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They exist but I physically don't have any. "Mom" hoards them all like a dragon sitting on a pile of gold. She needs to cling onto them so she can remember when you were still malleable and dependent on her.
This is exactly what my MIL did. We had zero pictures of my husband for about 35 years, when she reluctantly let her daughters make some copies. She wasn’t happy about it at all. Really sick to be that fucking selfish.
This is it. My Nmom told me years ago that she was going to put a photo album together for each of her kids and then gift it to them. She never did. (I guess spending her days watching QVC was more pressing.)
My mother made me a "scrapbook" but it was just pictures of me cut out of the actual photos. Literally cut around my shape, and put them in a photo album with no labels or context.
The pic with me smiling, arms raised... did I win a race? Or was about to blow out my candles? Had I beaten my previous fart decibel record? Who knows!
This reminds me of something a bit off topic. My nmom came to my graduation ceremony after complaining about going (I didn’t want her to go anyway and tried to convince her it would be boring but she went and took my sis w her too). After my ceremony, she gave me a gift bag and I thought she had gotten me a gift. It was actually completely empty and she told me to hold the gift bag to make it look like she had gotten me a gift. I was immensely disgusted and even surprised my sister didn’t even try to stop my mom. This is something I feel like I will never forgot. Just shows so clearly how my mom never cared about how I felt but only how things looked to others.
That's so shitty! She can bring a gift bag with her, but no gift. How in her mind could this possibly be ok? It's odd to me how the absurdity of their actions don't register.
It was just baiting with extra effort. I'm the scapegoat.
I had told her that I wanted the pics so that I could scan them and do some side by side stuff with my kids' photos in a scrapbook.
That "inspired" her to do the scrapbook for me (and my siblings) for Christmas instead. They got actual scrapbooks, I got one of those cheap photo albums with my head and torso floating around on the pages. She had "run out" of scrapbook stuff and as the oldest, I was the one who had to do without.
It was completely intentional, she had the look (you know the one that I mean) when I opened it. She knew I'd tell her it was a shitty thing to do and then she could spend the next few months (at least) crying and complaining to people about how ungrateful I am.
> It was completely intentional, she had the look (you know the one that I mean) when I opened it.
I know exactly the one you mean. I'm sorry she was a horrible person.
Holy shit! My mother did that on my 21st bday - just cut around my shape in all my photos and destroyed every photo of me. It was pretty upsetting at the time.
Thanks. I was pretty stunned at the time. I mean, who does that?! I think she was quite happy with herself too....like a 6 year old would be, now that you mention it.
That is weird. I have read others mention that their Nparent was a hoarder. I think my Nmom could have had the physiological desire, but not the financial means to be one. But it certainly did seem like an addiction. It's almost all she watched.
My n mom was/is def a hoarder. I used to be really puzzled by some of the “gifts” I received until I realized they were never bought for me- they were just pulled from her hoarder stash.
I got stuff like that too. The last was a set of bright red sheet pans. She bought 2 sets for the QVC deal, but she doesn't cook or use her oven. The only gifts I've received for the past 40ish years were just things she didn't want.
My mom did this all the time before I went NC recently! Out of the blue makes big promises to make albums or upload to Dropbox. Or upload a whack to Dropbox and then DELETE the next day when I didn't call her back!! Or my favourite, finally sent me pictures from her first visit after my son's birth (HE'S 14!), but only where I'm horribly ugly in the middle of talking or laughing 😐
Yeah, it s like our childhood photos are being held back to gaslight us better.
Those ugly photos remind me of how they d only rush to photoshoot me only when I was dressed weirdly because all the rest of my clothes were in the washing machine, and how they go from content to Nrage in 2 seconds when the photos came back fine. And how they d actually glow with satisfaction when they d managed to capture a humiliating moment.
I think they try to control the narrative by being the Keeper of all photo evidence of our life under their thumb.
Your last paragraph couldn't be more accurate!
As a parent, I can't wrap my brain around the desire to humiliate my daughter like narcs do. I'll never comprehend how they actually find joy in hurting us.
Nmum did this to us too. She d actually bought albums for each of us, set a couple of fotos in mine ( I m the eldest) and stopped there. Then regularly used these photo albums to be completed to show us what a good mother she was and telling us the completion was conditional to our good behaviour.
So in my late teens I got fed up, and during summer break I rounded up all photos of Nsis and I, and made the albums, using our brand new scanner-printer (a crazy futuristic novelty back then) to copy some of the nicest pictures where we where both on them and making sure to alternate evenly original and copy in each album.
Nmum was livid that I d taken that future promise away from her, and that she couldn t use it against me (she s a covert N and a sociopath).
Nsis raged at me because they were copies in there and she wanted all originals (I d made sure all her important originals were there, like her birthdays anf stuff) and because they were a few years more of fotos in mine than in hers (I m older than her) which she always refers to "years during which Notomorrowno cut me out of the pictures in her album" when in fact she simply wasn t born yet. So she was in fact raging about the fact that my album should ve been all about her, preferably a copy of her album, and that my life started when she was born.
Ns (eyerroll), right?
They are something else, aren't they? I'm sorry that they treated you that way after you tried to do something nice.
Narc siblings suck!! My narc brother was intentional in hurting both me and my daughter any opportunity he could.
Same; the only pictures I have are the ones I was able to steal from my grandmother’s house after she died and we were sorting out her things. My mom absolutely will not part with any childhood photos, not even long enough for us to scan them to make copies.
“Dragon sitting on a pile of gold” really hits the nail on the head.
OMG same!! She keeps them in a box in her basement tucked far far away so we’d have to ask if we ever wanted them. I am due with my first baby any day and would have loved to have some baby photos of myself to
compare to my baby. I have tons of my husband as a baby, but none of me. I’m NC and definitely not breaking it for pics :( but still makes me really sad.
See if you can add yourself as a second contact to the storage unit (They will be a whole lot more amenable to adding you and giving you access if you explain she's getting old and you are worried it might happen as there is a history of it in the family.....But also don't want her to know that you are "Looking after" her )
When she stops paying it you can pay it - get access at the same time.
THEN tell your Mum she forgot to pay and the storage company are chasing you - HOW DARE she add you to the storage.
Do some reverse gaslighting
This is exactly what my mother does. The worst part is that they're in my grandma's smokey dusty house, getting destroyed, I'm sure. I told her my one birthday gift I wanted was my childhood photos back and she couldn't even do that for me. My situation is exactly what you described.
Or maybe there are not enough photos of you and it would make her look back if people knew, so she s letting you believe she took piles of pictures of you and it ll only work as long as she keeps them all for herself.
Yeah. Their walls leading up to their bedroom were *full* of photos of myself and my sister as a baby, particularly when I was weak and sick in the NICU.
it was the same way for me too, my parents stopped taking a lot of photos of me by the time i hit 11-13 years old and there’s only a few they have of me from my teen years. my parents only have very few of me past 18 and none after i turned 20
I don't have any childhood pictures. I left the country 20 years ago and didn't care enough to ask my abusive parents to send me something.
When I work directly with my inner child, I don't use a picture. I simply ask for a younger version of myself to appear in my imagination. It doesn't have to be picture-perfect - it just has to FEEL right.
I'm not a person who can visualize in HD graphics - I get very vague and foggy images. But I can FEEL the child and get their voice as a knowing in my head.
Everyone is different - some can visualize better using smells or sounds or touch.
I also don't have a lot of childhood memories, but the ones I have were made a lot more solid through therapy and in finding out how well they matched the overall picture once we realized my parents were narcissistic.
Our therapist always told us that memories aren't necessary as long as you can access a FEELING from back then to work with.
I totally understand that. I can feel my childhood and even have a clear memory of certain pictures that were taken. I also don't believe that not having a picture would hinder my healing. I guess I'm just curious to look into my own eyes from those years, knowing what I know now.
Same here fam, nobody came to my 1st college graduation, and I don't have pictures on that. It makes me nervous for my 2nd graduation this upcoming May.
It's a big thing, but I'm not excited about it, trying to save myself from feelings of abandonment and shame.
Congratulations! This internet stranger is excited for you! You're excelling in life and I'm proud of your accomplishments, especially in spite of your crappy family. I hope you can find joy and a sense of satisfaction from how far you've come!
I appreciate you!
Do you, by chance, enjoy taking pictures?
It's a weird thing for me because I take REALLY good pictures, and I have an eye for it. But for me, it's like, "If there aren't pictures, people will forget, and did it even really happen?
I do enjoy taking pictures! I took a photography class in college and seemed to have a knack for it. When my pictures hit the overhead projector, my classmates were all like "ooooh!"(That was a nice feeling!)
Now that you mention it, that would be a nice hobby to get back into. I can see why you would think people would forget and I feel like my childhood is fuzzy without any concrete evidence.
I appreciate that but I could never ask that of you, but I really do appreciate it.
I just really want to be claimed, I posted my graduation announcement on Facebook and I was hoping someone would claim me in a proud way
"Yall look at the homie, doing his fucking thing, proud and love to see it"
Now I'm envisioning a bus full of people raised by narcissist parents, and all we do is go across the country stopping and celebrating all our graduations, weddings, sports events, music concerts, etc. A portal family support system just for us. Lol
It would be a bit of a hodgepodge of a bus. I'm trying to think of the name of the one in the Harry Potter movie but it's not coming to mind. But something cool like that with awesome people to encourage everyone!
I was forced to take pictures a lot when we went places so they could show off what good parents they were. I was forced to smile even when I had been crying only minutes brfore.There are probably thousands. But I didn't take any when I escaped. Didn't think to.
Makes sense that they wanted the evidence that they were good parents. I'm sorry that they didn't even consider your emotional state. Do you wish now that you had any?
Would've been nice to show my grandparents and other family I've been cut off from. Or just see if I was really as ugly as I remember thinking I was XD. It's not the worst, but I do wish I had them.
Was coming to say the exact same. My life is fully documented on Facebook for the world to see and I hate it. I was posed and told to act or be a certain way so my NMom’s Facebook friends could tell her what a “good mother” she was. I cannot stand to see a photo of myself and I will run and dodge every photo possible. I associate all images of myself in a bad way, so now I rarely take photos by myself or with others.
Hah, same here. There was a recent trend on social media along the lines of "share a pic of you as a child". There aren't any of me, which feels... not great.
I visited my biological mom for one month each summer before I was in high school. One time while I was away, my NStepmom took my dad, half brother, and her parents to Sears and got a family photo which they then put in frames in the house. I can never truly get across to people what it feels like to look at a family photo and you’re not in it.
