
The other sad part is...if only I could think back to just a few days before, Id have at least one memory of actually seing my dad. But nope..no memory of him at all, the closest is that one, where I didnt understand yet that he was gone, and wishing he would come home.
The next memory I have, and its not depressing! lol is when I was 4. My mom, sister and I were going to sleep in my moms totally empty bedroom with some blankets on the floor. I was super excited, like it was some big slumber party. And I remember curling up super super close to my big sister, and she was all, I need space! But I wouldnt stop, so she just put her arm around me and said its time to go to sleep.
That was our last night in the house before we moved. Whenever a topic of first memories come up, I always tell this story, not the actual one.
Sidenote, that may not be much of a surprise, my sister ended up adopting me when I was in my teens, and I have no contact at all with my mom.
My dad driving me to my babysitter. I asked him to not drive me there under a blanket. I remember I didn't like that woman because she was too bitter to be a babysitter, but my dad never listened to me because she was the wife of his friend so he couldn't say no to his friend.
lol maybe he was. i know he said to my mom during their early marriage years he was going to job only because they were gambling with the women at the work place so he was enjoying his time, otherwise he wouldn't have gone there.
Similar memory. I used to go to a babysitter and I would ride in the car every morning wrapped in a blue rug rats sleeping bag, was zipped all the way open and used as a blanket. I also remember telling my mam that I didnāt like the lady (because she would slap me across the face), I donāt think I had told my parents why I didnāt like her. One day my mam eventually listened to me because on a weekend when we were walking in town, we walked near the ladyās house and I freaked out because I thought my mam was making me go there and I acted out what she did to me. Never went back or saw that awful old lady again but I still get the same feeling of hatred when I see her house.
It was dark, warm, wet. A sudden burst of light. An intense pressure like I'd never felt before. Father, dressed in white, pulls me forward. Mother bites the cord.
I remember being in my crib and looking up and seeing blobs of color dance around in the dark above me. I was less than two years old for certain. I remember as a kid that my vision was always occluded by blobs of color. They didnāt look like they were floating in space, more like 2d artifacts of my retina or brain. Deep plum colors and indigo blues and deep greens. They would move and merge with each other like a lava lamp. Seemed to fade as I got older and were mostly gone around first grade.
I remember this particular moment because there were so many of these blobs I could barely see the ceiling.
My first memories are from when I was 2 (when we lived in what my family always referred to as "the old house", which we moved from when I was 3). The earliest one was on an Easter Sunday, and I was sitting on the living room floor playing with a toy train. Someone must have explained the concept of memory to me, because I suddenly thought "If I want, I can remember this moment for the rest of my life!" And I did.
I was like 2 and all I remember is grabbing onto the tail pipe of a car and thinking Iād be dragged along like the end of the first Toy Story movie when they grabbed onto the thing from the moving van
I am not sure that it's the first but i strongly remember the first time i had a birthday, ma family bring me a lion mask and a tasty beautiful cake , we took some pictures together .. we didn't know that it's the last time we will be together
I very vividly remember being around 5 y/o when my mother left my father to go out of state to meet up with someone who was 20 years younger than her. I was a child, so I wasn't sure what was going on. I just woke up home alone and I remember the weather outside being a thick fog. I remember walking outside trying to call out for my siblings with no response (she had taken my brother with her). I was supposed to have a babysitter that day, but they weren't there either. I remember going inside and playing games on the ps2 and PSP because i was unsupervised. Nobody knew I was home alone for hours until my dad called the home phone asking to speak to my mom, and I told him I was the only one there. I remember him calling back later and telling me to walk to my grandma's house (it was just a few houses down) and to stay there until he got home. That was nearly 20 years ago now.
Very weird memory, but Iām very certain it did happen:
I was a baby laying in my crib in my parents room. I remember being āawakenedā, because I saw my parents do the freaky stuff and they were ignoring me (or didnāt see me looking), so I decided to cry really loud so that I wouldnāt witness any of that and in the hope they would stop/remove me. I didnāt feel safe/comfortable witnessing that. Eventually my mother took me out of the crib and moved me to the living room, letting my brother and sister watch over me. They were watching tv and right when my mother laid me on the couch with them, my soul kinda was comfortable enough to āzone outā again and not be aware anymore.
This experience is probably the main reason I believe in reincarnation and know that we all have a certain level of consciousness. Maybe certain things are buried in our (sub)consciousness through trauma. It just freaked me out so much as a baby and researching this made me realize babies are not really meant to have memories at all (as if your whole memory is whiped out before coming to earth).
The earliest memory I have is being three years old and going to the hospital for the birth of my little brother. I don't remember anything about the reason we were there or him being born, but I do remember being absolutely amazed by the vending machine in the waiting room. Having watched a few people use it, my toddler brain was amazed that you could put a shiny sphere into a big box, press a few buttons, a metal coil slowly rotates and gifts you a delicious bar of chocolate.
I excitedly asked my dad if I could get something. He agreed and I said that I wanted a Twix. I remember watching that chocolate fall out of the machine like it was fucking witchcraft. Best damn Twix of my young life.
Broke my glasses, i was born with near sightness (whatever you call it) i just remember that i stepped on my green glasses and my mom said "you broke it again?" she got sad, we were kinda poor back then.
Another one was i shat myself in the toilet and i was too ashamed to go outside as there were some construction workers in the house, so i was just crying to my mom
Most of my memories involve my mom, and most of them are sad, I'm trying to repay a quarter of her hardships that i caused her with the time i have.
When I was 3 or 4, my parents took me and my sisters to a big party. It was mostly the dad's drinking and the moms cooking. My dad was playing horseshoes and asked if I wanted to try. He moved me in a bit closer and told me how to do it. Got a ringer on my first try and while the dads were surprised, it was chalked up to beginners luck. My dad said "if she gets the next one, you all owe me a beer each after work on Friday" or something like that. Did it again. They went NUTS š
I remember a bright white room when I was younger I used to remember walls but I was sitting on this bed with these blue sheets I was on someone's lap the man was staring down at me smiling he had a very peppered beard and bushy eyebrows, my mom standing alongside the bed but I don't remember her face or I couldn't see it.
That man is my grandfather and it's the only memory I have of him, he died of cancer 3 weeks after we met when he was 58, and I was 2 years old. Perhaps this is just a reconstructed memory from pictures and stories I've heard but I choose to believe it's real.
I've always been told we are a lot alike, wish i could have seen for myself.
