As a teenager, I can remember large swaths of time missing. I had very few memories before the age of 12
. It was almost like I suddenly “hatched”, at the at age of 12. It never occurred to me there was anything wrong with that. To me, that was normal. And since I thought it was normal, it never occurred to me to check with anyone else if they had experienced the same thing. Even my own twin brother!
Communication was not a strong suit in my family.
I will say that what I have learned in the past year or so, is that my concept of time is different. I have no concept of time. I am aware time is linear, but not for me.
As a result, when looking back before the age of 12 and with the large blank spots, there are a couple of memories I remember. I don’t remember times things happened. All I have are snapshots or short “movies”. The only way I can determine when something happened are by “markers”. By markers, I mean whether or not I was living in the house in my first 12 years or after that. Which college I was in or what State I lived in. Where I was employed at the time, etc.
So once I have a marker, I can kind of group memories together, though not in any semblance of order. Weather can give me some kind of reference too. But all there is, is a grouping of memories. I can’t for example, say I remember this happened in a particular month and in this year. And I can’t say that this thing happened first, followed by something else. That just doesn’t exist for me.
So going back to my early childhood, the memories are basically snapshots, I can’t tell you when they happened, I do have a couple of memories from that time. But I didn’t know the cause of the large blank spaces.
I wouldn’t know the true cause of the blank spaces until a couple of decades later.
There are certain situations that will bring the “others” out (that is my word for the other folks inside, personalities if you will, but that’s not what I think of them). Anyway, situations such as: being triggered in the present by something that happened in the past, or perhaps reacting with strong reactions such as anger or fear,
Those kinds of reactions will bring the others out. And what happened, particularly early on, was lost time. I did not realize at the time I was losing time. It was only afterwards that I realized that there was some sort of time gap. It was a completely blank space. Now because time goes on, that’s the only way I know I lost time. I have no idea what happened during the “lost” time. I will give an example of lost time and what can happen.
I don’t remember where this happened, but I came across this woman. She reacted to me like we had been best friends. She was excited to see me and all that. I acted the same, even though I had absolutely no idea who this woman was! I have no idea who this woman was or where I knew her from. My thought is one of the others knew her, because I certainly didn’t!
It’s similar to if you are driving down the highway and all of a sudden you realize you are further than you thought you would be. That’s kind of what happens to me., only more frequently.
Let me know if you want to hear more about this. I can expand on this topic.
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