On September 16, my daughter will fly to California to begin life at UC Santa Cruz. These days, I find myself reliving much of her childhood in my memory: The rainy winter night we brought her home from the hospital as a newborn. The January morning she stood up in her crib in our room in Paris and patiently waited for her dad and me to awaken. The bright summer day we went bicycling in the Green Mountains. The crisp fall morning we started homeschooling.
I can remember everything in vivid and brilliant detail: The green and gold striped jumper I dressed her in before bringing her home for the first time. The pink and teal portable crib, and how we lugged it across the country from California to Connecticut, and then to Paris and Amsterdam. The Paris light. The sandbox outside Notre Dame. The baseball shirt and helmet she wore biking. Our excitement sitting in her room on the turquoise carpet, beginning our lessons on her first day of school.
My recall has always been very vivid. A photograph can awaken a whole array of visual, sensory, and emotional memories.
I have a photograph of my mother standing outside the door of the house I grew up in. It is 1966. She is standing in a sundress on the landing, leaning against the railing. My brother appears behind the screen door. He is five. Whenever I look at that photograph, I feel as though I could simply walk through that screen door and everything would be as it was. My parents, now passed away, would be in the kitchen drinking instant coffee, and my brother and I would decide what game to play, or whether to go down to the drugstore for candy and baseball cards. I feel myself there, a girl of eight or nine, innocent and hopeful about everything to come.
Lately, I’ve been feeling that my capacity for such vivid recall is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it’s as though no part of my life is ever really gone. I can go back in a moment and relive the memory as though it had happened just a few minutes ago. I can see it, smell it, taste it, feel it. On the other hand, there is the jarring moment when I realize that it’s gone and that I can’t go back, not really. Is this why I’ve taken so much for granted about time? Is this why I’ve always felt that things would go on forever — because they seem to go on forever in my memory of them?
Until yesterday, I’d always believed that everyone experienced memory in this way. But when I described the way I remember to my therapist, she was amazed. She kept saying “Wow!” with a look of intense surprise, as though she’d never heard anyone describe memory in the same way.
The way I relive my memories is why I can become very emotional about events and people from the past; the memories don’t fade into obscurity. Old events can creep up on me and give me great happiness, or deep pangs of regret, or tremendous sadness.
These days, I’m painfully aware that all of my vivid, precious memories are in the past. My little girl is no longer little. She’s no longer even a girl, but a young woman. And while I am excited to see her begin college in a beautiful place that we both love — and while my vivid memories of my own college years only add to the excitement of this moment — I’m also sad to feel time passing, and to know that so many things will never come again.
New things will take their place, certainly. But I loved the old things. And I still do.
© 2011 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
I am continually amazed at your sense of recall, as well as that of some of my friends. I have little remembrance of childhood through high school and unclear remembrances of years thereafter. I suppose that it is attributable to a repression which I am not sure is healthy. While you consider this gift a mixed blessing, I would love any part of the gift that you could throw my way. Warm regards… an excellent post!
Hi Phil, and thanks for your kind words. These days, if I could bottle even a small part of my capacity for vivid memory, I’d send it to you special delivery.
You made a very keen observation. I think many people on the spectrum have vivid sensory memories. I can remember strange specifics from my childhood, and odors are so evocative I can really loose myself.
Congratulations to you and your daughter on the next big step in life. I am excited for you, but sad, too. I think of my little guy and wonder how I would feel in your shoes.
Thanks, Lori. I’m excited for my daughter, and feeling a lot of joy for the fact that she is going to her first-choice university. As we get closer to September 16, though, I’m sure the grief will creep back in. I’m told by parents who have raised children to adulthood that all of these feelings are to be expected and — dare I say it? — normal.
Memories like that have always been a two-way sword. I can remember powerfully good memories in deep detail and powerfully sad ones too. It’s very dualistic Rachel
That’s for sure.