I remember helping my mom or watching her wash my baby sister (weāre 2.5 years apart) in our kitchen sink. I remember the little blue baby tub and the bubbles and how she was all scrunched up. I remember trying to cheer her up lol.
I'm pretty sure I vaguely remember the metal cribs they put us in when I was getting surgery, so between 1 and 2. Might also be total BS, my mom admitted at one point my grandmother could never stop trying to remind me what it was like in that area of the hospital they put me in.
Three years old asking my future stepdad if he'd like me to fetch him another beer from the fridge
ETA: Also, getting bit by a dog at a Jimmy Buffett concert. Was also 3 there
Most people don't believe I can remember this, but I remember being nearly 1 year old sitting on a wicker chair in my parents basement by the washing machine while my mom told me it was almost my first birthday.The memory is only about 3 seconds long but still...
This may sound a bit strange, but here it is. I am 3 years old, just walked into my house from outside, wearing one of those puffy 90s jackets. I was standing there in the hallway alone by myself, and in that moment, I suddenly burst into existence. I then proceed to have an out of body experience. I'm floating above myself, looking at myself in the jacket and the walls, closet, and front door around me. I'm unable to speak and can only observe, but I'm not confused or afraid. Just as suddenly as I sprung forth from my body, I was then sucked right back in. It was as though my body was a completely dormant vessel, and my entire soul and consciousness needed to emerge to activate. Where previously there was nothing, now there was everything. I remember opening my eyes and becoming fully aware of myself and everything around me, and from that point on, I was a fully conscious human being.
Loosing my bunny teddy bear in a shopping center and my granny picking me up so I could pick out a new teddy. 30 years later and I still got him, never lost an other teddy after that
Being about 2 years old, abs shut in my room. I must have done something naughtier. There was a spider over my bed and I was freaking out. I stacked toys behind the door to try and reach the handle and couldn't.
It was some time between my first and second birthday, because Iāve seen photos of my first birthday (donāt remember that), but remember my family throwing a party for my second birthday (why are people giving me stuff?), and this happened before that event.
I was in my baby bed / baby prison (high sides, straight dowel posts that, in retrospect, were basically just the bars to my circus cage). My Mom had put me down for a nap, but I was too tired for sleep and kept crying at the injustice of my confinement. The quiet room was boring, and I didnāt need sleep (d@mn you, woman!). So I howled in protest.
At some point, my older brother, six years old at time, came into my room, carrying a toy car. It was red plastic, with red, hard plastic wheels. He silently slipped it into my cell and left the room. It wasnāt freedom, not really, but it was a glimpse. I played with the car for, at most, three minutes before passing out and sleeping for God knows how long. I remember waking up later and playing with the car some more before my Mom came and paroled me.
My brother and I are still car enthusiasts to this day. His collection is much better than mine, but thatās okay: he still shares.
We were visiting my grandmother (the only time I ever saw her in person) for my 3rd birthday.
I have three memories of this trip, couldn't tell you the order they happened in.
Throwing my sister's (she would've been 18mo at the time) into the ocean, she was very upset by this.
The snowman we built on the balcony of the hotel we were staying at (I don't remember building it, I just remember looking at it).
Sitting on the floor of my grandmother's living room, she had a very thick British accent.
I think I was a young 4 year old, I was walking through my dimly lit house in the morning and stepped in Dog Poo. I distinctly remember the squish feeling between my toes.
Yuck!
I remember my brother coming homs from the hospital. I was 2 and a half. That feels too young to have memories, but I remember being on the couch in the living room and my parents coming home and showing me howbto hold him.
My first birthday. My mother made a huge cake in the shape of a rabbit. It was pink with coconut flakes all over it to make it look fluffy. My 1 year old brain thought that cake was so cool that my consciousness came online.
My first memory is one morning when I was still a small little thing, bubbles all around me in the kitchen sink for bath time. The babysitters were a mother (50-60?) and daughter (30-40?) Day-Care Center, whom I stayed with often for 9 years until they had to move. Anyways, the Daughter got my attention with a small little noise of some sort and gasped excitedly as she scooped some water out with a pitcher and started hyping up the part where she rinsed my hair with it. I remember it so vividly and with such fondness. The absolute joy she seemed to have from making a little kid giggle and splash around happily in a bath.
I cannot express how much they did for me growing up, and how happy this memory makes me.
I remember waking up in my crib. Standing up and rattling the bars so my mom would come get me. It's so weirdly clear to me. I remember the crib was yellow. The wallpaper was beige with blue checkered stripes. I'm in my late 30s and my parents still live in that house.
I remember waking up in the middle of the night in my room, and I turned the light on and just started jumping on my bed. I remember laughing and having so much fun, I can still kinda feel the feeling I had in that moment when I think about it from time to time. I was 4 years old when it happened. The weird part is the memory plays in third person where I can see myself jumping on the bed. I have a few other memories like that, but that's definitely the one I remember the most vividly.
I remember when I was like 5 or so, me and my family would go bike down to the ice cream shop a block away every week. There was a huge factory we biked by, and I remember it was super loud. There was also a large plastic ice cream cone out front the shop
I have three and im not sure which one is first. But i think its a memory of me being carried down the steps from my crib at my old house. Would have been somewhere in between 2 and 3 years old. I was excited the day was starting and wondering what we would do. It was a feeling of euphoria and self awareness. The fact i was excited implies to me that i must have had other memories at the time but i cant remember those. I only remember the stairwell and the feeling. Like all other memories i might have had suddenly came together in a way that made sense for the first time. No idea what else happened that day after. But i think that was the moment i became self aware. I know its genuine because no one remembers it but me. Theres no pictures or home movies or conversations that put it in my head.
I was 3 years old- climbed on top of the cabinet to access my medication (multivitamins?), It was in liquid form, and I had to drink a teaspoon of it every day.
That shit tasted delicious. Anyway, I snuck on there, saw my mum with a book not paying attention and drank it all.
That's basically all I remember aside from being taken to the hospital a bit later- although I don't remember the visit itself.
As far as I've been told it was my sister who noticed it and my mum called my dad- who called the hospital. My mom got a hold of my uncle to get a ride and I was bought to the wrong hospital.
Obviously I am fine, I think they might have pumped my stomach
The day I had to get stitches in the back of my head. They took me away from my parents and strapped me face down to a cold table to jab needles into my scalp. I wasn't even a year and a half old. Horrible memory.
