Ask Lemmy

3ish. I remember being tasked to pick up sticks, remember the back yard, the towering white pines, my mom trying and failing to start a lawnmower.

I remember visiting my uncle and being young enough I slept in a crib, but I was old enough to walk around. I barely remember anything else about the trip though.

I don't think i can place another memory until preschool. I can remember the layout of the preschool and some activities we did at it.

When I was about three years old, I walked down the hallway from my room toward the living room. I remember that even in that moment it felt like I had blacked out halfway through and my brain started working a couple of steps from the living room door. Everything before that is blank, yet I have tons of memories from the weeks and months after that event.

I can remember grabbing green shag carpet while I was still crawling. The memory is still very tangible. I also remember the mirrors in the house, our yard, and touching a hot element of the stove. We moved out of that place before I turned 3.

I will be 50 next year.

heck even when I was in junior high my earliest was like 5.

I go as far back as teenager period. I think I have had some of my more fonder moments and disappointments. Childhood in general is a spotty mess.

I have very small flashes of my life from when I was very small. I can't say if any of them are false memories. I certainly don't experience them in a way I can think about what the furniture looked like or anything.

Youngest is when I was at my grandparents house. I was crawling past the door to the bedroom I slept in. It wasn't a scary place for me but it was dark and I couldn't see I in and I was scared and crawled past it fast. I think I was old enough to walk, but I wasn't for some reason.

I remember moving out of an old house we lived in and it had a tire swing. I was definitely younger than kindergarten, but I don't know exactly how old. I probably wouldn't recognize the place if I drive past it, but maybe I would.

I remember sitting in a high chair at my grandparents cottage being fed bananas by a young girl with dark hair. I don't remember her face at all. It might've been the granddaughter of my grandparents neighbor, or there's a small chance it was my bio-mom. But if it was her that would have to be from the first few months of my life.

That's all I have from before I was school age.

My early childhood memories are weird because they’re out of order.

Like, what I consider my very first memory is my dad telling me that today is my 5th birthday. However, I also have memories that, to me, happened later in my life but I was told those happened when I was younger. One example I can think of is sitting in a chair having my picture taken. And my parents showed me that picture and said I was three at the time. Another is getting bitten on the face by a dog and looking at the wound in a mirror, which apparently also happened when I was three.

I don’t know if that’s common for someone’s early childhood memories to feel disordered like that.

Quite a bit. Most of it traumatic. A happier one was when I was nearly two I remember the last moon landing and how everyone was talking about it being the last one. I was really sad since it seemed like something I would want to do. As for the trauma I have far too many memories. Just one from around the same time. I remember my mother slapping me off the kitchen counter and ending up with a life long scar on my face. I have no idea what I did to 'earn' it.

My memory seems to come online surprisingly late.

The first memories kick in around 6, but really it's just a few small disoriented flashbacks. At 11, I vividly remember my first relationships, but not much more.

Comprehensively, I remember myself since about 16. That's when I can finally tell the order of events, and can visually recall key points.

Interestingly, I have otherwise good memory.

...two years of age easy, but things get fuzzy toward my first year...

Barely anything from childhood to adulthood except for maybe a few memories per year. Even then I need a pro.pt to unlock the memory. Like I remember one or two things from early elementary and don't really remember middle school at all. A bit more of high school, and early 20s. Pretty much everything is difficult to recall at will, but will get floods of memories with the right triggers.

My entire memory runs on being reminded of things for the most part. Like I might remember associations and positive or negative opinions of things, but without a trigger I don't really remember why.

Funny enough it works great in a technical environment where there are plenty of triggers to remind me of some random obscure thing and a searchable emails and documentation that help to guide the flood of recall. The memories are there, just lost in a giant soup of memories blending together.

Have ADHD.

I still remember when I became conscious, so to speak. I was 3 years old and I was sitting on a couch in my parents living room. My mom and dad were sitting on a couch opposite to me and also watching tv. It was night and the only light was from the tv. I specifically remember the room was bare since my mom and dad just moved in but my I can see my toy box underneath the big window on the opposite side of the room from me. It was a large blue bucket. Past that, I can't remember a whole lot other than images.

I remember my mom changing my diaper and then vomiting. It surprised me. Not sure how old i was.

I have 2 memories from when i was around 2 years old. 1 happened shortly after my second birthday where i got half my hand ripped off by a dog. I remember it pretty well too. Including the ride to the hospital. The other is where my father severely beat my mother. Both very traumatic memories and both i vividly remember.

Earliest confirmed memory is around age 2. I was in the courtroom being adopted, sitting on the judges stand being asked if I wanted to live with my adopters. It's possible my earliest memory is a little before that, while living with my bio parents, but I have no way of knowing if it's a real or not.

My earliest memory is from preschool around 4 years old.

My first memory is being in a car seat driving around bawling my head off because I didn't know anyone around me. I was probably 14 to 18 months old.

I know how it was my birth father but he was never around, he still likes to complain about it as well but doesn't know that I remember and that I still can feel the fear I felt.

I'm convinced I remember a dream from when I was 3 years old.

