Venting Anyone else get sad looking at photos from your childhood?

[phoenixx]

When I see pictures of myself as a baby and as a young child, it makes me sad. I look at who I was, so young and so innocent. The cruel world hadn't got to me yet. I had no worries. I wasn't suffering with any mental illnesses. No trauma. No bullying. Just a happy little child with my whole life ahead of me. Now, around 20 years later, I'm a totally different person. I'm no longer that happy little child anymore.

I ended up writing a short poem about it:

"I look back at photos
Of when I was an innocent child
My happy little face
Without a single mark on my body
But now when I look in the mirror
It's hard to find a part of me
That hasn't been ruined with scars
And it makes me sad to think
That the joyful child I once was
Turned into a mess like this"

How do you feel when you look at old photos of yourself?

 

[FuneralCry]

Mostly just disconnected. When I look at photos at myself when I was very young, I do not remember what it was like being that age so it does not feel like me. As long as I can remember, I have never wanted to be alive. I do not necessarily feel sad, but just empty.

 

[chocolatebar]

I can't even look at my photos, be it recent or ancient. The image disturbs me and I can't be in peace with the fact that I am this creature. I'm not even talking about beauty or any physical traits, but the fact that I don't recognise myself.

 

[Bot]

Yeah Its very brutal:( but at least we have ctb left:c

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

I looked like a little pro-life normie POS.

 

[Makko]

I looked like a little pro-life normie POS.

(grandma voice) Look at how much you've grown.

 

[noname223]

I really avoid that. It was all a facade. I cried so much all the abuse all the pain. Those pictures do not show it.

 

[littlelungs]

It's extremely upsetting for me to even look at photos of myself within a certain age range in childhood, just knowing what was going on in the background. No matter how big my smile was in the picture, it was fleeting, and no matter how nice the photo appears to be at first glance – no matter where we were, how nicely everyone was dressed, how close together everyone is – it was all the same shit behind the scenes. I look at pictures of 8 year-old me and I want to help her, and I fucking can't. I can't go back, the damage is done; it was already too late.

There's one set of pictures in particular that I can remember, where I'm pictured in a bathing suit, standing beside one of my abusers, who's wearing a pair of swim shorts. We were told to lean in towards each other and smile for the camera; in another one we're standing in the water and he's holding me up in his arms, and I don't look too happy about it at all... it's extremely eerie, not to mention fucking horrifying to see them, knowing what he'd been doing to me, including on the day those photos were taken. I haven't looked at them since I was 14 and in trauma therapy, and I'll never look at them again. They're somewhere lying about in my home country and I hate that they exist.

There's also a photo of me, about 9 years old, visibly distressed, standing outside with my suitcase that I'd attached to my bike with some jump rope, and the picture was taken because apparently that was really funny for some reason, even though I was really hurting and truly wanted to run away and never come back.

Any pictures from when I was really super young just make me sad. I was already having a hard time even then, but I was still able to enjoy things, and I still had my innocence. I had no idea what was around the corner.

Not to throw myself a pity party, but honest to god... what a fucking bullshit life.

 

[Pisceslilith]

I haven't looked at those photos in years and I never will, I would've burned them if it weren't for my parent wanting to keep them. Feels like a whole different person. And I hate the people who in some of the photos with me. I hope all the photos mysteriously get destroyed one day. I honestly don't know what's the point in taking and keeping pictures when we're all just going to die one day.

 

[seabed]

I can't reminisce about my happy childhood memories, because I don't have many to begin with. The one thing I do really miss about being young is how new and novel things could be. Now I'm older, I feel bored a lot more often. The unprecedented has become the familiar. So it goes!

 

[WhatDoesTheFoxSay?]

The very reason why two massive albums of photos taken during and before university are no longer with me. They contain my most cherished memories–the kittens we adopted, the most beautiful flora I've seen (I was a botany major) and places I've been to, such as Karijini National Park in the Pilbara region of Western Australia (I did my undergrad in Perth), and my college-dorm culinary 'accomplishments' such as ukha (I'm was, and still am a fan of YouTuber Life of Boris). These are just to name a few.

As a 'victim' of the so-called 'good old days syndrome', I put my pre-illness life on a pedestal, reminiscing the times I could do whatever I want, whenever I want. Eventually I resigned myself to the fact that I can never go back, so one fine day, with the push of a button I left my past where it belongs.

 

[Hurt]

Yes. Everytime. But I feel lucky that I wasn't depressed during childhood. I try to avoid looking at pictures of myself though.

 

[OnlyTheWind]

Yes, it's depressing. Times were so much simpler back then. Also really sad seeing my brother as a kid, before he became a drug addict.

 

[one.way.out]

I hate seeing all the wasted potential.

 

[Sprite_Geist]

Yes, but mainly because I hate having photos taken of me.

Edit: there are a very small (and rare) number of exceptions though.