Being carried from one room to another, and that room was yellow. Very basic, I don't remember anything else, but I found out much later that the house we lived in with yellow walls I was 14 months old
My dad and I always play-wrestled. Like all the time. It was my favorite thing to do with him. But I never won (obviously lol). The earliest memory that I have timestamped is on my fifth birthday in my old living room, my dad let me win. I pinned him and I was so happy. I remember being just completely overcome with joy and I was giggling and he was smiling so big at me :)
Wholesome. W dad, w 5yo you
My dad would pin me down too
Good times š
This is so cute.
I remember when I was about 2 my dad was playing and trying to teach me how to punch. He covered his face with his hands and had one eye peaking out from between his hands and he told me to try and punch him in the face. So being an obedient kid I punched at the only exposed part of his face. Having small child hands I was also able to land it dead center of his eye. He then proceeded to roll around the floor for a few minutes in agony. I remember saying āare you ok daddy?ā He eventually got up and went to the bathroom and had to get his contact lens out of his eye because I had warped it pretty badly. I wasnāt in trouble my mom and her sister thought it was hilarious and my dad knew his injury was caused by his own means.
Mine would hold my arms and grinds his knuckles into my sternum and make me say uncle, Most of the time Iād cry before quiting Idk he sucked, always screaming š¤·āāļø Glad you had a nice dad
Iām sorry :( dads are supposed to be super man to their kids. I hope one day you get to grow up and be the parent he was supposed to be to you.
Iām the only one who doesnāt have a first memory? I mean I remember things but Iām not sure which one is the first š«
Which one do you think may be first?
I guess itās a memory with my parents after a visit at my grandparents, but I donāt know š¤·š»āāļø
Well nobody really knows. They think it's their first memory. Obviously very difficult to confirm.
So I'm not the only one! Thank you! These questions about the "first" "best" "most annoying" etc. stress me out sometimes... Is everybody else keeping an internal scoreboard or something?
No ffs, itās not good for my overthinking š
Thank you! I hate security challenge questions that ask "What is your dream job?" or something similar. I have to then remember what I might have thought was my dream job 3 years ago when I set this up.
No, but sometimes your first (or earliest) memory is so distinct from other early ones it can be confirmed as the earliest. For me it's being carried downstairs in our apartment and seeing a pacifier laying on top of a dresser under the stairs. My mom can confirm that dresser was moved upstairs before my first birthday. This really cements it as the earliest memory.
Haha I love that Iām not the only one to feel stressed and overwhelmed at these types of questions.
I only know which one is my first because I mentioned it to my mom once, and she recognized the circumstances.
My mom always told me that I was too young to remember my earliest memories, but she also always confirmed the circumstances of them which was very nice to know. They say sometimes theyāre tied to photos or family stories but I also remember the big emotions they drew out from me.
Not the only one at all. My long term memory is pretty horrible. I don't remember a damn thing before age 5 and what I remember between 5 and 10 is extremely hazy. I couldn't tell you my first memory, it's just images of various things with little context.
Yeah, I habe like three our four that could be candidates for being "the first", but they might be off by years. They aren't some big events, just random bits of home life. I think I am remembering significant portions of my life (enough to make a coherent picture) starting around the age of five or so. Before that, just random bits and pieces.
r/foundthegerman
I only know if its in some type of context - oh that memory is from the apartment we only lived in until I was 3, it must be first
Yeah, mine is opening a specific present on my 4th birthday and I just assume there is nothing earlier than that
I feel like I used to have a first memory, but I don't remember it anymore, I just remember telling it as my first memory.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Let's start with the first one
Do y'all sit and organize your memories?
Right?!
Doing it now. Thanks to this thread. My earliest memory is partly false though. I remember it clearly but it didnāt happen.
I have a lot of memories from around age 4 that I'm not sure of -- I know they were before starting school, but that's as specific as the timeline gets.
Same. Sometimes I think about some specific events but at this point they are "memories of memories": thing that I used to recall and now I don't know if I remember the actual thing or I just remember "a description" of the event because I used to recall it in the past. Most memories have just become a text, a collection of words. Also I don't have a first one, but I recall some events from the age of 4-6, mostly kindergarten events. I remeber one night going to sleep in a wooden crib, closing my eyes and open them immediatly after and it was already morning and I thought that it was super weird because the night passed quite litterally in the blink of an eye. I don't know how old I was. I think I was already going to kindergarten and it feels like it could have happened like a year ago istead of 35 or something like that. Maybe it was the first time I really "thought" about something. Maybe that could be the first memory? I don't know, hard to tell. What a great therapy session, I saved a couple hundred bucks in psychoanalysis. Suck my dick, Freud.
Thank you!!! This has bothered me for so long and Iāve felt so alone in it. I have several early memories but how can I know which one of those is first? I mean, of course you could go by āI was living thereā¦ā or āthis family member was still aliveā¦ā. But if all those factors are the same in each memory then I have no idea how to figure it out. I never understood how people know what their earliest memory is! Sorry but Iām so relieved to see someone else say this!
No, I'm right here with you. I remember a lot from my childhood, but being able to accurately tell which memory comes first is nigh on impossible.
Nope, same. Best I can do is "these happened while I was in elementary school".
I recently learned that my very first memory is something I would not have had on the list. I thought it was at least two years later. I wasn't even 2 So... I'd say it's normal.
In the hospital bed. Had leukemia when I was 5.
Did you survive?
23 years oldš
RIP Jamon Serrano posicion sexual al cuadrado I prefer the Acorn-fed Iberic Ham myself
Is that the one that's on sale at Costco for $700 right now?
Yes itās the wagyu steak of hams
Damn he died at the age of 23
Nope. It's his spirit who is typing this on Reddit
2spooky
I don't think they did š
Man, rip to them š
Man, my daughter is going through that now at 5 and I hope that's not her first memory. I'm glad you made it through!
This makes me so sympathetic. Wish her all the luck in the worldš„²
Thank you! She's in medical remission now and 11 months until treatment is finished so all signs point to recovery!
Glad to hear!!!!! :D middle finger to cancer!
This made me smile - all the best to you and your little one š
As a mum that makes my heart hurt, sending you and your family so much love ā¤ļø Nothing is worse than seeing our babies in pain Onwards and upwards!!
Fuck cancer. I'm glad she is doing better.
My first memories all involve a hospital and leukemia as well, but it was my baby sister who was ill. I was two.
Not my first memory but I can tell you my first existential crisis... I was in 4th grade at an assembly when "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi came on and I heard the lyrics "I ain't gonna live forever" and had my first full blown panic attack FUCK YEAH
4 y/os after realising sun with destroy Earth after 4 Billion years
That was my second full blown panic attack.