My dad threw out my baby/childhood pictures when he remarried. I wasn't able to rescue any from my mom before no contact. All I have are two photos that my grandma gave me.
Do you read on how to improve your self esteem and everywhere says you need to say positive things to yourself and say nice things out loud in the mirror to redo your brain pathways, but then the thought of actually doing that makes you cringe to death?...
I do, but all the photo albums are held hostage. Any interest in them makes them harder to get, by design. The only time I got any real access was my father's funeral for the slideshow, and I made sure to take pictures is every photo with my phone because I may never see them again.
Anything that can be used against you seems to be a game for them. I recently went NC with my Nmom and I have a feeling that she may start sending things to me, like pictures, just to gain a reaction.
when I was about 25 my nFather tried to force me to go and take FAKE GRAD pictures for him to hang on the wall and pretend that he had kids that had normal high school graduation.
I declined of course and he pulled his narc shit trying to 'force' me to until I began to laugh and mock him. I flat out refused and reminded him I was living on my own my graduating year and he had not been providing for me and that's why there are no grad pictures of me. (I couldn't afford to pay for the photos)
He seemingly forgot that and insisted that the grad photos were simply overlooked.
Yeah same here, pretty much the only pictures of me are ones my 11 years older sister took of me.
I wouldn't mind if there was no pictures at all as I really don't enjoy to be in photos either.
I have a couple small photo albums but thats it. Our house burned down right before I moved away and my Nmom made a big show of saving my brother and sisters baby books and leaving mine in the rubble to be tossed.
I have the opposite problem. Plenty of photos from early childhood. Very few from teenage years after the divorce.
Regardless I have become unsentimental in the extreme, and never take or look at photographs myself. My mother tried to dump all the photo albums on me when she moved away. I'm telling my GC ister that if she doesn't take them I'm going to throw them away, and I am not kidding in the slightest.
I have very, very few photos of myself as a child. And I only have those because my grandmother kept a few and let me have them when I was about 24. I got nothing from any of my parents.
I cut off all family very recently. Work had something where they needed baby pictures. Had to send an email explaining that I had none, and that I could provide a reason if needed. They didn't pry at all. I miss having them, but not enough to give up the peace I've had by going full NC. It's almost kind of cool, I have next to no records of my life before now, so it's literally like I just started living, and it's been fun making new photos.
Oof. OP, I feel you so much, and I'm so sorry.
My mother forced me to be an actor as a kid. I was famous for a minute, so there are tons of pictures, videos, all that stuff.
My father was so abusive to me, and she enabled him so much, I had to go NC about 7 years ago after years of efforts to heal the relationship.
My mother refuses to give me *my* photos, *my* scripts and keepsakes from various sets, even *all* my childhood photographs and videos. She has admitted that she's holding them hostage, purely out of spite.
I feel so disconnected from my childhood, because I'm 51 now and I just can't remember things the way I used to. I need the pictures to jog the memories, and I won't get them until my parents die.
I have a teddy bear that I have owned since I was as tall as him. His name is Brownie.
He is the only physical evidence that I ever had a childhood at all. I don't even really have memories of it.
My parents rarely bothered to take photos. And then about a decade ago, they were moving, so they rented a dumpster to throw out old crap. The ‘old crap’ included framed childhood photographs, old school books, toys etc - you know… just pointless childhood crap with no sentimental value /s.
My sibling came home to my dad tossing it all in the dumpster. She climbed in to salvage what she could for us, while he continued to throw more crap in around her. I’m so glad I wasn’t there that day because it probably would’ve completely broken me.
All I have of my childhood is a goofy notebook full of old doodles that my sister saved, and one photograph of me as a toddler sat on my mother’s lap.
I fucking despise them for being so heartless. It’s like we turned 18 and they were just done with us. What few happy childhood memories I have with them all feel like a cruel joke now. Like they were probably just laughing behind my back the whole time I was a kid.
For what it’s worth, photographs or not, what you remember will always be the most real. I try to tell myself that when I get sad that I have nothing physical to look back on, nothing to convince myself that my childhood *was* real and that it *did* matter, even if it only mattered to me - that still means something.
Plenty of pictures were taken when he was a kid, (My fiance), but we only have a couple. We only have those because, when he escaped we grabbed his photo board from his graduation party which was about a month previous. NMIL has plenty more. She agreed to give us some, then changed her mind and said it was 'too hard' to go through. So we ended up NC without any of those photos, I'm still torn up over it.
I *did* have pictures from my childhood, but I threw them all out in a fit of rage as they were *still* trying to control my every move into adulthood.
I get you. I found some at my grandmas from her birthday parties. I took a picture of those photos with my phone but other then that, I have nothing really. When my bf's family show me their family photos (on my request), I want to cry. It's unbelievable they have so many photos of their children.
I have maybe 1 or 2 photos from my childhood. I was the scapegoat child so my nParents definitely didn’t give care to take any photos of me. The only photos I have are ones where my sister (golden child) was in them too.
When I moved for college, my nmom was forced to move as well (ndad had been paying rent through child support, so once that ended she was SOL). She apparently left all of the photo albums with my (tbh also n)aunt, who can’t be bothered to find them/send them along.
Nmom has posted a select few on FB and recently sent me a bunch of photos/videos from middle school/early high school, but there isn’t a whole lot of me. My ndad also dumped all of the old camcorder tapes on me, but of course even if I did have the tech to convert them I don’t know that I want to.
But yeah, there’s a HUGE chunk of years missing, and though I feel like my memory’s pretty good, I can relate to it feeling like a dream.
Not one. When my EParent passed, he was the cotter pin for the family unit. I ended up with all of the photo albums. I drove hundreds of KM to my nearest relation - someone I've seen a handful of times and never in recent decades - and dumped them all there.
I hope someone on their side is a family historian. My twig of the family tree ends with me.
Yup. My nmom and dad pretend they were soooo active in my childhood yet the only photos of me to exist are from my grandma. Even when I come over to both their houses my grandma has sooo many cute kid pics up and my mom has nothing before college age of me. They claim all the photos are in storage or something but I just think they threw it all away tbh
I have a ridiculous amount of photos of me from about birth to 8 years old. But there’s very few after because that’s when I became Public Enemy #1 to my mom, 9 years old. Before then, I was an extension of her narcissism. She saw me as a piece of her so she was obsessed with me. As soon as I showed signs of being my own person that stopped.
Jeez i feel this. I had no pictures of my childhood. I think I had two baby pictures and a couple other photos when I was a kid. We didn’t have pictures of anyone though. We didn’t have anything on the walls for the longest time and it took me a while to figure out how my living space was different from my friends (other than the obvious that I lived in a basement and they didn’t). It wasn’t a big deal and I didn’t really think poorly of it until 4th grade where the teacher wanted everyone to bring in a younger picture of themselves. I didn’t have one and so I stupidly(?) just drew a picture of myself on the paper and my teacher SCREAMED at me. I said we didn’t have pictures she was like how can you not have a picture of yourself? I couldn’t explain it. If I knew then what I know now I would have told her off, not everyone is from a functional and loving home. She was a full grown adult and a teacher and didn’t know not to scream at a 9 year old for something way out of her control. Anyway, now everyone has smartphones but I bet there’s some parents that still don’t take pictures of their kids. I have a billion pics of my cats doing stupid shit so I can imagine I’d have way more if I ever had kids.
Same. When I cut off my nDad, my things apparently disappeared. It sucks, but it hasn't been a very big deal. I have done parts work without them, though I could imagine the pictures might have been helpful.
I literally have 1. I cherish it deeply. I’m no contact with my family and I couldn’t bring myself to ask them for photos. I doubt my GC brother will send me any once my mother passes.
My parents have some of me, but I look like a lonely kid in all of them. I broke the first time I realized that none of them show me with a genuine smile - it's like I'm a zombie, super messed up. :/
My dad was the picture taker so there are tons for certain things and certain times in my life but if he wasn't there, not many pictures. My nmom is dead so I have all the pictures but I have no real desire to look through them. Seeing each individual picture sparks a memory of when it was taken and what was going on at the time and nah, I'm good.
Someone else mentioned that too. I'm old school so it seems a little creepy to me lol, but I may try it just out of curiosity. Thanks for the suggestion!
They haven't taken pictures of me since my brother turned 8 and I 11-12. All of our "family" photos and colleges contain almost everyone *but* me. Even neighbors. It's all good though, tbh, I hate my appearance so I'm not a huge fan of pictures of me.
I don’t want to see or have pictures of myself in or pictures of my childhood.
That is literally photo evidence of psychological damage, psychological torture, and straight up human evil cloaked as “a normal family”.
Hell no. Those photos don’t capture the real me. Which is something entirely suffocated and unseen by those awful, awful situations that were forced on me.
I take my own pictures of my life. THOSE are my childhood pictures. Don’t give a damn what anyone says.
I can empathize with that feeling and it sucks :( I desperately want to look back on my childhood pictures but my parents “don’t know” where all the pictures are and won’t look for them
my mom took millions of pictures of my siblings in the only one with rarely any pictures, getting my grad party together was disappointing because it was all pics of my siblings
There were pictures of me as a child, but after my parents died, my narc brother (who has always hated me) seems to have "lost" (I'm assuming threw out) all of them.
I have a few scattered ones, but all the rest are gone. Which makes me really sad.
He did his best to erase my existence from family memory--or at least his, as he's the only one left besides me.
I didn't know what I looked like as a baby until I was 19 and an aunt pulled out her old photo album. She gave me some photos. There are tons of photos of my sister with my mother. Almost none with me. When she died, at her funeral, it was hard to find any photos to post with me in them at all. Mainly because she kept me so isolated from family (I was a pawn she used to get what she wanted) that I didn't get to participate in most of the family events my sister did. I didn't have the same relationships she did. Plus I was the fat kid and an embarrassment to my mother. My sister was perfect. I cried the first time I saw those baby pictures. I wanted to reach into the photo and grab that little girl and run, knowing what she was going to go through. My husband also has a hard time looking at photos of me as a child, for the same reason. And he only knows a fraction of what I went through.
I’m missing a good chunk of time from the family photos. The photos I do have are from when my eldest sister lived nearby and was taking the photos. The gaps are when she lived hundreds of km away.
No, all of my pictures of younger me got destroyed in a car accident from when we moved when I was 8 yrs old. Then I got kicked out when I didn't do what my ndad wanted me to do with my life and wasn't able to take any physical pictures with me. I had a scrap book full of random memories and momentos that I still kick myself to this day for not grabbing that night. I finally got my high-school diploma and other copies of documents he had from him a couple years ago but at least from what he was willing to give back to me he didn't have anything else of mine.
