Childhood photos

[Sidney37]

My therapist wanted me to pull out childhood photos of myself with my mother or pictures of my mother during the time she started treating me "differently ".  I realized that I have a few photos in a box of my grandmother's who passed away several years ago.  I ended up with many of her things.  Most of the photos of my childhood are at my parents' house.  I managed to find a few in my grandmother's things.  Now that I'm NC, I doubt I'll ever see or get the photos of me with my childhood friends and at my birthday parties.  At first I thought I didn't care, but now I wonder. 

Has anyone unexpectedly gotten back childhood photos after your parents passed?  I'm an only child, so I can see my mom tossing them all in the trash 🗑 n a fit of anger.  I won't break the NC for this, but it makes me sad.

[Hazy111]

This triggered something with me.  My therapist asked the same question, but my ubpd mother had passed and the family photo albums were with my ubpd Queen sis and unpd father who i am both NC with.

I realised at the time no photo albums were offered to me . I remember asking my sis if i could borrow an album, she replied along the lines of i couldnt be trusted with them.

Its not something worth breaking NC for, like you . It just confirms while im NC.   

Incidentally there was a photo of my sis as a young girl of 5 or 6 with my Grandparents probably taken by my father that I always remember.

She has this distant far away look staring into the distance , shes not looking at the camera. Now when i think of it i think one thing "disassociation"

[JustKat]

I don't have any childhood photos with my Nmother and me together. When I was little girl I had a small camera that I used to take family photos with, and I kept the photos in an album in my room. When I ran away from home I took that album with me. Those are the only family photos I have and there's only one photo of my mother. She looks miserable in the pic, as she always did. Since I was behind the camera, I'm not in any of the photos.

Many years later my mother sent me a package of my school photos, some with scratch marks over my face. It was horrible. They were intended to send a message, that I had been erased.

When my grandmother died I was sent a baby photo that she had kept of me, so I have that. A few years ago one of my childhood friends posted a photo on Facebook of the two of us trick-or-treating. Her mother had taken the photo and saved it. That was the first time I saw a photo of myself as a child just being a kid and playing with a friend.

The sad part of this is that my father was a photographer. He always had his camera with him and took thousands of photos. I have no idea what became of those photos. I'm guessing my mother probably destroyed them. My enDad just died, so if he still had them, they're in my GC sister's hands now and will most certainly be destroyed.

[Liketheducks]

I had the opposite happen.....my mom boxed up all the childhood photos she had of me and her grandson, my son.....put them in a shoe box and tied them with a piece of twine and left them.   I still haven't REALLY unboxed that. 

I haven't been here for awhile, but this was prompted because I had offered my mom another place to stay free of charge - it just wasn't my home anymore.     She interpreted that as me making her homeless....or at least told the rest of the family so much.   So, the box of photos was a last...."have a nice life" from mom.   

Hang in there.   I'm sure you'll get the photos back at some time.   In the meantime, you could use anything from that period of your life.   Be it a photo, or a piece of clothing, an old toy - a new toy that looked like an old one of yours....the exercise is the parent yourself.   To get you in touch with that child within you and help teach them that they're safe.      Do you have anything else that can put you in touch with that space??

[blacksheep7]

Sorry to hear that you all don't have pictures of your childhood.

Sydney: I am curious to know more about the part with the childhood pictures  in your T, if you can share in general.
I am writing this because one of the pictures (a picture tells a story, don't it) It was given to me 3 years ago tells my story, all in my facial expression. It is a picture with my 3 sibs and M in front of Nf first car, station wagon.  It blew me when I saw myself at 13 yrs old.  An aggressive look of anger and disgust.

JustKathy: Many years later my mother sent me a package of my school photos, some with scratch marks over my face. It was horrible. They were intended to send a message, that I had been erased.

That is just horrible indeed, mean. 

I was lucky enough to have a few that M gave me before nc, a period of love bombing when she became a widow.  Gave me one  of me at 4yrs during  nc by my sis.

I even got some from gcbro that came back in my life after many yrs. Those are the most interesting ones, some baptsimal pictures of my younger siblings which I will give back to them when my M passes, I guess....one day. 

[MarlenaEve]

Sidney37, Yes, I got those photos. I took copies of my favourite childhood photos and now they're in my possession.

Unfortunately, the only way I could do that is by breaking NC. I broke NC for many reasons and this was one of them. I don't think I would have carried on living a happy life if I didn't have even a slight remembrance of who I was as a child and young adult. When I arrived at my parents' place, I noticed that they took all my stuff, including graduation CDs, diplomas from bachelor's years, old beautiful dresses, award certification (from a beauty contest), tons of photos from my highschool and faculty years and a book I published. I also had another book where my work was published and I can't remember what happened to it. I am sure my family had something to do with its disappearance.

So, if you can break contact for a short while to get those photos back, do it. If your parents are too dangerous, you can ask someone, like a family friend or a relative to get them for you.

But if this is not so important and you can live without them, then it's cool. You can build new memories.

[MarlenaEve]

Blacksheep7-re:your mother sending you the photo where you had scratches on your face-OMG! What the heck? That sounds beyond cruel.
I am very sorry for what she did to you.

