Falsifying memories

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A lot of us probably have visible snapshots of events that happened to us in the past. Each snapshot has a meaning associated with it.

Have any of you guys ever determined that one of the interpretations associated with those snapshots was DELIBERATELY FALSIFIED, often WITHOUT your knowledge?

Here's an example -- something which I didn't realize was a falsified memory for almost 20 years. There is a scene in which a classmate's behavior encourages me to develop a crush on a girl in 7th grade. After all, if he does it, I have to do it to so I can look normal. I do so, and suddenly I find myself in the unexpected position that a real person is more interesting than my imaginary friends. My recovery is underway.

That's all fine and dandy. However, it turns out that the snapshot includes a picture of the hallway the classmate is in. The hallway implies a building. And it is a building that I only used in 8th grade. This in turn means that it couldn't have been used in 7th grade for the purpose I thought it was used for!

Moving that snapshot into 8th grade causes the interpretation to change drastically. By 8th grade, the crush was a fait accompli -- and very controversial for me, given the AS. Apparently I needed something to justify its existence as I don't know where it came from. I see someone doing something which could be used as an excuse to explain it. The 7th grade memories are then falsified to take advantage of this "fact".

Similarly, there is a memory in which I turn 13 and decide that since I'm a teenager I will try to imitate what everyone else does. I decide that I should become interested in sports since my friend is. This makes perfect sense...except that I had been collecting baseball cards and playing in Little League since at least 3rd grade! Clearly, that's another falsified memory trying to justify the existence of something of unknown origin which is also a fait accompli.

What's really frightening is -- if I've found two of them, how many of them am I still imposing on myself with my knowing it? One could be a fluke. Two, however...

Does anyone else with AS do this?

ACG

ACG - don't worry. it sounds as though you've just collapsed two memories into one. the subconscious does this in everyone, as far as i'm aware (prepares herself to be lambasted). it's not a falsified memory, just a re-interpreted one.

i embroider things all the time, until i'm not sure what really did happen. but then, i'm a storyteller, so i have to make it sound better. it used to worry me, but as soon as i stopped worrying, i cut the tendency right down.

if you analyse everything like i do, pick the images to pieces, as you have done, and then see what differences it makes to the interpretation when you use all permutations of combining or splitting them.

V

I've noticed with some of my memories, that although the events that happened were not changed, things realting to the memory were changed, like an event that happened in our living room during a certain time where the furniture was arranged in such a way from another period in time.

Kind of like you described ACG

As some people here might know, I study psychology at school and recently did a study on memory. Its perfectly normal for your mind to subconciously change your memories to fit in with your ideas of how the world is.

For example a poster was put up in a room (this was a couple of decades ago) showing a white man mugging a black man. This poster was left up for a few weeks then taken down. People who used the room were asked a few weeks after that to describe the poster. They all (or nearly all...can't remember) described the poster as having a black man mugging a white man....because it fitted it with what they thought- they changed the memory to make sense to them.

My memories are constructed to best serve me

I agree it's nothing to worry about. Particularly as you're so good at validating/invalidating your memories with detective work.....it's the people who cling to false memories and insist they're perfectly accurate that should be worrying.

I don't usually remember things as snapshots, I just retain a few aspects of the occasion, and I'm usually quite skeptical even about the few details I've retain.

A counsellor once told me that the memory of material details can be very inaccurate but memories of intense emotions are always well-preserved. I don't know whether that's as true of Aspies though, because of emotions being so difficult for us to pinpoint.

I'm currently having a good time digging out my old photographs and comparing them with my memories (I haven't seen the photos for many years). No great surprises so far, but there's a lot of info in them that I'd forgotten all about.

Nothing to worry, It happens to everybody, expecially during childhood or traumatic experience. NT and AS, it has nothing to do with AS it has to do with being humans.