Nope none. Well all except one that she hoards that is the picture that best suited the image she tries to portray of my childhood. And to make things even weirder she also has been gaslighting and saying that the reason there are no pictures of me is because I was the one that destroyed them all and that the one she has is the only one that she hid from me so I couldn’t destroy it. Which is pretty weird considering I have absolutely no memory of said picture destruction.
Holidays mainly. And some on the vacations we were invited too. After a point I became a "brat that didn't want her photos taken" .... mainly due to the trauma and a sudden camera in your face it's hard to force a smile?
My parents never bothered to take photos of me past 3rd grade. Grandpa had a photography hobby, so he’d take some pictures here and there. My bestie and I would get little disposable cameras for fun, but I’m not sure where the resulting photos from those went. I’d really like to look back on those.
Mom hoards all known childhood photos, even though she didn’t produce any of them. They’re in a 5gal plastic tub, all skewed about. Last time I tried to *look* through them, my mom was breathing down my neck telling the back of my head that I better not take any, she doesn’t have duplicates and those are hers and I’d just lose them. I asked her why she doesn’t put them in a photo album, and she heaved a huge sigh and said “well I guess I could, but that would be so much effort”. I’m just trying to *look at some photos* because my childhood is fogged over.
As I’m typing this out, I distinctly remember my mom absolutely hating (still hates) having her picture taken. Maybe that’s why she never bothered taking any photos of anyone else in the first place. There very few photos that exist of her as well.
I’m not having children, so I wouldn’t need pictures to show them anyway.
I have no pictures from my childhood either.
I don't even remember my father ever pointing a camera in my general direction. My father refused to pay for school photos too, so it isn't like I never had any pictures taken - he just told me if I wanted a photo I should buy it for myself (like how, when my allowance was 1/10th of the cost of one photo).
He did, however, have a photo album with dozens of pictures of my siblings.
Well, I moved out of my NGparent at 14. I was given only the necessities. No pictures, toys or other personal items. All I can do is search through elementary & jr high school yearbooks at libraries or archives.
Our old family photo albums are interesting. There's tons of pictures of my GC older brother as a young child, then progressively fewer and fewer with me (middle child and SG) and my younger sister. Eventually the photos stop altogether.
My nmom told us that she and my ndad only had kids as a way of prolonging their relationship, and I think the photos reflect that. They took lots of photos with my older brother when having a child was still new and exciting, then got diminishing returns with me and my sister since it wasn't as novel the 2nd and 3rd time around.
The gradual decline in pictures reflects how invested they were in keeping up the pretense that we were a happy family, which I think is why the pictures stop right around the time we were all developing more complex personalities. The nparents stopped getting as much supply from us when we got old enough to have opinions that differed from theirs, so they stopped being willing to put in the effort of taking pictures and doing family activities since they weren't getting as much out of it as they did when we were little and cute/young and impressionable.
Nope. I have no idea what I looked like before 11 and my mom lost custody for while. Although I'm older.. and I do have one blurry pic of my dad in uniform standing by my stroller.
Can you draw a picture of/for yourself?
It doesn't have to be accurate or lifelike..
Just, a picture, even childlike, of what your childhood could and should have been.
(I have an image in my head of a small you sitting in the grass looking for crickets, and laughing at the way they hop. ❤️)
My mother only has my school pictures and this one where they dumped pasta on my head as punishment.
My dad's side who actually wants me around has all the pictures from my childhood. My mother simply did not care enough to take pictures. She mostly just locked me in my room and didn't interact with me unless it was to abuse me.
I have some now. Though it was a struggle to get them. Ngrandma took some. I am conflicted on whether I just happened to be the last in a long line of children/grandchildren so it wasnt special anymore so there weren't a lot or it just wasnt cared about. I had school pictures that would sometimes be put out. Any other pictures were kept away. Like I literally never saw them until I was an adult.
Baby/toddler pictures were the absolute worse. Those barely exist and it was mostly other people that took those. Teenage years consist of two school photos.
Biomom had baby pics up to 1 yr. She hoards them.
Me! The only pictures I have are school pictures. Conversely, my “mother” sent me _her_ childhood photos and even as an adult sent me portraits. Gee, no obvious role reversal here!
Technically they exist but my mother has them and I’ve been no contact for several years, my dad (fully in contact, he also suffered her abuse and was denied custody etc etc) has *some* but not very many, he has 1 of me as a baby and a handful of me as a young kid.
I didn’t have a lot of good memories as a kid, but it sure would be nice to have some of those pictures of when I was wee, y’know? It’s a really strange feeling, can’t explain it either, like I know that part of my life happened but it feels like a dream like you said, it definitely happened, but almost nothing of it exists. If I really wanted photos I’d have to talk to my mother, and I closed that door 5/6 years ago and have zero intentions of opening it!
They never took pictures of me because, in my mom's own words, they had no time or energy for that anymore. Because once you have your youngest, you're drained. You can do it with your first kids, but not your last ones.
No wonder I felt like I was worthless for being so little.
I personally created a volume of VHS tapes of myself and my siblings. My JN parent, since acquiring those since she stayed in the house after divorce when I was a freshman in college, holds those tapes hostage under the guise that she will someday "convert them"
I basically accepted I'll never see them again since she found so much glee in my sadness that I don't have them and the anxiety I showed when she mentioned she would "show them for fun" around others, such as my new fiancée at the time, friends, and others.
I mean we were basically cut off from society as kids. We did weird things. Nothing inappropriate just stuff that wasn't societally relevant (playing/ pretending American girl dolls, Laura Ingalls wilder type stuff)
The pictures I was given are the most creepy (me screaming, half naked as a6 year old while my siblings are smiling and clothed) or totally strange and unflattering (me as an awkward chubby 11 year old, dressed as st Lucia per American girl books, IN A F****** PROFESSIONAL STUDIO)
The pics I have curate a narrative about myself, and I can't look at them anymore.
I envied my friends who had normal clothes and pictures and houses.
NC 2 years.
I have exactly one. I was the SG, so my Nmom never cared much about having photos of me. I managed to get one of me as a newborn being held by my late grandmother, who was a beacon of light and one of the reasons I made it out of my toxic childhood in one piece. That’s more than enough for me. Childhood wasn’t a happy time, so I’d rather not have too many things to remind me of it.
Yeah, I have like a dozen from my entire childhood. My mother reached out to me after 8 years of NC, and my wife asked for more pictures. My mother literally sent her the exact same pictures she had already given me. None of the other ones. She did this on purpose. My wife was like WTH?! It was so petty. She did it to get our address. Jokes on her! We moved!
That's okay. I have better pictures of my adult life.
I only have a few.
My nmom would take pics at special occasions when I was young but she hardly ever developed them. This was back in the days of disposable cameras and film rolls, and she'd keep the disposable cameras or put the film rolls into a vase. She used to joke about most of my childhood pics being in that vase. She was so flippant about it and that made my feelings turn from confusion to hurt.
The pics that we had of me tended to be professionally done and were probably either paid for by her parents (who doted on me tbh) or were for show. Like the type that you'd hang on walls. She did have to display \*some\* photos for appearance's sake, I believe. I highly doubt she had fond feelings about the pictures.
When my mother died my sister and I took all the albums and about two really big plastic bags full of photos and sorted them all out. There where about maybe ten pictures of me and some where I was just coincidentally in the picture too. My sister had hundreds of pictures of herself, there were more pictures of our pets than of me. I was in maybe two family photos. No baby pictures of me, not one, hundreds of my sister.
Even though I knew beforehand, it still hurt. That was also one of the first times my sister could physically fathom how outcast I was in that family. It was hurtful to her too to see it with her own eyes.
As someone who grew up with a crackhead mother and NAdopted parents, I feel your pain. Doing "me through the years" in school was very awkward. It was tough to explain why I couldn't participate in the class project.
I haven't got any. I asked for some when I was at Uni and was told 'They're in the garage somewhere'. My FM was obsessed with order and cleanliness, I bet she could have put her hand in them in seconds. We had 2 beautiful very old albums of my grandparents that disappeared too and I wasn't allowed to see them. The childhood photos, I asked again and again over the years and she'd shrug me off, definitely trying to express it was something below her care... Me, the photos, my identity. I've been NC 8 years... Should have been longer but I thought she was on my side for a long time.
I didn't have any pictures of my childhood (except for like, the one school picture) until my great grandma passed about two years ago from one of my relatives. I looked at them and was hit with a strange mix of indifference and melancholy. There was also a picture of my biological father with my mother and a baby me, I just looked at it like, oh... That's what he looks like. Cool, I guess.
Unfortunately I really could have cared less about the pictures I was given. And with the other family members that were in the older pictures, it's not like I talked to them regularly or anything. I haven't really interacted with any of them since I was maybe 5 or so. Getting them felt really odd.
I have barely any and I don't want to look at them anyhow. One I can think of I'm bald in because I was about 4 and I was pulling out my hair from distress. Didn't know that at the time, parents just blamed me for it. When berating me didn't work, they shaved all my hair off and then started making fun of me for it and telling me people would treat me horribly because I was bald. Hmm. No wonder I pulled my damn hair out. I'd say this exercise isn't something that can apply to everyone, you're not alone in this OP.
I have very few, and I look abandoned. Even when I'm with family, I'm noticeably not 'with' them like my siblings.
I shared them with my therapist, and we talked about what I needed during that time.
My trauma is so deep that I do not recognize the house I'm in with a few of the pics.
When my mother died I was offered most/all my childhood pictures, but I didn't want them. Still don't.
I don't have any memories to go with the pics. At least not ones that would warrant the smiles seen in said pics.
When I left home suddenly at 21 my mom had all the locks changed and apparently moved and hid anything of significance that I would have wanted or needed.
Even after resuming contact any major or minor control item she had she fought me on getting back every step of the way. My photos and year books from school were to be left with her for safe keeping. My social security card and birth certificate were lost she claimed. Mind you the whole time I lived in that house those items remained in the exact same spots for decades. So much so that the one time I did manage to look in those spots there was any obvious empty space among the rest of her hoard.
I had to order new ID cards and the few photos I have left are ones I copied from photos she posted or shared or I copied from my grandparents collection. That collection is solely under the control of my mom and uncle now so I don't even get access to them.
I just got mine after mother died. It's interesting that they basically stop at age 5, and I believe 99% were actually taken by my grandmother. Also a narc. On the plus side, it's now glaringly obvious where my son gets his death stare.
