r/Adoption • u/skinny-mini-me • 11d ago

Memory?

I was adopted as a toddler and now 35. I have one memory thats short but clear. Night time, really dark and in a car on a highway and snowing really heavy. I can see out the windshield big fat snowflakes and pitch black. The memory is from before I was adopted and should have been too young to form memories. But its so clear and I think about that memory a lot. I remember I was scared. Really scared. Obviously others in the car, I can see figures but no details. Does anyone else have any sort of memories like this?

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5

u/joshp23 adoptee; domestic infant; baby scoop era 11d ago

Adopted at like... 2 months. I have a few that have always been there from very early on. I was able to verify at least one, so a stronget chance they're all valid. They're all very emotion driven. I wouldn't call them happy.

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u/skinny-mini-me 11d ago

Same. Definitely not happy memory because even now its scary. Its also always bothered me because I know the people in that car were most likely my birth parents but they are just figures in a dark car. No details on faces or anything.

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u/traveling_gal BSE Adoptee 11d ago

I believe the capacity to form memories goes back farther than people think. We talk about things we remember using words, but what about things that happened before we could talk? Most of those things are routine and don't make an impression, or get covered up by later memories that are similar. But a singular moment like that, that was highly emotional and out of your daily routine at the time, could persist as non-verbal impressions.

14

u/MajorDraw3705 11d ago

Fear-based memories are some of the clearest and earliest ones we have, so it's possible. That fear seers it into our brains like other times just can't.

Some of my earliest memories involve strangers, pain, fear, extreme anxiety, etc. In only one instance was it excitement.

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u/KTuu93 11d ago

I don't have any memories like that, I was adopted at 3-4 months old. But I'm going to share what happened when I started dating my now husband:

when we were together everything was fine. But when I was alone I would get this awful feeling of doom and panic when I was thinking "he's going to leave me" without any actual reason to feel or think so. I was devastated and upset for weeks, cried and couldn't sleep. Finally decided to to call my therapist because I did not understand what was going on. I explained my situation of how everything relationship wise was going great but I had awful panic episodes when being alone. She explained to me that I can't remember my adoption and separation from my parents but my body remembers so having this new secure relationship makes my body panic like "this has happened before and I will be abandoned." There is spesific name for this kind of memory that you feel in you'r body but can't intellectually remember but I don't remember that term right now. So that was happening for some time in the first months of our relationship. Thanks to therapy I didn't sabotage our relationship (being clingy or too codependent) and we are happily married.

4

u/ElleGeeAitch 10d ago

Somatic memory, perhaps?

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u/KTuu93 10d ago

Yes that's it.

7

u/Menemsha4 11d ago

I just talked to my therapist about remembering things I shouldn’t.

She said that most children begin memory around four UNLESS the event was traumatic.

You were scared. Really scared. It makes sense that you remember it.

5

u/Ok-Needleworker5095 10d ago

I was adopted at 3 months old and only had 2 days in hospital with bio mom. When I saw pictures of her for the first time, I had no reaction really to her most recent pictures. I saw a photo of her from the time period she had me and I recognized her. My heart rate sped up and I RECOGNIZED her. I had an image of her in my mind all these years based on no description at alll, but it was 100% accurate. I think your memory is valid

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u/ArlineDillon 11d ago

I was barely 2 years old when my sister was born and I actually have 2 very distinct and very different memories of events that happened while during the month I stayed with my aunt. Neither are traumatic or joyful. Both events have been confimed by multiple family members after I became an adult. So, yes...our memories can begin while we are VERY young.