What things negatively remind you of your past?

Post Reply New Topic

Could you give any?

Photos - I have actually gone through the photos of relatives and incrementally and systematically removed every photo of me above the age of about ten. I refuse to have any more photos taken of me.
Personal possessions - gradually destroyed everything I had from the past, from books and CDs to clothing and furniture.
Contacts - I only have five people in my life who even knew me before four years ago. No contact with anyone before that time.
Résumé - I am angling to retrain and never have to use my résumé again, as I do not want to be connected with any of the jobs, studies, or anything that ties me to who I tried to be, and gives people the wrong impression of what I am now.

The verbal abuse someone in my family has given me from January until the end of last month. Anything fashion trends that remind me of the late 80s and very early 90s.

Anything that reminds me of the city of Springville and the short time I spent living there. That was easily the worst few months of my life. This includes things like the TV show Futurama which I watched during that time, when I have to remember my drivers ed class which I took during that time, any songs I heard a lot during that time, and even some of the things that I learned in school during that time like how electron clouds work.

I find that stereotypically low-class things remind me negatively of my past because they remind me of the people who made fun of me. (Strangely enough, they weren't poor, they were rich although they acted really ratchet.)

Tbh pretty much anything can trigger reliving a bad event in the past for me. It could be a simple object, a person, a particular set of events, but if it had some small association to the past event then back I go. For instance a business-style telephone will transport me back to one of my first jobs, one that was on the phone and as you can imagine was really sh***y.

Every day is full of stuff like that for me.

There's a few things but generally I don't like to think about the past too much. I prefer to focus on the future.

Every time I see my younger sister at home. We still live together but don't talk anymore. She's a pathological narcissist who psychologically abised me for years.

I agree.
Basically anything from before college. I changed SO MUCH and have a super hard time remembering anything but pain and unhappiness from before I turned 20.
I get anxious about going back to my home town (avoid it like the plague). I have slowly destroyed or am destroying/trashing all my photos/clothes/diaries/etc. from my childhood. Each time I do so- I feel a bit free-er and feel more agency in my life. It is very healing. The other day I tossed my HS yearbook- it was great. Don't miss it and don't care about all the signatures and such- it was all BS and I don't talk to anyone from that time anyway
I was convinced I would miss the stuff... or even just think about it.... but I haven't cared at all! kind of interesting for me.

Schools, Catholicism, anything to do with my manic episode.

Yeah, here's the thing, no matter how much you dwell on the past you can't change it. Its better for sure to just forget about it and get rid of any reminders. You can make your life better if you concentrate on the future because you have the power to change it.

If somebody says "stop being defensive," it reminds me of bullies from my past."

"Stop being defensive"=your argument is totally invalid, no matter what evidence validates your argument.

Right. I know that one.

Learning how to do math that I find difficult due to having been severely beaten when I made math mistakes at my foster home. I relive that emotionally whenever I try to do any of the more difficult math than very basic algebra which I learned in 8 th grade while in special classes. I did well there but in ninth grade algebra class while in regular classes I had some difficulty & was beaten when I got the wrong answer.

Beaten for math mistakes!! !? Wow, it sounds like my poor granny around 1900!

I developed PTSD due to various events in my past so a LOT lol but I am also thankful as the person I am growing into from the darkness and sharp edges is ten times what I would've been if I had not had such a wilderness to unravel! A lot of colourful memories mixed in with bleak stretches, it just means I appreciate the path I am following a lot more and hope to fill however long I have left with a more meaningful and lighter substance of existence! University is a pretty bad topic for me cause my own foray into it went to crap but I try to be happy for other folk who have better experiences, it is hard for me to be reminded of it though, it was my ticket out and opportunity to discover myself, I guess I did but about fifteen years worth of self-analyzing and maturing rolled into a short time period is quite intense!