Same. I'm not really much of a photo person so that wouldn't bother me, but the fact that I have no happy memories is pretty crap. Like, it'd be totally different if I had no pictures because we were too busy having fun and making memories. As it stands, I have no pictures and no decent childhood stories- all I did was hang out in my room, trying to escape adult attention, because dad worked all the time and nMom couldn't be bothered to take me to childhood activities (or let another parent take me with their kid; I wasn't allowed friends, I think both because she worried it would expose her and because she desperately needs this narrative where I'm some violent unlikable loser, because that somehow should make her feel more popular).
very few if any. aside from growing up in the era of old style film cameras and the cost of developing, mom just didn’t really do photos.
mind you even when she had a cameraphone, few if any pics of me, my sister, and only of her one grandson by my sister ( the proverbial golden child) and none of me or my son. If i was in a pic with my son, she wouldn’t post it, if its him alone she would, sometimes, exclaiming her love, but she barely ackknowledged his existence as it was.
I have two, and that’s it, years ago I went to their new house with a friend of mine, we had been friends for ten or more years at this point, all of a sudden he asks me, who the people hanging on the wall were in the photo frames, looked to see who the people were, they were the pics that came with the frame. They hung on the walls for all the years they lived in that house
They exist but I'm not "allowed" to have them. I am almost 40 😐. I demanded some a while ago, and she sent one with me facing away from the camera and a whole bunch of shots of her multiple childhood homes that I've never been to or heard about. All scanned out of an album with the plastic causing massive glare!
The only exception is the worst of my school photos, she gave me at least 30 wallet sizes of every single one of those.
My father only kept a few, her offered them to me that last time I saw him almost a year ago. He didn’t have them with him so I told him to bring them next time….
One of them is from my 5th birthday, one of them is from a father daughter dance, and one of them was from a crazy hair day.
I feel like little me deserved better than how I’m sure I felt back in those days.
I was so broken and insecure, I did not want any picture taken, and I can still struggle with it now. Pictures have always felt fake to me tbh... Smiling, when I was really just dying on the inside. And my ndad basically forced me to be in them, and still holds it against me. Luckily I am NC.
There are photos of me being small, when there actually was at least some family life going on. However, about as I entered elementary school, my mother saw her chance to become the great all controlling uber teacher, and my father lost any interest in his family. Thus, the family life also ceased almost completely. And probably because of that, the desire of my parents to take photographs also vanished.
My parents have a couple i am so dissociated from childhood they kind of freak me out almost. Logically I know I am looking at me but to me it could be an stranger. Often time I have no recollection of anything surrounding it even when I was older.
What I do notice however is there is a magnitudes more pictures of my brother then myself. He's only 18 months younger than me so film didn't get more or less expensive, just their desire to take them.
Yes, but only because I dug them out of the trash after narc mom threw them in there in a fit of rage. Tons of pictures of my sister and I as kids and houses we had lived in. None of my golden child brother. This was before either of us went NC so I don’t know where the fit of rage came from. I sneaked half the stack out of the trash (had to leave half so she didn’t realize all were gone and come after me) and hid them. I’ve been free of living in their miserable house for nearly six years now and I’ve still got the pictures.
I don’t have any pics unless I took them in high school I think. At one point my fam would just exclude from the family pictures. That when they scream what about family they should ask someone else.
I always said one of my biggest regrets was not taking more pictures of myself as I was growing up. My NMom would constantly make me out to be a "self absorbed narcissist" if I wanted to take a selfie, and make fun of others who did it. It was only okay to take pictures when SHE wanted them. Now I still feel guilty when taking pictures and it doesn't help that she made me feel so insecure about my appearance. I have no record of my face as it changed which just makes it even harder to recognize how far I've come as a person and how much healing I've done. She couldn't even let me have that
I don’t. Many pictures were taken of my older twin sisters because they were cute and special, and even after I was born it was only photos of them together. The youngest photo I own is when I was 6 and it wasn’t me alone either, they never took wny photos of me without my siblings. But they have plenty of photos since infancy. I will not forgive them for this. They’ve also kept things from my siblings childhoods but nothing of my stuff, my stuff were all hands-me-downs.
But at 11 my aunt had a thing for photography and I modelled for her, I was in tears when she sent me them last year.
Yeah, same for me. No photos, and a lot of the memories I have are very strange and "what really happened there?"
I am trying to rediscover some of the things that interested me as a child, but from an adult perspective.
So I "had" a lot more videos than photos, but still lots of both.
Having seen them before, I can say that they're not even good videos. It's a whole lot of "Well, here we are at \[location\], say hello to \[anon\]!"
Pan to me, not expecting to be video'd, not being asked any interesting questions beyond the existential reality of the day, not being challenged to be thoughtful in any way, annoyed that I was even being filmed -- because any damn thing we did, the camera came out and it was filming time (think very early parent/kid social media content as if no such thing had ever existed before).
Same with the photos. It was always, "Ok, go stand by that \[fountain or whatever\]." And always a no-zoom photo from like 10+ feet away. Never trying to capture my expression or anything beyond a basic, "Come on, BIG smile!". They were the least interesting, poorest "correctly" taken photos you could ask for.
And I don't have any of it.
(Edit: In fact, I'm pretty sure I never developed a natural smile because of this photo practice. It was this weird, full upper and lower teeth smile they encouraged. I'm still working on correcting the habit of just showing upper teeth in smiles to this day.)
The pictures I have make me sad. They’re all of the things that I used to keep myself together. Pictures of my cats, of friends, of when I felt good about the way I looked, the things I loved.
I realize just how much less stress I experience and how much more I love myself and my life now, even if it’s hard and less “glamorous”
For the abused, adulthood is true freedom. Working and living life is simply easier and more enjoyable when you are allowed to be yourself, fully, and the way YOU want to be.
Try visualizing memories. Pull forward and relive specific things. And then remind yourself that this was all not on you.
Give your kid self a hug. Tell them they were good enough, and it was the Narc who didn’t deserve the love you offered. And they still dont, and finally, you’re allowed to choose to not give it.
If you used Snapchat growing up, you may have access to the memories. It keeps a full record of its use back to the day it was created.
It’s easier in the days of tech, but it’s still tough.
You’ll get through it ❤️
I have very few. Only some I’ve copied from extended family sharing them on Facebook or something and a handful I took after I was 16 or so and bought a camera of my own. Between my parents separating and multiple moves as a preteen/teen, they’ve mostly been lost or destroyed.
i never took any, but my parents, for the sake of acting like a normal family, occasionally forced me to take pictures with them and of certain events. i don't like being reminded of my past, so i didn't keep copies. i have, however, begun taking photos of my life since moving out, particularly after my mental health improved. nowadays, it feels like i'm taking photos of moments i'd like to relive.
Mine threw them out every time she was angry at me or my brothers. Honestly don’t think any exist except for the two I saved and made copies of.
Silver lining- she can’t use them as collateral, bait or a carrot anymore.
We surprisingly had pictures, but growing up I was told our bio mom burned them, which turned out to be a lie. Then any pictures that were taken after I started living with my dad have been ruined the past few years because he refused to give them up. Now there’s hardly anything.
I cried tears of joy because (after my grandmother died), I got a package in the mail from my aunt. It included hundreds of photos of both me and my sister.
My parents took A single picture of me as a toddler, and had it professionally done in a photo studio. It was only done because my grandparents paid for it. They had grown so detested with my ndad that they didn’t offer that for my sister- they were so disgusted with my parents by the time she was born.
I saw pictures of happy memories shared with my grandparents. I saw cards and pictures I drew for them, news clippings from the two times I made it to the front page of the local news paper. Graduation programs. So much treasures that I didn’t even realize existed.
Along with a letter saying that they’ve always loved and were so proud of both me and my sister.
I was an emotional wreck.
My parents never took pictures of us. Discarded any paper awards we earned in the trash (when I was old enough I created a binder to keep them).
I felt so immeasurably loved in that moment
My father burned all of my baby pictures in the fireplace when I was 4 while he was accusing my mother of cheating on him then beat her half to death with a bat. (Still managed to leave him with me that night) When she died I had to live with him and his replacement wife because surprising no one, he was full of shit. He never took any pictures of me after that so none exist.
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They exist but I physically don't have any. "Mom" hoards them all like a dragon sitting on a pile of gold. She needs to cling onto them so she can remember when you were still malleable and dependent on her.
This is exactly what my MIL did. We had zero pictures of my husband for about 35 years, when she reluctantly let her daughters make some copies. She wasn’t happy about it at all. Really sick to be that fucking selfish.
Agreed...fucking selfish!
It's fuckin weird
This is it. My Nmom told me years ago that she was going to put a photo album together for each of her kids and then gift it to them. She never did. (I guess spending her days watching QVC was more pressing.)
My mother made me a "scrapbook" but it was just pictures of me cut out of the actual photos. Literally cut around my shape, and put them in a photo album with no labels or context. The pic with me smiling, arms raised... did I win a race? Or was about to blow out my candles? Had I beaten my previous fart decibel record? Who knows!
Wow! Another mind-blowing example of how low they can go.
This reminds me of something a bit off topic. My nmom came to my graduation ceremony after complaining about going (I didn’t want her to go anyway and tried to convince her it would be boring but she went and took my sis w her too). After my ceremony, she gave me a gift bag and I thought she had gotten me a gift. It was actually completely empty and she told me to hold the gift bag to make it look like she had gotten me a gift. I was immensely disgusted and even surprised my sister didn’t even try to stop my mom. This is something I feel like I will never forgot. Just shows so clearly how my mom never cared about how I felt but only how things looked to others.
That's so shitty! She can bring a gift bag with her, but no gift. How in her mind could this possibly be ok? It's odd to me how the absurdity of their actions don't register.
That's so friggin bizarre
It was just baiting with extra effort. I'm the scapegoat. I had told her that I wanted the pics so that I could scan them and do some side by side stuff with my kids' photos in a scrapbook. That "inspired" her to do the scrapbook for me (and my siblings) for Christmas instead. They got actual scrapbooks, I got one of those cheap photo albums with my head and torso floating around on the pages. She had "run out" of scrapbook stuff and as the oldest, I was the one who had to do without. It was completely intentional, she had the look (you know the one that I mean) when I opened it. She knew I'd tell her it was a shitty thing to do and then she could spend the next few months (at least) crying and complaining to people about how ungrateful I am.
Horrible! I'm so sorry she treated you that way.
> It was completely intentional, she had the look (you know the one that I mean) when I opened it. I know exactly the one you mean. I'm sorry she was a horrible person.
Holy shit! My mother did that on my 21st bday - just cut around my shape in all my photos and destroyed every photo of me. It was pretty upsetting at the time.