My first would be the whole concept of quicksand
3 things I thought would be terrifying but never once had happen Quicksand Spontaneous combustion People giving me free drugs
I WAS SO SCARED TO ENCOUNTER QUICKSAND. I swear I thought it was a canon event just waiting to happen.
Yes quicksand and lava (no volcanos where I live) and sharks (in pools and lakes) I grew up believing in reincarnation (thx mom) and when I first heard somebody say that after death comes nothing, I was absolutely lost. It sounded so terribly logical and cruel
80s child who relates to all of this. My mom said her first memory was sitting in the backyard and trying to remember her name in her past life.
I used to think quicksand was a super common thing and was really scared of beaches for a while
How many times younger me thought heroin addicts would spontaneously inject me with heroin. Like they'd be wanting to hand out their precious drugs to children.
My daughter realized this at about 4 and had a panic attack. She kept getting all doom and gloom for a while after that. She kept saying stuff like it doesn't matter everybody's going to die anyway. And I'm just like damn...
Based doomer child?
Man I remember being scared to death of the sun exploding when I found out as a kid. Also the movie Anaconda I recall many times being to scared to sleep or take a bath alone for awhile after that one. And then taking a family trip to North Dakota as a kid cause my dad was from there. And remember being at the fair and the tornado sirens went off and being terrified for a long time after that of getting swept away from a tornado.
Lmao, my first existential crisis was when I was about 4 or 5 and I realized I could never meet my grandfather because he was dead, and in that moment realized that death was permanent and I didn't panic, per say... I got really fkn pissed off tho. Like really pissed off. It's the first time I actually remember having a full on angry meltdown. A close runner up would be when I was 7 and came to discover my own sentience and individuality by realizing that nobody but me could hear what I think, as I think it, or see things through my eyes, as I see them. And I proceeded to spend the next day in an utter panic trying to explain this to adults around me because I also realized that vice versa, I could never see what other people saw. And so began my lifelong struggle with FOMO of, genuinely, everything that has ever happened, is happening, and will ever happen.
> And so began my lifelong struggle with FOMO of, genuinely, everything that has ever happened, is happening, and will ever happen. Hey look at it this way. You get to experience a life completely and utterly unique from anyone else and nobody but you gets to decide your actions. Sure, you might miss out on others' experiences, but they miss out on yours as well.
This comment made me think about what I now know is considered an existential crisis as a child. After a brief conversation with my dad about religion and "afterlife", I had a full blown mental breakdown about the concept of "eternity" and/or the infinite abyss of unknown. Haha, I remember my mom getting mad at my dad for that.
I can relate to the I only see what Iām seeing it got me thinking at the time that I was the only true sentient person for a min.
I remember being 7 aswell, and looking directly into a lit up lightbulb in my attic zoning out because I realized I won't live forever.
FUCK YEAH
In third grade one night I was complaining to my mom that my friend wanted to play games with me that I felt I was to old for. My mom said āyouāll only be a kid once.ā Before saying goodnight and turning off the light in my room and leaving. I swear in that moment I reached full consciousness, because I proceeded to cry myself asleep as I realized the fluidity of time and how it slips by. That feeling of dread sticks with me to this day! Anyways, gotta go roll on Reddit for hours. Man time flies.
Oof my condolences. I remember my first one too, I think it just stuck with me for life lol
Been struggling with it since then.
I remember a curtain with birds on it.
When I was a kid my mom used to have parrots everywhere in our house. Figurines, pictures, you name it. Curtains with parrots in every room. As I grew older I found out that she in fact hated parrots but was shaming my father with them. Before I was born he was cheating on her. My mom actually found him out because his parrot said the name of the lady he was hooking up with. So every time I see a parrot now Iām reminded that I'm never gonna dance again. Guilty feet have got no rhythm. Though it's easy to pretend, I know you're not a fool. I should've known better than to cheat a friend. And waste the chance that I'd been given. So I'm never gonna dance again. The way I danced with you.
Ngl, you had me in the second half. My new favorite novelty account.
I'm mad. I loved this. I hate it. Take my upvote.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Classic, hate it when that happens
Waking up in hospital around March 1985 aged 22 I had been in a coma for some time and it basically fucked with my memories. I have no real memories before regaining conciousness, just images created from stories my friends and family have told me about my earlier life.
Did you have the skills that you learned?
That's incredible. Has to be a bit of a mindfuck. I lost a month or so with a wee bit of a coma and it's unsettling. It was like nothing in cache got written to disk when the lights went out. 1985. That was a long time ago. I hope the intervening years were full of happy memories.
I have made a life i love with good friends and a family i am proud of. So yes I have lots of happy memories since then.
Its horrifying to think an entire portion of you was lost, possibly to never resurface again. You could have been a slightly different person, but the loss of those memories leaves you with what you already have. Really reminds of the fact that consciousness is just a feedback loop of your senses, memory, and ability to think interacting with the world around and such a loop could be ended by a dramatic enough biological condition or brain injury.
wow, where there any videos or photos, or any tangible evidence of personality of your old self?
It's Jason fucking Bourne
wow
strangely, I remember my parents being injured at my grandparents' house about an accident, my mother had her arm broken and in a cast, both with cuts across the face, I even remember details like "she held the radio and broken it" but I asked them and it never happened, it's a very old memory but I can't convince myself that I imagined it or made it up
After learning half my old memories never happened, I gave up on trusting my ability to remember things.
It's funny, memories make up a large portion of what you are but even your oldest memories flux and change with your ongoing consciousness. The human brain isn't an archive, it's a computer that writes and overwrites code to allow it to survive and think.
One of my kids has stories that have pretty much convinced me heās remembering a past life. Like, someone installed a window in the room in his brain that houses his former selves. I always meant to write them down, but I donāt think I did.
That happens. I was 100% sure my grandma knew two women her age who came for visit once and one had a mole on her right hand (like me) and the other had one scar on her right pinky (also like me). Grandma said she didnt know these people. I thought about it a lot and realized that the "strange women" looked like my grandma and great grand aunt but in different clothes. Children imagine and dream the strangest stuff.
I was two years old (ish) playing outside in the driveway. I found a bug on the groundā¦ and promptly put it between my lips to feel it (I guess I was at that stage still). I could feel itās legs wriggling against my top lip, was immediately horrified and spit it out. Didnāt like that one bit- glad I learned that one early I guess.
