Freedomain Radio

I have a fantastically weak long-term memory. I am trying to collect as many memories of my childhood as possible and map out my emotional history, but I have very few memories prior to my teenage years. Even my teenage years consist of only a handful of memories that are accessible to me at any one time, which is why I am trying to get as much of it on paper (screen) as possible.

In examining my history of childhood trauma, I have been unable to unearth any traumatic events prior to my teenage years. While I know that it is common for conflict to ramp up between children and their (bad) parents during those years, it seems implausible to me that conflict came up between my parents and I out of nowhere, and that I had no significant traumatic experiences before then.

Does anyone else have experience with trying to map out their emotional history despite their poor long term memories? If so, what exercises or techniques did you find helpful in this pursuit?

Also, if you have any first- or third-hand experiences to relate about exposing (or not exposing) deeper patterns in a child's emotional experience when at first it seems that they bloom out of nowhere during the teen years, this would be very helpful.

Thanks as always.

Are you sure it's your long-term memory which is weak? I have a really good semantic memory when I really want to put something in it, but it's always episodic memory which I have trouble maintaining/accessing. (Making a lot of my past, even recent years and as recently as yesterday or last week, a blur.)

The reason I ask this is because from my experience of you it seems to me that you have a very good semantic memory.

To answer your question, so far for me what's been happening is that when journaling and thinking about what's going on for me presently that I don't like, I'll have memories surge up to consciousness because of some association between what I'd been thinking about and the memory. Through this working backward I'll have memories come back to me which I couldn't access very well by trying to work from the past forward, thinking about a particular time in my life and trying to bring memories back in a more conscious and structured manner.

I often get prior memories popping up when something similar happens to me. I really dont know if there are techniques out to remember forgotten experiences.