This entry discusses lack of childhood memories, trauma and dissociation.

Last night, my sister and I decided to go into the lounge and watch the 20th Anniversary special of Hannah Montana.

She was in tears.

Not the quiet kind either. The kind that comes from deep within, soft yet profound. She laughed through her tears, expressing disbelief at how old she felt, how much time had flown by, how it all held significance.

Then she turned to me and asked, “why aren’t you crying? You used to be obsessed with this!”

I was at a loss for words.

Because I wasn’t.

I was just… there.

She told me that I used to be obsessed with it, that I had merchandise, that it was supposedly a significant part of my childhood.

And I trust her word.

I’ve seen the photographs; surrounded by posters, toys, DVDs. Evidence that a version of me existed who loved something so deeply it took up space.

But I can’t remember any of it.

Not the excitement.

Not the emotions.

Not the small, mundane moments.

Just… emptiness.

It’s a peculiar form of grief, realising your childhood happened and you weren’t a part of it. As if you were physically there, but mentally somewhere else entirely. As if someone else lived those years, and then presented you with the evidence after.

People often talk about nostalgia like it is a universal emotion. As if it’s something everyone experiences; this warm, aching connection to their past selves.

But what happens when there is nothing to connect to?

What happens when you look back and find nothing but static?

My psychiatrist told me something that made it make sense, in a clinical way.

When you grow up in distress, when your mind is trying to survive the chaos, it doesn’t store memories the same way. Dissociation acts as a kind of shield. You don’t fully experience things, so they don’t fully form.

It’s not that nothing happened in my childhood. It’s that my mind didn’t allow me to be present for it.

Research on complex trauma explains this; chronic trauma can disrupt how memories are encoded and stored, and dissociation can interfere with forming coherent autobiographical memories (the memories your brain stores about your life, basically) (van der Kolk, 2014; Brewin, 2014). People with BPD and Complex PTSD often report fragmented or missing childhood memories, not because they’re “forgetful”, but because their minds were protecting them the only way they knew how.

By leaving.

So, while my sister was crying over something we supposedly shared, I was sitting there trying to feel anything.

I kept waiting for it to hit me.

A song.

A scene.

A feeling.

Something to prove that I was there too.

But there was just this heavy, quiet numbness.

And beneath it was something worse; the realisation that a so-called “massive” part of my childhood isn’t just forgotten. It’s vanished.

I think that’s the part people don’t really talk about. Losing your childhood isn’t always dramatic. It doesn’t always come with a clear before-and-after. Sometimes it’s just sitting in the lounge, watching a show you’re supposed to adore, and realising you can’t even access the version of you who did.

It’s being told stories about who you were and feeling as though they are about a stranger. It’s seeing evidence of joy and love but having no memory of ever feeling it.

I should have felt something last night.

That is what keeps screaming in the back of my head.

I should have cried.

I should have laughed.

I should have felt something.

I should have remembered.

But I didn’t.

Because I couldn’t.

And that may be the most difficult part to accept; not that I have forgotten my childhood, but that I never truly got to live it in the first place.

References:

Bessel van der Kolk (2014) The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Viking. Available at: https://ia601604.us.archive.org/35/items/the-body-keeps-the-score-pdf/The-Body-Keeps-the-Score-PDF.pdf (Accessed: 27 March 2026).

Chris Brewin (2014) ‘Episodic memory, perceptual memory, and their interaction: Foundations for a theory of posttraumatic stress disorder’, Psychological Bulletin, 140(1), pp. 69–97. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033722 (Accessed: 27 March 2026).