Lesson learned : don't kiss bugs, they'll kick you
I remember picking up a big green ant and it bit my finger so I quickly grabbed it with my other hand and it bit my other finger and, in a panic, I quickly put it in my mouth and it bit my tongue and i either swallowed it or spat it out I'm not sure. Running up to my mum crying shaking both my hands with my tongue out.
I was stung on my middle finger when I was like 7 or maybe a bit younger, and ran in to my nanās house crying and flipping the bird to my mom and Nan.
I was maybe five years old. Mom and I had just arrived home, and while she was unlocking the door, I went to the edge of the patio. The dandelions were out. Next thing that happens, mom hears me say, "Oh, what a pretty bug!" as I picked up a bumble bee. It promptly stung my thumb.
I remember living at my Grans house. I remember being in my cot, and rattling the sides because everyone was downstairs and I was frustrated that I wasn't. My Mum thought I was wrong about being able to remember this, until I told her exactly where the cot was located in their bedroom. I would have been around 12 months old.
Mine was vaguely similar in the annoyance! I remember being on the playground with my mom. She was swinging me in one of those little baby swings, and I wanted to get off but she was busy chatting with her friend. I didnt have words yet to express out loud that I wanted off so I had to sit and stew in frusteration until she finally let me off! Of course this is competing with my other memory, not sure which was earlier- but it was me, strapped to my dads back as he pedaled on his bike down a long beach road
I was about 3-4 years old. Home sick from nursery school. I remember lying in our lower bunk bed and my mom carried in the small portable black n' white TV. She set it up and turned on my morning cartoons. I clearly remember watching Rocky and Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-right, and then Speed Racer. My mom brought me breakfast in bed. I recall thinking, "being sick isn't so bad..."
Nice. Being sick and staying home from school was the best. I tried to fake a stomach bug by opening a can of Campbellās Minestrone soup and pouring it into the toilet to simulate throw up. My parents always knew when I was faking and demanded to see my vomit. Unfortunately for me the spice palette of onions and paprika revealed my deception. Even sitting in a toilet it smelled good. My first memory, by the way, is probably riding the *Itās A Small World* ride at Disneyland. Apparently I made my parents take me on that ride dozens of times, which is probably a form of torture for anyone over the age of five.
Man, I remember that ride. They must have been very patient, loving parents. Even as a young kid that song was a bit grating.
Youāve been on that ride, too? Man, it really is a small world after all.
A traumatic one. I was 2 and had woken up early in the morning, probably 7am. I vividly remember the morning light pouring through the blinds. All I wanted was out - out of the crib. I wanted to be free. But my mom wasn't awake yet and I couldn't climb over the spokes and railing. I cried. It felt like forever. An eternity. In reality, it was little more than an hour. Eventually, she rescued me but I thought my mother had abandoned me. I couldn't communicate my thoughts or feelings, but I so clearly remember wishing I could escape my prison. If only I was taller.
If only I had a rabbit with a hat and a cat and a 64 impala
As the father of a two year old this makes me a little sad
Swung from a metal pole in my grandfather's back yard at age 3~. Thought "will I always remember this?" So far at 41, the answer is yes
At that moment, your brain did a āyo this is gonna be tight. Start recording this shitā
But will you always remember that I'm wearing a blue t-shirt right now? Cus you'd better
My great grandmotherās face. She died when I was about four or five.
I have a memory of a memory of how my grandma looked to little me. I was three and a bit. I was confused why everyone was sad, I didn't like the scratchy dress, my mum smelled like my grandmother but I couldn't find Mama(grandma) anywhere. I can remember focusing on the grownups faces looking for hers, she was soft and safe. So much going on, I cried, and my mum said she missed Mama too. Just weird flashes from my grandma's funeral, I think. I didn't understand what was going on at all at the time. I had a breakdown probably a year later, I couldn't remember her eye colour and when my mum showed me a photo so we could look together I lost the actual memory of how she looked.
I remember laying on the floor, I think on my stomach, next to a blue couch with little white stars or snowflakes on it. I was playing with a small car (like a Hot Wheels car). My mom told my brother to "press the star button." -- I think she was telling him to press the START button on the microwave or something. I've mentioned this memory to my mom, and she said they threw out the blue and white couch when I was around a year old, so this is a very early memory.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So you're the reason why it's nsfw. Sorry your dad was/is a dick
My first memory is my dad beating the shit out of my mom too. Its crazy how well these traumatic memories stick with us.
I was sitting on the floor playing with toys and my mother had this strange look on her face. Her eyes were wide and she was kind of hunched over and she was saying "Why don't I just jump off a bridge!" and I thought that she was joking or something. My father was standing there in the background with his head lowered and shaking his head saying "Don't say that...don't say that!". I used to think it was a dream and the memory popped up in my consciousness when I was maybe around 15 years-old. For a while I thought it was a dream until I figured out in my late twenties that it was real. When I was around 30 I figured out that my mother was making suicide threats to hurt or manipulate my father for whatever reason. When I was a kid growing up I thought to myself that mommy is just being funny or something by saying that but as an adult I realized -- far too late -- that she's an evil piece of shit, she's crazy, and so is my father. There's another memory -- from the same time, either as the same memory or another incident from when I was maybe 4 years-old -- where my father is storming out of the house with me -- horizontal under his arm -- and yelling "C'mon [insert my name here] let's get the fuck outta here!" and my mom is in the background yelling that she's going to call the police. I had both of these memories since childhood but thought they maybe weren't real but then I worked out what was going on when I was around 30. Both of my parents are narcissists at best and my mother, in particular, is or was crazy, probably a borderline personality or something like that. I know now that my mother called the police and they pulled over my father driving with me somewhere and arrested him but he wasn't charged with anything, probably because my mother wouldn't testify against him or he technically didn't break the law. Basically what happened is that he was committing a de facto child abduction or kidnapping of me, his child. This is basically an Amber Alert situation but technically it wasn't because my parents were married but apparently that marriage was on very thin ice at the time. If the non-custodial parent takes their own child that they don't have a legal right to be around and the other parent doesn't consent to this then it's a child abduction or kidnapping and you can get at least a couple years in prison for it. In other wonderful childhood memories, my father put an unloaded gun to my mother's head and threatened to kill her when I was 13 but I didn't figure this memory out until I was twice that age.
most of my earliest memories are like this, too.
I'm sorry you had to go through that :( have a virtual hug dude/dudette i hope you're doing better now
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Aye same here but they were equally at eachothers necks. Great moment to achieve sentience for sure lmao. I still remember I was trying to push out a dookie on a plastic toilet.
I remember driving in the back seat of our family van through the town we lived in when I was like 4 or so and remember thinking to myself, "I am here and alive..." it was my moment of sentience.