As I read your description of the time when the photograph was taken, I thought about how my own memory works and instantly I was “flying” down a road that went back to one of the many places I lived as a child, remembering picking blueberries at the county park across the street, buying burgundy nail polish at Rite Aid on the corner (Wet ‘n Wild, 89 cents).
Then that memory put me back at the school I attended while I lived in that town: anti-smoking poster (this one: http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/41607_6520957498_6333057_n.jpg) on the wall right before the ramp in the hallway after the corner, the southern accent of a girl named Rochelle, my teacher taking pictures for our “If I were president…” essays. I was wearing a dusty-blue-colored shirt with a violin and a musical staff on it, with my right arm bent across my body, hand holding onto my left elbow.
When I have memories like this, they’re rapid-fire. I have very limited control over what actually comes to mind. It’s nice that I can remember things so vividly, but it can be distracting when my brain decides to go for a trip, as literally as is probably possible, down memory lane. The not-so-pleasant memories can be very hard to handle, as well, because I remember them as if they are still fresh.
Congratulations to your daughter! I know it must be difficult to know she’ll be so far away, but I know you are happy for her as well.
Oh, hey, when you have a really intense memory of talking to someone do you catch yourself answering them out loud even though it’s a memory, because of the intensity and vividness?
I don’t know. I’m not often aware of how I am “generally,” so I’d need to keep track of specific incidents. So not that I can think of, at least.
Those vivid memories of difficulty make it hard to let go of the past sometimes. People have told me that I need to “move on” from things, and for the most part, I’ve figured out how to do it, but it’s not the way that others do it. For others, memories fade. For me, they don’t, so I have to discipline my mind and corral my thoughts in order to move past the memories and into the present.
That is how I have to do it as well. I think I will always be a person who can forgive, but can never forget. I like the mental image of corralling my thoughts. I think that will actually be a useful image to incorporate into the process.
This is very interesting. I’ve said before that I’m sure that BB’s so-called “unexplained” meltdowns are because he’s suddenly remembering long-gone incidents so vividly it feels like they’ve just happened and so he reacts accordingly. Amazing recall is a double-edged sword indeed.
That happens to me all the time. If I remember something sad or infuriating, the emotions are *nearly* as vivid and immediate as if it just happened.
I think you’re right on the mark about BB. It’s something that other people have had difficulty understanding about me — the way that, for instance, I can start crying over something long past. For much of my life, I was told that I was being overdramatic, and I accepted that (grudgingly) as an explanation until I figured out that I was just responding to very vivid memories.
I can visualize the interior of the house I spent my first year or two in (I don’t remember when we moved out) and the house I grew up in. I can remember events that go back to before I could talk – which is actually kind of amazing because I was speaking in complete sentences at 11 months.
Despite this, my memory of my childhood is spotty. There are entire periods of time I remember very little of, and there are occasions that I remember vividly.
One interesting thing about a lot of my memories is that I tend to visualize them more as a spectator than a participant. This isn’t true for all or even most of them, but it’s a peculiar sensation. These are also not things that other people told me about, so it’s not a recollection of someone else’s recollection.
I remember learning that other people do not remember conversations like I do. I tend to remember exactly what other people say, but their memories tend to mutate over time into something else – my mother is really bad about this. The frustrating part is how when this comes up, I get treated as if I am making things up even though I my recollections tend not to change over time.
My memory’s not perfect – but it is unusually good and extremely visual.
“One interesting thing about a lot of my memories is that I tend to visualize them more as a spectator than a participant.”
I experience this as well. I often see myself participating in whatever situation I am remembering. This can make remembering certain things quite a difficult experience, because when I remember something painful from my past, I remember the experience, but I also see my younger self experiencing it. Knowing what she is going through and what she is feeling, my compassion for the girl I see is painfully intense, because I can’t remover her from the experience.
Yeah, most of these “spectator” memories are painful, but not all.