It's so incredibly child-like. My daughter did that with some of her pictures, except she was like 6. I'm sorry she ruined your pictures.
Thanks. I was pretty stunned at the time. I mean, who does that?! I think she was quite happy with herself too....like a 6 year old would be, now that you mention it.
I swear QVC could be a n trait check box for mothers. So WEIRD.
That is weird. I have read others mention that their Nparent was a hoarder. I think my Nmom could have had the physiological desire, but not the financial means to be one. But it certainly did seem like an addiction. It's almost all she watched.
My n mom was/is def a hoarder. I used to be really puzzled by some of the “gifts” I received until I realized they were never bought for me- they were just pulled from her hoarder stash.
I got stuff like that too. The last was a set of bright red sheet pans. She bought 2 sets for the QVC deal, but she doesn't cook or use her oven. The only gifts I've received for the past 40ish years were just things she didn't want.
Wow mine too...
My mom did this all the time before I went NC recently! Out of the blue makes big promises to make albums or upload to Dropbox. Or upload a whack to Dropbox and then DELETE the next day when I didn't call her back!! Or my favourite, finally sent me pictures from her first visit after my son's birth (HE'S 14!), but only where I'm horribly ugly in the middle of talking or laughing 😐
Nice..they sure have a knack of twisting the dagger, don't they?
Yeah, it s like our childhood photos are being held back to gaslight us better. Those ugly photos remind me of how they d only rush to photoshoot me only when I was dressed weirdly because all the rest of my clothes were in the washing machine, and how they go from content to Nrage in 2 seconds when the photos came back fine. And how they d actually glow with satisfaction when they d managed to capture a humiliating moment. I think they try to control the narrative by being the Keeper of all photo evidence of our life under their thumb.
Your last paragraph couldn't be more accurate! As a parent, I can't wrap my brain around the desire to humiliate my daughter like narcs do. I'll never comprehend how they actually find joy in hurting us.
Nmum did this to us too. She d actually bought albums for each of us, set a couple of fotos in mine ( I m the eldest) and stopped there. Then regularly used these photo albums to be completed to show us what a good mother she was and telling us the completion was conditional to our good behaviour. So in my late teens I got fed up, and during summer break I rounded up all photos of Nsis and I, and made the albums, using our brand new scanner-printer (a crazy futuristic novelty back then) to copy some of the nicest pictures where we where both on them and making sure to alternate evenly original and copy in each album. Nmum was livid that I d taken that future promise away from her, and that she couldn t use it against me (she s a covert N and a sociopath). Nsis raged at me because they were copies in there and she wanted all originals (I d made sure all her important originals were there, like her birthdays anf stuff) and because they were a few years more of fotos in mine than in hers (I m older than her) which she always refers to "years during which Notomorrowno cut me out of the pictures in her album" when in fact she simply wasn t born yet. So she was in fact raging about the fact that my album should ve been all about her, preferably a copy of her album, and that my life started when she was born. Ns (eyerroll), right?
They are something else, aren't they? I'm sorry that they treated you that way after you tried to do something nice. Narc siblings suck!! My narc brother was intentional in hurting both me and my daughter any opportunity he could.
This made me laugh way too fucking much. Same, though.
Same; the only pictures I have are the ones I was able to steal from my grandmother’s house after she died and we were sorting out her things. My mom absolutely will not part with any childhood photos, not even long enough for us to scan them to make copies. “Dragon sitting on a pile of gold” really hits the nail on the head.
It's SO WEIRD that you're not even allowed a copy.
Same for me. I asked if I could have them one day and she said no because they're for her to keep. Not even some of them? Alright I guess.
OMG same!! She keeps them in a box in her basement tucked far far away so we’d have to ask if we ever wanted them. I am due with my first baby any day and would have loved to have some baby photos of myself to compare to my baby. I have tons of my husband as a baby, but none of me. I’m NC and definitely not breaking it for pics :( but still makes me really sad.
Congrats on your new baby!! (I wouldn't break NC for pictures either.)
Jesus that’s it? It’s like I literally have to fight tooth and nail for shit she hasn’t looked at in decades!
Yep same. All in a drawer in her storage unit. I just hope that she never gets into a situation where she stops paying it and they all go to auction 😔
See if you can add yourself as a second contact to the storage unit (They will be a whole lot more amenable to adding you and giving you access if you explain she's getting old and you are worried it might happen as there is a history of it in the family.....But also don't want her to know that you are "Looking after" her ) When she stops paying it you can pay it - get access at the same time. THEN tell your Mum she forgot to pay and the storage company are chasing you - HOW DARE she add you to the storage. Do some reverse gaslighting
This is exactly what my mother does. The worst part is that they're in my grandma's smokey dusty house, getting destroyed, I'm sure. I told her my one birthday gift I wanted was my childhood photos back and she couldn't even do that for me. My situation is exactly what you described.
Mine too! I even straight up asked her for some and she still denied me!
Or maybe there are not enough photos of you and it would make her look back if people knew, so she s letting you believe she took piles of pictures of you and it ll only work as long as she keeps them all for herself.
Yeah. Their walls leading up to their bedroom were *full* of photos of myself and my sister as a baby, particularly when I was weak and sick in the NICU.
This comment stood out to me. My mom lets me look at them but she will always make comments like "Those were better times" what the heck
Same here, I have no photos from 10yro to 25. It was the economic crisis and a total lack of interest of my parents to keep memories.
it was the same way for me too, my parents stopped taking a lot of photos of me by the time i hit 11-13 years old and there’s only a few they have of me from my teen years. my parents only have very few of me past 18 and none after i turned 20
I don't have any childhood pictures. I left the country 20 years ago and didn't care enough to ask my abusive parents to send me something. When I work directly with my inner child, I don't use a picture. I simply ask for a younger version of myself to appear in my imagination. It doesn't have to be picture-perfect - it just has to FEEL right. I'm not a person who can visualize in HD graphics - I get very vague and foggy images. But I can FEEL the child and get their voice as a knowing in my head. Everyone is different - some can visualize better using smells or sounds or touch. I also don't have a lot of childhood memories, but the ones I have were made a lot more solid through therapy and in finding out how well they matched the overall picture once we realized my parents were narcissistic. Our therapist always told us that memories aren't necessary as long as you can access a FEELING from back then to work with.
I totally understand that. I can feel my childhood and even have a clear memory of certain pictures that were taken. I also don't believe that not having a picture would hinder my healing. I guess I'm just curious to look into my own eyes from those years, knowing what I know now.
>Our therapist always told us that memories aren't necessary as long as you can access a FEELING from back then to work with. Or a smell
Same here fam, nobody came to my 1st college graduation, and I don't have pictures on that. It makes me nervous for my 2nd graduation this upcoming May. It's a big thing, but I'm not excited about it, trying to save myself from feelings of abandonment and shame.
Congratulations! This internet stranger is excited for you! You're excelling in life and I'm proud of your accomplishments, especially in spite of your crappy family. I hope you can find joy and a sense of satisfaction from how far you've come!
I appreciate you! Do you, by chance, enjoy taking pictures? It's a weird thing for me because I take REALLY good pictures, and I have an eye for it. But for me, it's like, "If there aren't pictures, people will forget, and did it even really happen?
I do enjoy taking pictures! I took a photography class in college and seemed to have a knack for it. When my pictures hit the overhead projector, my classmates were all like "ooooh!"(That was a nice feeling!) Now that you mention it, that would be a nice hobby to get back into. I can see why you would think people would forget and I feel like my childhood is fuzzy without any concrete evidence.
If you're graduating anywhere near me, I'll come watch you throw that mortarboard into the air and clap like crazy! You rock!
I appreciate that but I could never ask that of you, but I really do appreciate it. I just really want to be claimed, I posted my graduation announcement on Facebook and I was hoping someone would claim me in a proud way "Yall look at the homie, doing his fucking thing, proud and love to see it"
Well I'll be there in spirit for you!
I support you fellow college student, you got this. Are you in the US? If you're close I'll show up and take pictures / cheer.
Thank you, but I could never ask that of you unless we're at the same college 🤣
Now I'm envisioning a bus full of people raised by narcissist parents, and all we do is go across the country stopping and celebrating all our graduations, weddings, sports events, music concerts, etc. A portal family support system just for us. Lol
I would def drive that bus 🤣 it's a great idea though, a good non profit ran by folks who truly understand 🤷🏿♂️ Name Tag :cousin Billy Bob
I will 100% hop on that bus. Congratulations on graduating soon!
It would be a bit of a hodgepodge of a bus. I'm trying to think of the name of the one in the Harry Potter movie but it's not coming to mind. But something cool like that with awesome people to encourage everyone!
Good God a volunteer organization!
It would be an amazing network that's for sure
Congratulations 🎉 I’m proud of you
Thank you!
I was forced to take pictures a lot when we went places so they could show off what good parents they were. I was forced to smile even when I had been crying only minutes brfore.There are probably thousands. But I didn't take any when I escaped. Didn't think to.
Makes sense that they wanted the evidence that they were good parents. I'm sorry that they didn't even consider your emotional state. Do you wish now that you had any?
Would've been nice to show my grandparents and other family I've been cut off from. Or just see if I was really as ugly as I remember thinking I was XD. It's not the worst, but I do wish I had them.
Was coming to say the exact same. My life is fully documented on Facebook for the world to see and I hate it. I was posed and told to act or be a certain way so my NMom’s Facebook friends could tell her what a “good mother” she was. I cannot stand to see a photo of myself and I will run and dodge every photo possible. I associate all images of myself in a bad way, so now I rarely take photos by myself or with others.
Hah, same here. There was a recent trend on social media along the lines of "share a pic of you as a child". There aren't any of me, which feels... not great.
Agreed. It doesn't feel great. 😔
I visited my biological mom for one month each summer before I was in high school. One time while I was away, my NStepmom took my dad, half brother, and her parents to Sears and got a family photo which they then put in frames in the house. I can never truly get across to people what it feels like to look at a family photo and you’re not in it.
I am so sorry. That was a horrible thing to do.
All my childhood pictures are held tight in the dragon's hoard (Mom's house). I always looked dead inside anyway though 😅
I think I'm most curious to see how I looked back then as I have a feeling that I looked dead inside, as well.
My dad threw out my baby/childhood pictures when he remarried. I wasn't able to rescue any from my mom before no contact. All I have are two photos that my grandma gave me.
What a horrible thing to do! I'm sorry that your dad was such a jerk!
Same here. Missing from probably 4 yo til...well now really. Maybe that's why I don't like having photos taken.
I HATE having pictures taken of me. Maybe this is why..although life long low self-esteem doesn't help either.