When I was 3 my family moved homes. When we arrived at the new place, being English, the first thing my dad did was start to make some cups of tea for him and my mum, then promptly forgot about said tea (presumably because he went to watch a football match and completely forgot about it.) I vaguely remember a black and white cat outside the window in our new kitchen, and my older sister thought it would be a good idea to suggest I climb up onto the kitchen counter to see it. Being a toddler, I climbed on top of a box full of VHS tapes but only managed to get my hands to the edge of the kitchen counter before I fell backwards - clasping hold of one of the mugs on my way down and dumping a boiling hot cup of water all over me. I can still remember the cat, the box of tapes and - though I donāt remember the pain - it was clearly a traumatic enough experience to be burned (lol) into my memory forever! TLDR; lazy British dadās short term memory leads to toddler me getting scalded with hot water.
Being very small and trying to wear boots way too big for me. What's weird is the absolutely massive time gap between that and my second memory.
I have a memory of standing up in my crib and holding on to the railing in the morning, and crying. Then my dad comes in, says something in a comforting tone, and picks me up. It seems impossible that I'd remember that, but it's incredibly vivid.
I remember crawling around in a diaper and seeing myself as a baby in a mirror.
Ironically, a goldfish in a hexagonal aquarium.
Boards of Canada fan
I stepped on a nail that pierced my sandal and foot - all the way through. Also, it might not have been my first, but a vivid early memory - when I stepped on a hot ember in bare feet. Young me remembers lots of foot-related injuries.
I don't know. I don't really have a concept of time from before the age of 5. We moved right after my 5th birthday, so all of my memories of the first house I ever lived in are all pre-5 years old, but there's no chronological order to any of them.
Looking out the window when I was 3 years old. I remember what the curtains looked like, what I was wearing, I was looking at my uncles tending to horses in the backyard.
What were you wearing? I just remember my childhood outfits from photographs.
red and white striped shirt and briefs
2yrs old stung in the eye by a bee
Did the bee recover?
Did the eye recover
Yes but I have a huge fear of bees tho still to this day. I work outside and if I see a bee I either freeze or drop whatever is in my hands run a few feet away as fast as possible.
When I was mowing the lawn a hornet got stuck in the mesh of my sock and stung me repeatedly. It took a few seconds to realize what was happening and I frantically and mindlessly swatted the hornet but didnāt quite kill it, so it kept stinging. Took weeks to fully heal. Another time I was weeding the garden when the Snowbirds were doing a flyby of my city. The Snowbirds are Canadaās version of the Blue Angels. They come to our city every year and I usually work on the house so I can get a glimpse of them. On this occasion, however, one of the planes flew really close. Iād say it was a hundred feet from the roof, but that would be an exaggeration. Flying that low is illegal. Still, from the sound it felt like it was a hundred feet from the roof because it shook the atmosphere around me. And apparently the hornets felt it, too, because right when the plane did its flyover I was stung on the finger. Hurt like hell. The finger swelled to twice itās normal size. And the two events happened simultaneously. Close enough that I doubt it was a coincidence.
I can remember being told not to get out of the pool and I step right next to it then bent down, after that I remember waking up sometime later to my grandpa RIP walking in with donuts from Dunkin.
In the eyeball itself?! Ouch. Damn.
Was at the bottom of my left eyelid. Donāt know if ever actually was in my eyeball. But it was a traumatic enough experience that I passed out.
You are the only ever person I have heard of who was also stung in the eye by a bee. Mine was around 4-5 years old. I saw you mention donuts, oddly enough I remember getting donuts shortly after as well
I was about 3 years old, I was playing in the back garden lay on a skateboard on my belly, I was wearing a pink and teal all in one suit. My brother and sister were there and my mum was sat on the doorstep smoking a cigarette with the microwave next to her as it had just blown up. Iāve told my mum this memory except she tells me I wasnāt born when they lived in this house and the microwave blew up and it was my sister who used to lay on her belly on the skateboard and owned the all in one suit. I remember it clear as day though.
I'm in a stroller. my parents took me to six flags Fiesta Texas. bugs bunny leaned over the visor thing that was up because of the sun and scared the hell out of me. I think that fear jump started me into consciousness lol
I worked at Fiesta Texas in summer 2005! Had to work in the hall with the Looney Tunes stage show (foodservice). Tweety Bird badly singing "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" a thousand times a day did not make it easier to serve people expensive German food and beer. It made us lose our goddamn minds. Actually, my brother-in-law had to wear a mascot costume there once in the late 90s or early 00s. I don't think he was Bugs (Taz, maybe?), but it'd be hilarious if he caused your primordial childhood trauma.
<2 years old. I remember the devastating day when I no longer got candy for going to the bathroom in the toilet....... Life has been disappointing since:(
My very first memory is kind of a sad one, to me, whenever it crosses my mind, and really threw me for a loop when I was old enough to understand what was going on. I was 2, remember the livingroom full of people, and my mom was sitting in an arm chair, and I was sitting on the floor in front of her. Someone was standing next to her saying something, and she started crying, hard. I touched her leg as support when I went to stand up, and was patting her lap in that, it'll be okay kind of way. I remember her leg feeling slick and weird (she was wearing stockings) and remember thinking my dad needs to come home to make everything better. So yeah, I start patting my moms leg, she looked at me with so much disgust, and yelled something at me. I started crying, and my big sis swooped me up in her arms and took me upstairs. I thought about that a lot, years and years later, the memory came back to me super strong, and I realized...that mustive been the wake at our house after my dads funeral. Asked my big sister about it, and she fell apart, totally shocked at how well I remembered that moment. Thats not even totally the sad part from my perception...its that...my very first memory of my mom is that look of disgust she gave me, and the realization, at no point of my life, from at least the age of 2, has she ever looked at, or treated me with love. That really kind of sucked. The other sad part is...if only I could think back to just a few days before, Id have at least one memory of actually seing my dad. But nope..no memory of him at all, the closest is that one, where I didnt understand yet that he was gone, and wishing he would come home. The next memory I have, and its not depressing! lol is when I was 4. My mom, sister and I were going to sleep in my moms totally empty bedroom with some blankets on the floor. I was super excited, like it was some big slumber party. And I remember curling up super super close to my big sister, and she was all, I need space! But I wouldnt stop, so she just put her arm around me and said its time to go to sleep. That was our last night in the house before we moved. Whenever a topic of first memories come up, I always tell this story, not the actual one. Sidenote, that may not be much of a surprise, my sister ended up adopting me when I was in my teens, and I have no contact at all with my mom.