[Call Me Cordelia]

I have my old school yearbooks my mother decided she no longer wanted in her house before I went NC. I have a painting I did when I was 15, a discarded gift. I have a couple of dolls and "special" things my mother didn't want in her house anymore. That's it. I don't really want anything else. She has boxes and boxes of photos but I would get no pleasure from looking through them. I went NC unexpectedly but memories of childhood? I'll pass. I have many clear memories of photos being staged from my childhood. Being raged at because I wasn't looking happy enough opening that Christmas gift while the camera's in my face, my grandmother demanding that I hold my grandfather's hand when I'm clearly too old to need to do so, while she clicks away behind us, that sort of thing. I display the painting in my home but never look at the rest of it. The stuff mother felt worth keeping is of no value to me, and the only things I do have are because she discarded them. Says it all, really.

[blacksheep7]

Blacksheep7-re:your mother sending you the photo where you had scratches on your face-OMG! What the heck? That sounds beyond cruel.
I am very sorry for what she did to you.

It wasn't me.  I was quoting and replying to JustKathy.

Beyond cruel is right!

[weddingcat]

Hi Sidney
Both of my parents passed away recently and I went to their house after 6 years away. As a kid, we always had a ton of pictures -albums, etc.
I was sad to see most of my pictures are gone. It's like  my childhood went along with them. Even my parent's wedding album was thrown away.
Sad. I understand how you feel.

[SeaSalt]

My mother one day decided to send me all my childhood photos but removed all the ones with my stepfather, trying to gaslight me one more time, making me believe that he was not there a lot. maybe she though if I get convicted that he was not part of my life, I would forget what he did to me... My mother never misses an opportunity to gaslight me  So I have the photos but almost never look at them. I wish to leave that all behind.

[Sidney37]

Thanks everyone.   I think my therapist asked for these photos in order to talk about getting in touch with the child I was at that time.  What happened is that I was stunned to see that when I was at a certain, very young age, my mother went from smiling at me, hugging me, holding me on her lap, looking at me and engaging, to staring blank faced into the camera while I was sitting near her or on her lap.  She stopped smiling, touching me or interacting at all.  I might never know what the switch was that shut things off so suddenly.  There were family stressors at the time, but it was clear that the other relatives knew there was an issue with her and made lots of wrong choices as to solve it.

[Dandelion]

Reading some of the content of these posts is so sad, but not entirely surprising I guess.  Its about control, isn't it and controlling the family narrative, only seeing their own needs, and trashing yours along the way without a thought if necessary.  I hope you find a way to come to terms with this Sidney, perhaps you will have to wait?   Photos and ownership of photos seem to be some kind of common issue.

When I was a youngish adult my mother actually  "stole" my photo album, saying it was hers. I was so upset at the time, but what could I do?  Its a long story but I managed to get it back a decade or two later.  At the time I would fantasise about illegally letting myself into her flat when she was out to retrieve my photos, without her knowledge, as I still had a key.  At times I seriously considered it but I was too busy and a bit unsure about the legal consequences if I was caught ...   I understand Marlene breaking NC partly to get the photos.  Its madness isn't it?  A normal mother would say yes, you have them - or at least no problem I'll get them copied. 

[JustKat]

Thanks everyone.   I think my therapist asked for these photos in order to talk about getting in touch with the child I was at that time.  What happened is that I was stunned to see that when I was at a certain, very young age, my mother went from smiling at me, hugging me, holding me on her lap, looking at me and engaging, to staring blank faced into the camera while I was sitting near her or on her lap.

It sounds like you have a really good therapist, Sidney. I've never had a therapist ask for childhood photos, but this sure does tell a story, doesn't it? It now makes me wonder if there are photos of me as a toddler, maybe being hugged or loved by my mother, at a time when she had not yet assigned me the role of scapegoat child. If such photos exist, it makes sense that she wouldn't want me to see them. It would blow up her narrative that I was evil and unlovable.

It wasn't me.  I was quoting and replying to JustKathy.

Yeah, that was me who had the photos returned with my face scratched over, though I'm not the only one who's had this experience. In another forum where I used to post, someone said that she had her photos returned with her face scribbled over with a marker. The message is pretty clear. You've been eliminated. Erased. Thrown out with the trash. In fact, when my mother returned my school photos and report cards she included a note saying, "I was going to throw this stuff in the garbage, but thought you might want it."

[Fortuna]

My mom has most of my childhood photos, she's now using them as a means to try to get my attention when she sends things. she uses postcards so the message is right there and doesn't leave a name so I have to read it to understand who it's from. My last birthday she sent  picture from my fourth birthday celebration.  I honestly have never seen this photo before, I mean I'm guessing its me and not some photo she ripped off if someone else's facebook post. So I might get a couple if she keeps doing that. but when she was mad at me for returning a book to her she went on a massive clean out and gave me back old pictures of me and newspaper clipping and report cards in order to try and get back at me, you know like a normal person does after you return a book.  I wouldn't be surprised if she threw out the pictures either, when my dad died she gave me their wedding album because se didn't want it anymore. (They'd been having issues before he died), so I know my pictures might already all be in the trash. Any of those things I had that I might have received if we'd been on good terms I gave up when I went NC. I don't ever expect to get them back. Just one more thing to grieve for.