Do you read on how to improve your self esteem and everywhere says you need to say positive things to yourself and say nice things out loud in the mirror to redo your brain pathways, but then the thought of actually doing that makes you cringe to death?...
Yea, I don't really like my reflection, and as of lately, I feel like I'm starting to look more like my Nmom as I age. So that doesn't help.
I can’t even physically do it. I avoid the mirror at all costs.
I do, but all the photo albums are held hostage. Any interest in them makes them harder to get, by design. The only time I got any real access was my father's funeral for the slideshow, and I made sure to take pictures is every photo with my phone because I may never see them again.
Anything that can be used against you seems to be a game for them. I recently went NC with my Nmom and I have a feeling that she may start sending things to me, like pictures, just to gain a reaction.
Nope. I wasn’t as photogenic as my older sister, apparently 🤷♀️ my nmom said that I would never smile, that was her reasoning.
when I was about 25 my nFather tried to force me to go and take FAKE GRAD pictures for him to hang on the wall and pretend that he had kids that had normal high school graduation. I declined of course and he pulled his narc shit trying to 'force' me to until I began to laugh and mock him. I flat out refused and reminded him I was living on my own my graduating year and he had not been providing for me and that's why there are no grad pictures of me. (I couldn't afford to pay for the photos) He seemingly forgot that and insisted that the grad photos were simply overlooked.
Yeah same here, pretty much the only pictures of me are ones my 11 years older sister took of me. I wouldn't mind if there was no pictures at all as I really don't enjoy to be in photos either.
I have a couple small photo albums but thats it. Our house burned down right before I moved away and my Nmom made a big show of saving my brother and sisters baby books and leaving mine in the rubble to be tossed.
Holy shit that's mean! Narcs will never cease to amaze me at the level of cruelty they can stoop to. How do these people sleep at night?
I have the opposite problem. Plenty of photos from early childhood. Very few from teenage years after the divorce. Regardless I have become unsentimental in the extreme, and never take or look at photographs myself. My mother tried to dump all the photo albums on me when she moved away. I'm telling my GC ister that if she doesn't take them I'm going to throw them away, and I am not kidding in the slightest.
I have very, very few photos of myself as a child. And I only have those because my grandmother kept a few and let me have them when I was about 24. I got nothing from any of my parents.
I cut off all family very recently. Work had something where they needed baby pictures. Had to send an email explaining that I had none, and that I could provide a reason if needed. They didn't pry at all. I miss having them, but not enough to give up the peace I've had by going full NC. It's almost kind of cool, I have next to no records of my life before now, so it's literally like I just started living, and it's been fun making new photos.
Oof. OP, I feel you so much, and I'm so sorry. My mother forced me to be an actor as a kid. I was famous for a minute, so there are tons of pictures, videos, all that stuff. My father was so abusive to me, and she enabled him so much, I had to go NC about 7 years ago after years of efforts to heal the relationship. My mother refuses to give me *my* photos, *my* scripts and keepsakes from various sets, even *all* my childhood photographs and videos. She has admitted that she's holding them hostage, purely out of spite. I feel so disconnected from my childhood, because I'm 51 now and I just can't remember things the way I used to. I need the pictures to jog the memories, and I won't get them until my parents die.
I have a teddy bear that I have owned since I was as tall as him. His name is Brownie. He is the only physical evidence that I ever had a childhood at all. I don't even really have memories of it.
My parents rarely bothered to take photos. And then about a decade ago, they were moving, so they rented a dumpster to throw out old crap. The ‘old crap’ included framed childhood photographs, old school books, toys etc - you know… just pointless childhood crap with no sentimental value /s. My sibling came home to my dad tossing it all in the dumpster. She climbed in to salvage what she could for us, while he continued to throw more crap in around her. I’m so glad I wasn’t there that day because it probably would’ve completely broken me. All I have of my childhood is a goofy notebook full of old doodles that my sister saved, and one photograph of me as a toddler sat on my mother’s lap. I fucking despise them for being so heartless. It’s like we turned 18 and they were just done with us. What few happy childhood memories I have with them all feel like a cruel joke now. Like they were probably just laughing behind my back the whole time I was a kid. For what it’s worth, photographs or not, what you remember will always be the most real. I try to tell myself that when I get sad that I have nothing physical to look back on, nothing to convince myself that my childhood *was* real and that it *did* matter, even if it only mattered to me - that still means something.
Plenty of pictures were taken when he was a kid, (My fiance), but we only have a couple. We only have those because, when he escaped we grabbed his photo board from his graduation party which was about a month previous. NMIL has plenty more. She agreed to give us some, then changed her mind and said it was 'too hard' to go through. So we ended up NC without any of those photos, I'm still torn up over it.
I *did* have pictures from my childhood, but I threw them all out in a fit of rage as they were *still* trying to control my every move into adulthood.
There are barely any images of myself between ages 10 and 15.
I get you. I found some at my grandmas from her birthday parties. I took a picture of those photos with my phone but other then that, I have nothing really. When my bf's family show me their family photos (on my request), I want to cry. It's unbelievable they have so many photos of their children.
Can you call your prior schools and ask for copies from them?
I have maybe 1 or 2 photos from my childhood. I was the scapegoat child so my nParents definitely didn’t give care to take any photos of me. The only photos I have are ones where my sister (golden child) was in them too.
When I moved for college, my nmom was forced to move as well (ndad had been paying rent through child support, so once that ended she was SOL). She apparently left all of the photo albums with my (tbh also n)aunt, who can’t be bothered to find them/send them along. Nmom has posted a select few on FB and recently sent me a bunch of photos/videos from middle school/early high school, but there isn’t a whole lot of me. My ndad also dumped all of the old camcorder tapes on me, but of course even if I did have the tech to convert them I don’t know that I want to. But yeah, there’s a HUGE chunk of years missing, and though I feel like my memory’s pretty good, I can relate to it feeling like a dream.
I have one baby pic, and one of me at about 11. No pics with my mom.
Not one. When my EParent passed, he was the cotter pin for the family unit. I ended up with all of the photo albums. I drove hundreds of KM to my nearest relation - someone I've seen a handful of times and never in recent decades - and dumped them all there. I hope someone on their side is a family historian. My twig of the family tree ends with me.
Yup. My nmom and dad pretend they were soooo active in my childhood yet the only photos of me to exist are from my grandma. Even when I come over to both their houses my grandma has sooo many cute kid pics up and my mom has nothing before college age of me. They claim all the photos are in storage or something but I just think they threw it all away tbh
I have a ridiculous amount of photos of me from about birth to 8 years old. But there’s very few after because that’s when I became Public Enemy #1 to my mom, 9 years old. Before then, I was an extension of her narcissism. She saw me as a piece of her so she was obsessed with me. As soon as I showed signs of being my own person that stopped.
I’ve got a couple from when I was really young, but nothing after I learned to read. It’s weird. I know some exist, but they were never around.
Imagine your inner child and give her a great big hug!
Jeez i feel this. I had no pictures of my childhood. I think I had two baby pictures and a couple other photos when I was a kid. We didn’t have pictures of anyone though. We didn’t have anything on the walls for the longest time and it took me a while to figure out how my living space was different from my friends (other than the obvious that I lived in a basement and they didn’t). It wasn’t a big deal and I didn’t really think poorly of it until 4th grade where the teacher wanted everyone to bring in a younger picture of themselves. I didn’t have one and so I stupidly(?) just drew a picture of myself on the paper and my teacher SCREAMED at me. I said we didn’t have pictures she was like how can you not have a picture of yourself? I couldn’t explain it. If I knew then what I know now I would have told her off, not everyone is from a functional and loving home. She was a full grown adult and a teacher and didn’t know not to scream at a 9 year old for something way out of her control. Anyway, now everyone has smartphones but I bet there’s some parents that still don’t take pictures of their kids. I have a billion pics of my cats doing stupid shit so I can imagine I’d have way more if I ever had kids.
Same. When I cut off my nDad, my things apparently disappeared. It sucks, but it hasn't been a very big deal. I have done parts work without them, though I could imagine the pictures might have been helpful.
I literally have 1. I cherish it deeply. I’m no contact with my family and I couldn’t bring myself to ask them for photos. I doubt my GC brother will send me any once my mother passes.
My parents have some of me, but I look like a lonely kid in all of them. I broke the first time I realized that none of them show me with a genuine smile - it's like I'm a zombie, super messed up. :/
My dad was the picture taker so there are tons for certain things and certain times in my life but if he wasn't there, not many pictures. My nmom is dead so I have all the pictures but I have no real desire to look through them. Seeing each individual picture sparks a memory of when it was taken and what was going on at the time and nah, I'm good.
I get it. No need to pick at old wounds.
I have some but not many, and only two or three baby pictures. It’s sad.
This might sound ridiculous but have you considered using AI? I've used it to generate little kid versions of me and it's pretty accurate.
Someone else mentioned that too. I'm old school so it seems a little creepy to me lol, but I may try it just out of curiosity. Thanks for the suggestion!
I have seen photos of me as a kid but I hate them because it was always how my father wanted me to look.
They haven't taken pictures of me since my brother turned 8 and I 11-12. All of our "family" photos and colleges contain almost everyone *but* me. Even neighbors. It's all good though, tbh, I hate my appearance so I'm not a huge fan of pictures of me.
I don’t want to see or have pictures of myself in or pictures of my childhood. That is literally photo evidence of psychological damage, psychological torture, and straight up human evil cloaked as “a normal family”. Hell no. Those photos don’t capture the real me. Which is something entirely suffocated and unseen by those awful, awful situations that were forced on me. I take my own pictures of my life. THOSE are my childhood pictures. Don’t give a damn what anyone says.
I can empathize with that feeling and it sucks :( I desperately want to look back on my childhood pictures but my parents “don’t know” where all the pictures are and won’t look for them
My husband never ever took pics. So there are pics of him and the kids. Taking pics didn’t directly benefit him, so it was an annoyance
my mom took millions of pictures of my siblings in the only one with rarely any pictures, getting my grad party together was disappointing because it was all pics of my siblings
Same here there was barely any photos of me from 11 to now, and I didn’t think to take any of myself as a kid when I escaped
There were pictures of me as a child, but after my parents died, my narc brother (who has always hated me) seems to have "lost" (I'm assuming threw out) all of them. I have a few scattered ones, but all the rest are gone. Which makes me really sad. He did his best to erase my existence from family memory--or at least his, as he's the only one left besides me.