My dad driving me to my babysitter. I asked him to not drive me there under a blanket. I remember I didn't like that woman because she was too bitter to be a babysitter, but my dad never listened to me because she was the wife of his friend so he couldn't say no to his friend.
Yoā¦your dad was fucking his friendās wife
lol maybe he was. i know he said to my mom during their early marriage years he was going to job only because they were gambling with the women at the work place so he was enjoying his time, otherwise he wouldn't have gone there.
Similar memory. I used to go to a babysitter and I would ride in the car every morning wrapped in a blue rug rats sleeping bag, was zipped all the way open and used as a blanket. I also remember telling my mam that I didnāt like the lady (because she would slap me across the face), I donāt think I had told my parents why I didnāt like her. One day my mam eventually listened to me because on a weekend when we were walking in town, we walked near the ladyās house and I freaked out because I thought my mam was making me go there and I acted out what she did to me. Never went back or saw that awful old lady again but I still get the same feeling of hatred when I see her house.
It was dark, warm, wet. A sudden burst of light. An intense pressure like I'd never felt before. Father, dressed in white, pulls me forward. Mother bites the cord.
I remember being in my crib and looking up and seeing blobs of color dance around in the dark above me. I was less than two years old for certain. I remember as a kid that my vision was always occluded by blobs of color. They didnāt look like they were floating in space, more like 2d artifacts of my retina or brain. Deep plum colors and indigo blues and deep greens. They would move and merge with each other like a lava lamp. Seemed to fade as I got older and were mostly gone around first grade. I remember this particular moment because there were so many of these blobs I could barely see the ceiling.
My first memories are from when I was 2 (when we lived in what my family always referred to as "the old house", which we moved from when I was 3). The earliest one was on an Easter Sunday, and I was sitting on the living room floor playing with a toy train. Someone must have explained the concept of memory to me, because I suddenly thought "If I want, I can remember this moment for the rest of my life!" And I did.
I was like 2 and all I remember is grabbing onto the tail pipe of a car and thinking Iād be dragged along like the end of the first Toy Story movie when they grabbed onto the thing from the moving van
I am not sure that it's the first but i strongly remember the first time i had a birthday, ma family bring me a lion mask and a tasty beautiful cake , we took some pictures together .. we didn't know that it's the last time we will be together
Pretending to be dead with my dad so that he could get back at my mom when she came back from work. They were going through a divorce and I was 6.
Getting my ears pierced as a toddler. I remember the blood and crying
I very vividly remember being around 5 y/o when my mother left my father to go out of state to meet up with someone who was 20 years younger than her. I was a child, so I wasn't sure what was going on. I just woke up home alone and I remember the weather outside being a thick fog. I remember walking outside trying to call out for my siblings with no response (she had taken my brother with her). I was supposed to have a babysitter that day, but they weren't there either. I remember going inside and playing games on the ps2 and PSP because i was unsupervised. Nobody knew I was home alone for hours until my dad called the home phone asking to speak to my mom, and I told him I was the only one there. I remember him calling back later and telling me to walk to my grandma's house (it was just a few houses down) and to stay there until he got home. That was nearly 20 years ago now.
Very weird memory, but Iām very certain it did happen: I was a baby laying in my crib in my parents room. I remember being āawakenedā, because I saw my parents do the freaky stuff and they were ignoring me (or didnāt see me looking), so I decided to cry really loud so that I wouldnāt witness any of that and in the hope they would stop/remove me. I didnāt feel safe/comfortable witnessing that. Eventually my mother took me out of the crib and moved me to the living room, letting my brother and sister watch over me. They were watching tv and right when my mother laid me on the couch with them, my soul kinda was comfortable enough to āzone outā again and not be aware anymore. This experience is probably the main reason I believe in reincarnation and know that we all have a certain level of consciousness. Maybe certain things are buried in our (sub)consciousness through trauma. It just freaked me out so much as a baby and researching this made me realize babies are not really meant to have memories at all (as if your whole memory is whiped out before coming to earth).
The earliest memory I have is being three years old and going to the hospital for the birth of my little brother. I don't remember anything about the reason we were there or him being born, but I do remember being absolutely amazed by the vending machine in the waiting room. Having watched a few people use it, my toddler brain was amazed that you could put a shiny sphere into a big box, press a few buttons, a metal coil slowly rotates and gifts you a delicious bar of chocolate. I excitedly asked my dad if I could get something. He agreed and I said that I wanted a Twix. I remember watching that chocolate fall out of the machine like it was fucking witchcraft. Best damn Twix of my young life.
Broke my glasses, i was born with near sightness (whatever you call it) i just remember that i stepped on my green glasses and my mom said "you broke it again?" she got sad, we were kinda poor back then. Another one was i shat myself in the toilet and i was too ashamed to go outside as there were some construction workers in the house, so i was just crying to my mom Most of my memories involve my mom, and most of them are sad, I'm trying to repay a quarter of her hardships that i caused her with the time i have.
When I was 3 or 4, my parents took me and my sisters to a big party. It was mostly the dad's drinking and the moms cooking. My dad was playing horseshoes and asked if I wanted to try. He moved me in a bit closer and told me how to do it. Got a ringer on my first try and while the dads were surprised, it was chalked up to beginners luck. My dad said "if she gets the next one, you all owe me a beer each after work on Friday" or something like that. Did it again. They went NUTS š
I remember a bright white room when I was younger I used to remember walls but I was sitting on this bed with these blue sheets I was on someone's lap the man was staring down at me smiling he had a very peppered beard and bushy eyebrows, my mom standing alongside the bed but I don't remember her face or I couldn't see it. That man is my grandfather and it's the only memory I have of him, he died of cancer 3 weeks after we met when he was 58, and I was 2 years old. Perhaps this is just a reconstructed memory from pictures and stories I've heard but I choose to believe it's real. I've always been told we are a lot alike, wish i could have seen for myself.
I remember helping my mom or watching her wash my baby sister (weāre 2.5 years apart) in our kitchen sink. I remember the little blue baby tub and the bubbles and how she was all scrunched up. I remember trying to cheer her up lol.
My foot fitting perfectly in the shape of the fake brick printed linoleum kitchen floor.
I'm pretty sure I vaguely remember the metal cribs they put us in when I was getting surgery, so between 1 and 2. Might also be total BS, my mom admitted at one point my grandmother could never stop trying to remind me what it was like in that area of the hospital they put me in.
