Repressed Memories?

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For those who don't know, I finally realised/accepted that I have aspergers at 30 and am spending a lot of time and having a lot of trouble understanding and dealing with that knowledge and all the associated fallout.

One thing that I am trying to understand is the fact that I have a fairly normal and consistent set of memories (though not as impressive as some of you) going back to about 11. Then pretty much nothing. It is as if the memories I laid down up until then are there encased in amber and I can see fuzzy pieces if I look from the right angle but much of what I know about myself from that age is from being told about how I was rather than remembering. I had much more sever autistic symptoms that I do now around that time and were it not for the fact I was really talkative I may well have been diagnosed autistic. I can remember through the fog how massively confusing and upsetting this time was (although I didnt know anything else so there was also a sense of this just being how life was) and I have clearly beein repressing the memories to protect myself. I had considered that I maybe just have a poor memory but I really still find it painful to think about or to watch an old holiday video shoeing me having a massive tantrum or rocking my head from side to side. For that reason I am sure I am preventing myself from thinking about this.

Just for the record I am certain there was no abuse in a physical or sexual sense - just to nip that one in the bud before someone suggests it.

Is this common for aspies or does anyone have any thoughts or advice since I really want to understand myself but I don't want to give myself a breakdown.

Firstly, I don't have a diagnosis, so what I say may not be relevant. I have a very patchy memory of my childhood. I can recall some images and incidents, dating back to when I was about 2, very clearly. But, I can hardly remember any kids from high school. People have approached me, telling me they remember me and they know my name, etc, but I can barely recognise them and don't remember their names, even when they tell me. I easily mistake one person for another and am never sure if the person is who I think they are. I do remember my friends fine (and the bullies). I remember everyone from my primary school class and can even remember where they all sat, in my last year there. But, primary was wonderful, high school was hell and I think I've chosen to forget the more painful times, yet strangely remembering those that made life misery. I think the 'inconsequential' people have been omitted entirely.

No; I have fairly strong memories about my childhood. I didn't have a bad childhood though, so nothing to repress. I would like to forget the bullying, but nope, haven't repressed it.

Around three is when my thread stops.

Most people I know (who happened to be nt) are the same, or can even go back further.

Have a friend from a crazy family who remembers his parents having a physical fight in front of him when he was in the play pen.

So eleven is pretty late in life to have your recorded history stop whether you're an aspie or not.

In fact thats rather strange.

Oh.

I cant remember much at all - my short term is blergh and my long term is patchy for my entire life - ive got about 6 or 7 things i can remember most of the time and i need quiet and dark to remember anything else but i need reminding of the incident.

Bugger.

I can remember my childhood very clearly, except for 4th grade. I don't remember 4th grade, and it's disturbing to me.

Disturbing is right - For a long time I just assumed that people often didnt remember much further but it sounds more like most people even with the trauma of AS and bullying etc seem to have fairly clear memories going back much further than mine. What I do know is that much of growing up was painfull and confusing but then people say it's like that for everyone and so it is only now, looking into AS that I am resisting the urge to just not think about it that has probably allowed it to become so deeply burried.

As I said, I cant say there are NO memories from before 11 but they are all tiny momentary snapshots of usually traumatic stuff like running out of school in the middle of the day, terrified and confused, to hide in the nearby graveyard and completely freaking out because I had a spelk in my finger and a member of staff wanted to touch my hand and help remove it. I understand how someone can repress a memory of a particular traumatic event but the thought that I may have actually been so traumatised on a daily basis that I suppressed YEARS is very very unsettling.

I have a lot of blanks in my life but I don't know if it's repressed memories or just a whacky memory in general. I can remember numbers extremely well but I often need some kind of trigger to 'unlock' other memories, even mundane ones.

No, as a person with AS, my memories have not been repressed. My earliest memory was of a tornado that knocked the power out at my home. I remember my mother and father on either ends of a sectional couch with me in the middle and all of these flashes of light and booms with the storm. I remember hearing the howling wind. I was six months old. That is, I believe, my earliest memory. I can recollect many things (many times as if they were yesterday) from each grade level.

My childhood was very happy and autism did not traumatize me. Autism actually created a magical and enjoyable childhood for me. I have greatly enjoyed the special intense interests autism has allowed me to have. I have also greatly enjoyed the talents autism has given to me such as musical abilities.

I have periods like that. A lot of my childhood memories seem to be weirdly smudgy, and besides whatever interest I had at the time, I can't remember much. I've always thought of them as sitting at the bottom of a lake (idk is that weird?). Lately though, since I've been considering the possibility of having Asperger's, a lot of the humiliating stuff is coming back. There is a period of two years that are really blocked off for me and the diaries that I kept at the time suggest that I was really locked in my own head at that point. So for me, I think it's a combination of repressed memories and the fact that I simply didn't notice my environment/surroundings at certain points in my life...

Yeah, so, like this I guess: http://life-with-aspergers.blogspot.co. ... emory.html (top comment below the main article - talks about CPTSD)

Heh. I can't remember parts of my adult life. One time my ex made a comment about the house down the street that burned. I had no idea what he was talking about. Apparently, I saw the fire trucks there and everything. I simply don't remember it. At all. I also sometimes have problems remembering if I really had a conversation with someone, or if I just practiced having it. Recently, I was reading my daughter's results from her first evaluation and I have to say I don't remember a lot of what is in the report. My episodic memory sucks.

One time someone convinced me that I must have repressed memories from childhood because I have a very strong negative reaction to being tickled. It causes a meltdown. She insisted it was a sign of sexual abuse, but no matter how much I wracked my brain, I couldn't remember anything at all that would even remotely suggest something like that.

Low and behold, my son has the exact same reaction to being tickled. Always has. We both have sensory processing issues that affect the way tickling is perceived. We do not perceive it as enjoyable in the least. For me, it is about as pleasant as I imagine drowning would be. It makes me panic. My son, too. So much for the repressed sexual abuse.

I am very skeptical about "repressed" memories. Though I do believe that sometimes your brain just doesn't code things for some reason. My great-grandfather had perfect episodic memory. It would appear that he hogged all of my episodic memory! LOL!

Don't get me wrong. I am certainly not suggesting there is any unusual reason for the inability to remember that period. I think I just took the pain and confusion of kids and teachers alike tormenting me every day (since I was always thought of as 'naughty' rather than autistic) really really badly. I always describe my early childhood as simply 'not much fun' if pushed but I think there was a lot more trauma there than I really accepted before and I, one way or another, prevented myself from accessing that pain - possibly just through something as simple as 20 years of not recalling any of them.

I'm not saying that memories cannot be repressed. I believe they can be. For the exact reasons you are describing. I am just skeptical because I think there are people out there with their own issues who transfer them on to others and use the idea of "repressed memories" as the vehicle. But that certainly doesn't mean that nobody had really crappy things happen to them that they don't necessarily remember clearly, or at all.

But I do think some of us have some kind of wiring problem that makes us simply not remember things. I am equally likely not to remember both pleasant and unpleasant things.

I have repressed memories, but it is to my terrible early childhood (age 7), but not sure if it related to ASD or my deplorable father.

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone else have serious a serious problem when it comes to putting memories into chronological order? I can never remember if something happened last year or five years ago or even ten years ago.