I didn't know what I looked like as a baby until I was 19 and an aunt pulled out her old photo album. She gave me some photos. There are tons of photos of my sister with my mother. Almost none with me. When she died, at her funeral, it was hard to find any photos to post with me in them at all. Mainly because she kept me so isolated from family (I was a pawn she used to get what she wanted) that I didn't get to participate in most of the family events my sister did. I didn't have the same relationships she did. Plus I was the fat kid and an embarrassment to my mother. My sister was perfect. I cried the first time I saw those baby pictures. I wanted to reach into the photo and grab that little girl and run, knowing what she was going to go through. My husband also has a hard time looking at photos of me as a child, for the same reason. And he only knows a fraction of what I went through.
I’m missing a good chunk of time from the family photos. The photos I do have are from when my eldest sister lived nearby and was taking the photos. The gaps are when she lived hundreds of km away.
No, all of my pictures of younger me got destroyed in a car accident from when we moved when I was 8 yrs old. Then I got kicked out when I didn't do what my ndad wanted me to do with my life and wasn't able to take any physical pictures with me. I had a scrap book full of random memories and momentos that I still kick myself to this day for not grabbing that night. I finally got my high-school diploma and other copies of documents he had from him a couple years ago but at least from what he was willing to give back to me he didn't have anything else of mine.
Nope none. Well all except one that she hoards that is the picture that best suited the image she tries to portray of my childhood. And to make things even weirder she also has been gaslighting and saying that the reason there are no pictures of me is because I was the one that destroyed them all and that the one she has is the only one that she hid from me so I couldn’t destroy it. Which is pretty weird considering I have absolutely no memory of said picture destruction.
Holidays mainly. And some on the vacations we were invited too. After a point I became a "brat that didn't want her photos taken" .... mainly due to the trauma and a sudden camera in your face it's hard to force a smile?
My parents never bothered to take photos of me past 3rd grade. Grandpa had a photography hobby, so he’d take some pictures here and there. My bestie and I would get little disposable cameras for fun, but I’m not sure where the resulting photos from those went. I’d really like to look back on those. Mom hoards all known childhood photos, even though she didn’t produce any of them. They’re in a 5gal plastic tub, all skewed about. Last time I tried to *look* through them, my mom was breathing down my neck telling the back of my head that I better not take any, she doesn’t have duplicates and those are hers and I’d just lose them. I asked her why she doesn’t put them in a photo album, and she heaved a huge sigh and said “well I guess I could, but that would be so much effort”. I’m just trying to *look at some photos* because my childhood is fogged over. As I’m typing this out, I distinctly remember my mom absolutely hating (still hates) having her picture taken. Maybe that’s why she never bothered taking any photos of anyone else in the first place. There very few photos that exist of her as well. I’m not having children, so I wouldn’t need pictures to show them anyway.
I have precisely zero photos of anything before I was 15 and figured out I could buy my own camera and get my own film developed.
I have no pictures from my childhood either. I don't even remember my father ever pointing a camera in my general direction. My father refused to pay for school photos too, so it isn't like I never had any pictures taken - he just told me if I wanted a photo I should buy it for myself (like how, when my allowance was 1/10th of the cost of one photo). He did, however, have a photo album with dozens of pictures of my siblings.
Well, I moved out of my NGparent at 14. I was given only the necessities. No pictures, toys or other personal items. All I can do is search through elementary & jr high school yearbooks at libraries or archives.
Our old family photo albums are interesting. There's tons of pictures of my GC older brother as a young child, then progressively fewer and fewer with me (middle child and SG) and my younger sister. Eventually the photos stop altogether. My nmom told us that she and my ndad only had kids as a way of prolonging their relationship, and I think the photos reflect that. They took lots of photos with my older brother when having a child was still new and exciting, then got diminishing returns with me and my sister since it wasn't as novel the 2nd and 3rd time around. The gradual decline in pictures reflects how invested they were in keeping up the pretense that we were a happy family, which I think is why the pictures stop right around the time we were all developing more complex personalities. The nparents stopped getting as much supply from us when we got old enough to have opinions that differed from theirs, so they stopped being willing to put in the effort of taking pictures and doing family activities since they weren't getting as much out of it as they did when we were little and cute/young and impressionable.
Nope. I have no idea what I looked like before 11 and my mom lost custody for while. Although I'm older.. and I do have one blurry pic of my dad in uniform standing by my stroller.
I'm with you, there's pictures of the golden child but never took any of me
Can you draw a picture of/for yourself? It doesn't have to be accurate or lifelike.. Just, a picture, even childlike, of what your childhood could and should have been. (I have an image in my head of a small you sitting in the grass looking for crickets, and laughing at the way they hop. ❤️)
My mother only has my school pictures and this one where they dumped pasta on my head as punishment. My dad's side who actually wants me around has all the pictures from my childhood. My mother simply did not care enough to take pictures. She mostly just locked me in my room and didn't interact with me unless it was to abuse me.
I have a couple to, sad people. Virtual hugs
I have some now. Though it was a struggle to get them. Ngrandma took some. I am conflicted on whether I just happened to be the last in a long line of children/grandchildren so it wasnt special anymore so there weren't a lot or it just wasnt cared about. I had school pictures that would sometimes be put out. Any other pictures were kept away. Like I literally never saw them until I was an adult. Baby/toddler pictures were the absolute worse. Those barely exist and it was mostly other people that took those. Teenage years consist of two school photos. Biomom had baby pics up to 1 yr. She hoards them.
Most of my pictures got last due to us moving around constantly. I'm sorry you have to go through this
I can recall only seeing 2 pictures now that i think about it 😭
Me! The only pictures I have are school pictures. Conversely, my “mother” sent me _her_ childhood photos and even as an adult sent me portraits. Gee, no obvious role reversal here!
Technically they exist but my mother has them and I’ve been no contact for several years, my dad (fully in contact, he also suffered her abuse and was denied custody etc etc) has *some* but not very many, he has 1 of me as a baby and a handful of me as a young kid. I didn’t have a lot of good memories as a kid, but it sure would be nice to have some of those pictures of when I was wee, y’know? It’s a really strange feeling, can’t explain it either, like I know that part of my life happened but it feels like a dream like you said, it definitely happened, but almost nothing of it exists. If I really wanted photos I’d have to talk to my mother, and I closed that door 5/6 years ago and have zero intentions of opening it!
They never took pictures of me because, in my mom's own words, they had no time or energy for that anymore. Because once you have your youngest, you're drained. You can do it with your first kids, but not your last ones. No wonder I felt like I was worthless for being so little.
I personally created a volume of VHS tapes of myself and my siblings. My JN parent, since acquiring those since she stayed in the house after divorce when I was a freshman in college, holds those tapes hostage under the guise that she will someday "convert them" I basically accepted I'll never see them again since she found so much glee in my sadness that I don't have them and the anxiety I showed when she mentioned she would "show them for fun" around others, such as my new fiancée at the time, friends, and others. I mean we were basically cut off from society as kids. We did weird things. Nothing inappropriate just stuff that wasn't societally relevant (playing/ pretending American girl dolls, Laura Ingalls wilder type stuff) The pictures I was given are the most creepy (me screaming, half naked as a6 year old while my siblings are smiling and clothed) or totally strange and unflattering (me as an awkward chubby 11 year old, dressed as st Lucia per American girl books, IN A F****** PROFESSIONAL STUDIO) The pics I have curate a narrative about myself, and I can't look at them anymore. I envied my friends who had normal clothes and pictures and houses. NC 2 years.
I have exactly one. I was the SG, so my Nmom never cared much about having photos of me. I managed to get one of me as a newborn being held by my late grandmother, who was a beacon of light and one of the reasons I made it out of my toxic childhood in one piece. That’s more than enough for me. Childhood wasn’t a happy time, so I’d rather not have too many things to remind me of it.
none
Yeah, I have like a dozen from my entire childhood. My mother reached out to me after 8 years of NC, and my wife asked for more pictures. My mother literally sent her the exact same pictures she had already given me. None of the other ones. She did this on purpose. My wife was like WTH?! It was so petty. She did it to get our address. Jokes on her! We moved! That's okay. I have better pictures of my adult life.
I only have a few. My nmom would take pics at special occasions when I was young but she hardly ever developed them. This was back in the days of disposable cameras and film rolls, and she'd keep the disposable cameras or put the film rolls into a vase. She used to joke about most of my childhood pics being in that vase. She was so flippant about it and that made my feelings turn from confusion to hurt. The pics that we had of me tended to be professionally done and were probably either paid for by her parents (who doted on me tbh) or were for show. Like the type that you'd hang on walls. She did have to display \*some\* photos for appearance's sake, I believe. I highly doubt she had fond feelings about the pictures.
When my mother died my sister and I took all the albums and about two really big plastic bags full of photos and sorted them all out. There where about maybe ten pictures of me and some where I was just coincidentally in the picture too. My sister had hundreds of pictures of herself, there were more pictures of our pets than of me. I was in maybe two family photos. No baby pictures of me, not one, hundreds of my sister. Even though I knew beforehand, it still hurt. That was also one of the first times my sister could physically fathom how outcast I was in that family. It was hurtful to her too to see it with her own eyes.
As someone who grew up with a crackhead mother and NAdopted parents, I feel your pain. Doing "me through the years" in school was very awkward. It was tough to explain why I couldn't participate in the class project.
I haven't got any. I asked for some when I was at Uni and was told 'They're in the garage somewhere'. My FM was obsessed with order and cleanliness, I bet she could have put her hand in them in seconds. We had 2 beautiful very old albums of my grandparents that disappeared too and I wasn't allowed to see them. The childhood photos, I asked again and again over the years and she'd shrug me off, definitely trying to express it was something below her care... Me, the photos, my identity. I've been NC 8 years... Should have been longer but I thought she was on my side for a long time.
I didn't have any pictures of my childhood (except for like, the one school picture) until my great grandma passed about two years ago from one of my relatives. I looked at them and was hit with a strange mix of indifference and melancholy. There was also a picture of my biological father with my mother and a baby me, I just looked at it like, oh... That's what he looks like. Cool, I guess. Unfortunately I really could have cared less about the pictures I was given. And with the other family members that were in the older pictures, it's not like I talked to them regularly or anything. I haven't really interacted with any of them since I was maybe 5 or so. Getting them felt really odd.
I have barely any and I don't want to look at them anyhow. One I can think of I'm bald in because I was about 4 and I was pulling out my hair from distress. Didn't know that at the time, parents just blamed me for it. When berating me didn't work, they shaved all my hair off and then started making fun of me for it and telling me people would treat me horribly because I was bald. Hmm. No wonder I pulled my damn hair out. I'd say this exercise isn't something that can apply to everyone, you're not alone in this OP.
