For context: I’m a young adult, I don’t think I have any serious brain issues yet.
But I’ve recently been just trying to remember the past and although its kinda tragic, there are very interesting moments and I want to keep these memories forever.
But brains aren’t perfect, and I’m just so scared.
Even re-reading the events from a journal woudn’t exactly be the same as remembering it.
Idk, I’m kinda just obsessed with some memories for some reason. Don’t wanna let go of it. Having this “backstory” (for lack of a better term), is what drives me forward, without those memories, like if I get a concussion and forgot everything, I wouldn’t really be… well… “me” anymore, and the thought of that is terrifying.
I know that I lost most of the memories of my childhood, because I barely remember any of it.
Well, I can remember a lot of it with the right prompts, just can’t recall at will. Yay ADHD!
I think most people can’t just replay their childhood at will. I’ve recently been talking to my siblings a lot (and have also previously had similar conversations with my spouse about our history) and am often told that they’re very impressed by the scope of my memory.
However, the stories I recall to them aren’t just memories that I sought out and retrieved. They’re things that I was reminded of by the path of our conversations (or other external stimuli) - what you might call prompts.
If you were to browse my comment history, you would see a similar phenomenon: I tell lots of anecdotes and they are (at least in my eyes) relevant to the conversation, but for many of those stories, I didn’t have them immediately available. Instead they were summoned by the comment thread.
edit: Maybe this is an ADHD thing. That said, while I’m almost certainly neurodivergent, I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD and don’t believe I have it. However, it’s not impossible and I don’t mean to invalidate your perspective, just provide mine.