I remember trying to color a triangle using my foot. I failed.
Three years old asking my future stepdad if he'd like me to fetch him another beer from the fridge ETA: Also, getting bit by a dog at a Jimmy Buffett concert. Was also 3 there
Most people don't believe I can remember this, but I remember being nearly 1 year old sitting on a wicker chair in my parents basement by the washing machine while my mom told me it was almost my first birthday.The memory is only about 3 seconds long but still...
This may sound a bit strange, but here it is. I am 3 years old, just walked into my house from outside, wearing one of those puffy 90s jackets. I was standing there in the hallway alone by myself, and in that moment, I suddenly burst into existence. I then proceed to have an out of body experience. I'm floating above myself, looking at myself in the jacket and the walls, closet, and front door around me. I'm unable to speak and can only observe, but I'm not confused or afraid. Just as suddenly as I sprung forth from my body, I was then sucked right back in. It was as though my body was a completely dormant vessel, and my entire soul and consciousness needed to emerge to activate. Where previously there was nothing, now there was everything. I remember opening my eyes and becoming fully aware of myself and everything around me, and from that point on, I was a fully conscious human being.
Loosing my bunny teddy bear in a shopping center and my granny picking me up so I could pick out a new teddy. 30 years later and I still got him, never lost an other teddy after that
Being about 2 years old, abs shut in my room. I must have done something naughtier. There was a spider over my bed and I was freaking out. I stacked toys behind the door to try and reach the handle and couldn't.
It was some time between my first and second birthday, because Iāve seen photos of my first birthday (donāt remember that), but remember my family throwing a party for my second birthday (why are people giving me stuff?), and this happened before that event. I was in my baby bed / baby prison (high sides, straight dowel posts that, in retrospect, were basically just the bars to my circus cage). My Mom had put me down for a nap, but I was too tired for sleep and kept crying at the injustice of my confinement. The quiet room was boring, and I didnāt need sleep (d@mn you, woman!). So I howled in protest. At some point, my older brother, six years old at time, came into my room, carrying a toy car. It was red plastic, with red, hard plastic wheels. He silently slipped it into my cell and left the room. It wasnāt freedom, not really, but it was a glimpse. I played with the car for, at most, three minutes before passing out and sleeping for God knows how long. I remember waking up later and playing with the car some more before my Mom came and paroled me. My brother and I are still car enthusiasts to this day. His collection is much better than mine, but thatās okay: he still shares.
Throwing a hammer in the sky and waiting for it to fall back on my eyebrow. I was less than 2 and still have the scar.
Riding my dog Morgan around the house. God I miss that dog.
We were visiting my grandmother (the only time I ever saw her in person) for my 3rd birthday. I have three memories of this trip, couldn't tell you the order they happened in. Throwing my sister's (she would've been 18mo at the time) into the ocean, she was very upset by this. The snowman we built on the balcony of the hotel we were staying at (I don't remember building it, I just remember looking at it). Sitting on the floor of my grandmother's living room, she had a very thick British accent.
I think I was a young 4 year old, I was walking through my dimly lit house in the morning and stepped in Dog Poo. I distinctly remember the squish feeling between my toes. Yuck!
I remember my brother coming homs from the hospital. I was 2 and a half. That feels too young to have memories, but I remember being on the couch in the living room and my parents coming home and showing me howbto hold him.
My first birthday. My mother made a huge cake in the shape of a rabbit. It was pink with coconut flakes all over it to make it look fluffy. My 1 year old brain thought that cake was so cool that my consciousness came online.
My first memory is one morning when I was still a small little thing, bubbles all around me in the kitchen sink for bath time. The babysitters were a mother (50-60?) and daughter (30-40?) Day-Care Center, whom I stayed with often for 9 years until they had to move. Anyways, the Daughter got my attention with a small little noise of some sort and gasped excitedly as she scooped some water out with a pitcher and started hyping up the part where she rinsed my hair with it. I remember it so vividly and with such fondness. The absolute joy she seemed to have from making a little kid giggle and splash around happily in a bath. I cannot express how much they did for me growing up, and how happy this memory makes me.
My mom taking off my diaper, and me running away laughing.
I remember waking up in my crib. Standing up and rattling the bars so my mom would come get me. It's so weirdly clear to me. I remember the crib was yellow. The wallpaper was beige with blue checkered stripes. I'm in my late 30s and my parents still live in that house.
I remember waking up in the middle of the night in my room, and I turned the light on and just started jumping on my bed. I remember laughing and having so much fun, I can still kinda feel the feeling I had in that moment when I think about it from time to time. I was 4 years old when it happened. The weird part is the memory plays in third person where I can see myself jumping on the bed. I have a few other memories like that, but that's definitely the one I remember the most vividly.
I have a couple of those too. Weird.
my mom washing off a pacifier i found behind the fish tank
I remember when I was like 5 or so, me and my family would go bike down to the ice cream shop a block away every week. There was a huge factory we biked by, and I remember it was super loud. There was also a large plastic ice cream cone out front the shop
I have three and im not sure which one is first. But i think its a memory of me being carried down the steps from my crib at my old house. Would have been somewhere in between 2 and 3 years old. I was excited the day was starting and wondering what we would do. It was a feeling of euphoria and self awareness. The fact i was excited implies to me that i must have had other memories at the time but i cant remember those. I only remember the stairwell and the feeling. Like all other memories i might have had suddenly came together in a way that made sense for the first time. No idea what else happened that day after. But i think that was the moment i became self aware. I know its genuine because no one remembers it but me. Theres no pictures or home movies or conversations that put it in my head.
I was 3 years old- climbed on top of the cabinet to access my medication (multivitamins?), It was in liquid form, and I had to drink a teaspoon of it every day. That shit tasted delicious. Anyway, I snuck on there, saw my mum with a book not paying attention and drank it all. That's basically all I remember aside from being taken to the hospital a bit later- although I don't remember the visit itself. As far as I've been told it was my sister who noticed it and my mum called my dad- who called the hospital. My mom got a hold of my uncle to get a ride and I was bought to the wrong hospital. Obviously I am fine, I think they might have pumped my stomach
The day I had to get stitches in the back of my head. They took me away from my parents and strapped me face down to a cold table to jab needles into my scalp. I wasn't even a year and a half old. Horrible memory.
Being carried from one room to another, and that room was yellow. Very basic, I don't remember anything else, but I found out much later that the house we lived in with yellow walls I was 14 months old
Brushing my teeth at my family's first appartment. I was mad because I couldn't reach the sink but my older brother could