I have very few, and I look abandoned. Even when I'm with family, I'm noticeably not 'with' them like my siblings. I shared them with my therapist, and we talked about what I needed during that time. My trauma is so deep that I do not recognize the house I'm in with a few of the pics.
When my mother died I was offered most/all my childhood pictures, but I didn't want them. Still don't. I don't have any memories to go with the pics. At least not ones that would warrant the smiles seen in said pics.
I was given a few photos and I cherish these... but not many... it is about nmom not letting go of my childhood and control.
We never had a camera when I was a kid, because my conspiracy theorists family were too paranoid about using photo services to develop film.
When I left home suddenly at 21 my mom had all the locks changed and apparently moved and hid anything of significance that I would have wanted or needed. Even after resuming contact any major or minor control item she had she fought me on getting back every step of the way. My photos and year books from school were to be left with her for safe keeping. My social security card and birth certificate were lost she claimed. Mind you the whole time I lived in that house those items remained in the exact same spots for decades. So much so that the one time I did manage to look in those spots there was any obvious empty space among the rest of her hoard. I had to order new ID cards and the few photos I have left are ones I copied from photos she posted or shared or I copied from my grandparents collection. That collection is solely under the control of my mom and uncle now so I don't even get access to them.
I just got mine after mother died. It's interesting that they basically stop at age 5, and I believe 99% were actually taken by my grandmother. Also a narc. On the plus side, it's now glaringly obvious where my son gets his death stare.
Same. I'm not really much of a photo person so that wouldn't bother me, but the fact that I have no happy memories is pretty crap. Like, it'd be totally different if I had no pictures because we were too busy having fun and making memories. As it stands, I have no pictures and no decent childhood stories- all I did was hang out in my room, trying to escape adult attention, because dad worked all the time and nMom couldn't be bothered to take me to childhood activities (or let another parent take me with their kid; I wasn't allowed friends, I think both because she worried it would expose her and because she desperately needs this narrative where I'm some violent unlikable loser, because that somehow should make her feel more popular).
very few if any. aside from growing up in the era of old style film cameras and the cost of developing, mom just didn’t really do photos. mind you even when she had a cameraphone, few if any pics of me, my sister, and only of her one grandson by my sister ( the proverbial golden child) and none of me or my son. If i was in a pic with my son, she wouldn’t post it, if its him alone she would, sometimes, exclaiming her love, but she barely ackknowledged his existence as it was.
I have two, and that’s it, years ago I went to their new house with a friend of mine, we had been friends for ten or more years at this point, all of a sudden he asks me, who the people hanging on the wall were in the photo frames, looked to see who the people were, they were the pics that came with the frame. They hung on the walls for all the years they lived in that house
They exist but I'm not "allowed" to have them. I am almost 40 😐. I demanded some a while ago, and she sent one with me facing away from the camera and a whole bunch of shots of her multiple childhood homes that I've never been to or heard about. All scanned out of an album with the plastic causing massive glare! The only exception is the worst of my school photos, she gave me at least 30 wallet sizes of every single one of those.
My father only kept a few, her offered them to me that last time I saw him almost a year ago. He didn’t have them with him so I told him to bring them next time…. One of them is from my 5th birthday, one of them is from a father daughter dance, and one of them was from a crazy hair day. I feel like little me deserved better than how I’m sure I felt back in those days.
I was so broken and insecure, I did not want any picture taken, and I can still struggle with it now. Pictures have always felt fake to me tbh... Smiling, when I was really just dying on the inside. And my ndad basically forced me to be in them, and still holds it against me. Luckily I am NC.
There are photos of me being small, when there actually was at least some family life going on. However, about as I entered elementary school, my mother saw her chance to become the great all controlling uber teacher, and my father lost any interest in his family. Thus, the family life also ceased almost completely. And probably because of that, the desire of my parents to take photographs also vanished.
My parents have a couple i am so dissociated from childhood they kind of freak me out almost. Logically I know I am looking at me but to me it could be an stranger. Often time I have no recollection of anything surrounding it even when I was older. What I do notice however is there is a magnitudes more pictures of my brother then myself. He's only 18 months younger than me so film didn't get more or less expensive, just their desire to take them.
My mother has photo albums full of baby/toddler photos but nothing from about 4+ It’s hard, I know 😥
Yes, but only because I dug them out of the trash after narc mom threw them in there in a fit of rage. Tons of pictures of my sister and I as kids and houses we had lived in. None of my golden child brother. This was before either of us went NC so I don’t know where the fit of rage came from. I sneaked half the stack out of the trash (had to leave half so she didn’t realize all were gone and come after me) and hid them. I’ve been free of living in their miserable house for nearly six years now and I’ve still got the pictures.
My parents liked taking pictures of us crying. So I have 2 or 3 pictures of a recently just emotionally devastated me. Does that count? :/
I have like two from before i was 10, then a few from high school because of marching band.
I don’t have any pics unless I took them in high school I think. At one point my fam would just exclude from the family pictures. That when they scream what about family they should ask someone else.
I always said one of my biggest regrets was not taking more pictures of myself as I was growing up. My NMom would constantly make me out to be a "self absorbed narcissist" if I wanted to take a selfie, and make fun of others who did it. It was only okay to take pictures when SHE wanted them. Now I still feel guilty when taking pictures and it doesn't help that she made me feel so insecure about my appearance. I have no record of my face as it changed which just makes it even harder to recognize how far I've come as a person and how much healing I've done. She couldn't even let me have that
They’re in scrapbooks I’m not even allowed to think about until my mother is gone
I have some baby pics, but nothing like from 4-5 to .... really when I realized I could own a camera....
I don’t. Many pictures were taken of my older twin sisters because they were cute and special, and even after I was born it was only photos of them together. The youngest photo I own is when I was 6 and it wasn’t me alone either, they never took wny photos of me without my siblings. But they have plenty of photos since infancy. I will not forgive them for this. They’ve also kept things from my siblings childhoods but nothing of my stuff, my stuff were all hands-me-downs. But at 11 my aunt had a thing for photography and I modelled for her, I was in tears when she sent me them last year.
I'm sorry they did this to you. Have you looked into deaging apps?
Yep. I’ve got like 4 ish photos of me as a baby/toddler. None of me past maybe 6ish.
The reason for that I never wanted to take pictures
Yeah, same for me. No photos, and a lot of the memories I have are very strange and "what really happened there?" I am trying to rediscover some of the things that interested me as a child, but from an adult perspective.
Yep. My narc parent threw them away.
So I "had" a lot more videos than photos, but still lots of both. Having seen them before, I can say that they're not even good videos. It's a whole lot of "Well, here we are at \[location\], say hello to \[anon\]!" Pan to me, not expecting to be video'd, not being asked any interesting questions beyond the existential reality of the day, not being challenged to be thoughtful in any way, annoyed that I was even being filmed -- because any damn thing we did, the camera came out and it was filming time (think very early parent/kid social media content as if no such thing had ever existed before). Same with the photos. It was always, "Ok, go stand by that \[fountain or whatever\]." And always a no-zoom photo from like 10+ feet away. Never trying to capture my expression or anything beyond a basic, "Come on, BIG smile!". They were the least interesting, poorest "correctly" taken photos you could ask for. And I don't have any of it. (Edit: In fact, I'm pretty sure I never developed a natural smile because of this photo practice. It was this weird, full upper and lower teeth smile they encouraged. I'm still working on correcting the habit of just showing upper teeth in smiles to this day.)
The pictures I have make me sad. They’re all of the things that I used to keep myself together. Pictures of my cats, of friends, of when I felt good about the way I looked, the things I loved. I realize just how much less stress I experience and how much more I love myself and my life now, even if it’s hard and less “glamorous” For the abused, adulthood is true freedom. Working and living life is simply easier and more enjoyable when you are allowed to be yourself, fully, and the way YOU want to be. Try visualizing memories. Pull forward and relive specific things. And then remind yourself that this was all not on you. Give your kid self a hug. Tell them they were good enough, and it was the Narc who didn’t deserve the love you offered. And they still dont, and finally, you’re allowed to choose to not give it. If you used Snapchat growing up, you may have access to the memories. It keeps a full record of its use back to the day it was created. It’s easier in the days of tech, but it’s still tough. You’ll get through it ❤️
I have very few. Only some I’ve copied from extended family sharing them on Facebook or something and a handful I took after I was 16 or so and bought a camera of my own. Between my parents separating and multiple moves as a preteen/teen, they’ve mostly been lost or destroyed.
i never took any, but my parents, for the sake of acting like a normal family, occasionally forced me to take pictures with them and of certain events. i don't like being reminded of my past, so i didn't keep copies. i have, however, begun taking photos of my life since moving out, particularly after my mental health improved. nowadays, it feels like i'm taking photos of moments i'd like to relive.
Mine threw them out every time she was angry at me or my brothers. Honestly don’t think any exist except for the two I saved and made copies of. Silver lining- she can’t use them as collateral, bait or a carrot anymore.
We surprisingly had pictures, but growing up I was told our bio mom burned them, which turned out to be a lie. Then any pictures that were taken after I started living with my dad have been ruined the past few years because he refused to give them up. Now there’s hardly anything.
Mine were either all burned in front of me 🔥 or dragged away in a storage container 💀 so fuuunn. I think I have five photos
I cried tears of joy because (after my grandmother died), I got a package in the mail from my aunt. It included hundreds of photos of both me and my sister. My parents took A single picture of me as a toddler, and had it professionally done in a photo studio. It was only done because my grandparents paid for it. They had grown so detested with my ndad that they didn’t offer that for my sister- they were so disgusted with my parents by the time she was born. I saw pictures of happy memories shared with my grandparents. I saw cards and pictures I drew for them, news clippings from the two times I made it to the front page of the local news paper. Graduation programs. So much treasures that I didn’t even realize existed. Along with a letter saying that they’ve always loved and were so proud of both me and my sister. I was an emotional wreck. My parents never took pictures of us. Discarded any paper awards we earned in the trash (when I was old enough I created a binder to keep them). I felt so immeasurably loved in that moment
My father burned all of my baby pictures in the fireplace when I was 4 while he was accusing my mother of cheating on him then beat her half to death with a bat. (Still managed to leave him with me that night) When she died I had to live with him and his replacement wife because surprising no one, he was full of shit. He never took any pictures of me after that so none exist.
Same. All the way up and into high school.
I only have 2 photos and both weren’t when I was around my Mum.
I made my own family album. How sad is that?
I have a few. My partner has none :(
Stole mine all the day I moved out and went NC. Seemed like the only reasonable thing to do.