I've forgotten most of my childhood. I have a few flashback memories per year, but otherwise, even for 3rd/4th grade, I barely remember anything. In general, the older you get, the more you'll forget them, but some people do have better memories than others.

The oldest thing I can remember is wandering around strangers at a party in the backyard of the first house I lived in as a kid. When I told my mom and described everything I could remember she said the only time they ever had such a party was when my brother was born and I was 2.

I have a handful and none of them really good. My parents divorced when I was 4 so they're at the latest from them and some definitely younger.

The only memories I have before 3 that I know are real are traumatic.

My Grampy's funereal day at my Granny's house. I'm being carried down her driveway. Everything is so strange looking because the perspectives are so different from the norm. I can only assume it's my mom carrying me. All I really remember is the trees with the black stripes for the gypsy moths.

I also remember being late in age 2 and I go to cross the street, see a car coming, so I come back. Then when I go to cross the street, I tripped and just happened to land my knee on a sharp stone. I remember lifting my knee and it was just entirely coated in blood. (I probably could have used like one stitch. It healed fine. Still have the scar)

Then nothing much until around 4 or 5 when it starts to come together and be more coherent.

I vaguely remember a trip to Hong Kong... visiting from mainland China.

Like I remember the double decker bus... the 輕鐵, 纜車...

I remember a Hotel Room and it need some keycard thing to unlock the door and you need the keycard placed in the... idk what you call it... like a slot you leave the keycard in order for the electricity to work, I guess they want to save electricity, since you need to the keycard to get back in. I remember a bunch of relatives being there but its all a blur.

Idk when the trip happened honestly, but saw some photos in a photo album and the date printed is something like 2005 (I think?, I kinda doubt my memories of looking at the photos), and I was born in 2002, so my earliest memories is about 3 years old I guess...

I vaguely remember kindergarden, remember having naps there...

1st 2nd grade slightly more to remember... but its still blurry.

Remember one time going to McDonalds...

Sometimes visiting parents villages

Some memories at the store/supermarket

The mall area

Exploring the mountains with dad

Honestly every memory before arriving in the US is all a blur, its like a past life.

Well I have a traumatic memory at around age 6 when I was in China... I commented that a lot here you can search through post history, but basically my older brother chased me around the apartment so I ran out the apartment and out the building... idk what exactly I was thinking at the time but probably something like home scary so I ended up going to my mom's workplace only to find here not there, when I got home, there was a bunch of cops looking for me since I was reported missing.

...

Anyways my most vibrant memories are of NYC, its merely like 3-4 years and those were my happiest and most interesting memories.

I felt like my life really began in NYC at 8 years old...

Perhaps that traumatic incident made it hard to remember China

Edit: I still remember the layout of the apartment I used to live in...

I have a memory of opening the refrigerator and being just about eye level with the bottom shelf. There was a large drawer beneath it. There was a pie on that shelf. I yelled to my mom, "What kind of pie is this?" Rhubarb, she tells me. I think, "Why would she make a rhubarb pie when she knows I don't like rhubarb?"

Because the refrigerator was one of those with the "pull/lift latch" handles, it must have been in our first house. We moved out of that house when I was about two and a half.

Couldn't tellnyou an age. Remember a singular thing about an old house my grandparents lived in. One room had stairs in it that lead to an attic you couldn't enter without falling through. I remembered the stairs and was just recently told the attic was basically inaccessible.

Then we jump to who knows how old, both before I was ever in school, in a basement. On a folded out couch bed, playing video games. I also vaguely remember some Kids WB nonsense my brothers and I would watch on an old TV.

Those are basically the oldest memories I can think of, at least that I'm willing to share.

Edit:

I personally find these memories strange that I remember since my memory from before a 2nd open heart surgery I had done tend to be kinda fuzzy and all over the place.

We lived in a small starter home until I was four. I have several memories from that house, including at least one birthday and Christmas, as well as my mom's birthday, I think.

My earliest memory, or at least what I count as my earliest memory, is being pushed around the block in a stroller. I specifically remember being fascinated by the fact that the sidewalk stopped mid-block, just a grass path for maybe 10 yards before the pavement started again near the corner. It was a disruption of expectations. The sidewalk is infinite, the sidewalk is unbroken, the sidewalk is eternal, and somehow it isn't. I miss those days when every day brought something new and unfathomable to my little mind.

UPDATE:

Some possibly earlier memories:

Being potty trained.

Going to McDonalds and bringing the food home.

Watching my brother or neighbor play the NES port of Burger Time, the very first video game I can remember, either that or Super Mario Bros.

Sneaking out of my room to eat salt straight from the shaker.

Some social worker visiting the house and having me pick up colored plastic circles from the floor. I think it was a vision test.

Hiding behind the couch when Sesame Street came on.

I also have misty dream-like impressions of the zeitgeist of the 80s, songs, TV shows, technology, etc. I think that's why I like synthwave and cassette futurism. It reminds me of those foggy early memories. Every now and then I'll run across the name of a show or a description of some early home computer and be like "Oh yeah, that really did exist and wasn't just the product of my little baby brain."

I have some flashes from 2 to 3. I remember my mom giving my younger brother a bath in the tub. He's 14 months younger than me.