Mine aren’t exclusively or near-exclusively painful though. Even benign, completely inconsequential memories can have the “observation effect.” But I should know by now that my brain is just a little bit odd, so…
Mine aren’t nearly exclusive, either. Just most of them are, a lot still aren’t. One I have of wandering at two years old is really extreme (I see myself from across the street) and it’s not really painful.
Apparently after two such incidents, my parents got a chain lock for the door.
Interesting that you mention your recall of conversations, Lisa. When I was a child, I had nearly full recall of conversations, but somehow, that faded over time. I think my brain just got full.
Yeah, mine isn’t as good as it used to be. I could recite conversations verbatim, and now I mainly remember what was discussed and what was said if not the precise words.
When I first got online, it became really obvious because I could check my accuracy. Mostly, though, it was other people reacting like “How do you do that?”
Rachel, I’ve always had a memory like yours–I have very vividly detailed memories from very early childhood. Only I’ve always known that other people didn’t–I was always getting asked “how the hell do you remember that?!” Not just in the level of detail, but entire incidents. For a while I couldn’t figure out if other people really didn’t remember or were just pretending not to. It was incredibly lonely–to constantly be experiencing emotional repercussions from an entire history that no one else even remembered.
chavisory, I think that’s why I have sometimes been accused of overreacting. I am responding to the intensity of a memory that isn’t even on the radar for other people.
My memory is like this in places, and then woefully inadequate in others; I feel like the old BBC archives. (Okay, silly joke, my fiance and I are digging into old Doctor Who and the amount of material they lost is appalling.)
I wish I could have the good and vivid for what I want, as my own kids are young and I don’t want to lose the memories. I lost all my old scrapbooks a few years back and I felt like I’d lost my teenage years in one fell swoop. I am glad to have a camera phone now: instant ability to snap a photo so I’ll remember in case it fades. There’s some things that are painful and just won’t go away, though, and I want to be sure that’s not all that’s in there.
As an aside, as I am just putting my toe forward into this world of autist connecting, do you recommend anywhere in particular to… connect? I’m bad at this stuff even online, but I’m in that awful “I need to talk to somebody even though I’ll probably want to run the other way if they’re willing to listen” place and the nagging won’t go away!
Hi Arielle — Take a look at the autist blogs in my sidebar. I’ve only listed blogs that I consider safe places, so you might check and see if you relate to the discussions there. There’s also a new Facebook group called International Asperwomen (http://www.facebook.com/groups/232800826760795/). They have some great discussions going, and many of the people seem to be newly diagnosed or self-diagnosed, so you might find some good sisterhood there.
Thanks, Rachel. I am one of those always-on-Facebook people (mostly because my favorite blogs and things update so I don’t have to go compulsively check so much) so a Facebook group might be a great idea.
Something close to my own experience. Vivid recall. It isn’t too far wrong when they say that an autist’s mind is like a library. Ours are filled with sensory data of all kinds, not just events and narratives, but images, smells, textures, tastes etc, depending on how our individual minds process and store information and stimuli. This is a part of my ongoing research in the unique AS creative process. Museum, library or mausoleum? All depends on how others perceive, but for me, every memory is vivid and precious, even long after I have ‘moved on’ from the event. This is something most people do not and cannot understand. I have been accused of ‘hanging on to the past’, not having got over things, etc etc. But in actual reality, when I quote a memory in my creative work, it is just that. A quote. A vivid, dynamic, living, pulsating quote, but nevertheless still a quote. I am ‘over’ the event in many cases where it comes to traumatic events, but each time I draw out a piece to quote, it evokes fresh emotional reaction in me, and also in my audience. Hence the reaction in them to say that I have not ‘got over’ whatever experience etc. I see no wrong in treasuring and savouring the good memories, and also in keeping the bad ones vivid and alive in our infinitely huge storage systems. This is what makes our humanity all the more flavourful and colourful. Thanks Rachel. Once again a great post.
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