It’s like your looking at pictures of a kid you vaguely recognize but can even remember them. “Where do I know that kid from??”
That’s because that person is no longer you. You really don’t have anything in common with them any more. Just a healthy sign that you’ve grown beyond who you used to be and are able to reflect and realize that.
It goes a step beyond for me.
I look at kid pictures of myself and think I was an ugly looking baby. Everyone else thinks I was cute. Which I take to mean everyone is being polite, but I couldn’t care less because I don’t remember being that kid whatsoever.
All babies looks ugly to me… I think its a social construct to say babies are good looking…
Or maybe just a different “beauty” category.
All babies looks ugly to me
Yeah this is in line with how I see babies and kids, so that’s gonna explain some of it. It’s definitely an unwritten rule to say babies are cute.
Though my cousin had a couple kids and the youngest was the exception to the rule when he was like 2-6, just the cutest little thing.
So I don’t know.
Well why not? Some pretty ones should exist…
I try to avoid thinking about the past forces me to look forward in life.
My only thought looking at pictures of young me is that I actually seemed happy…
I don’t have pictures of myself. I look at myself in every stage with disgust, from infancy to now. I know my mother has some, but she knows go keep them away from me as I will destroy them. I don’t want to see myself if I don’t have to, and I don’t have to. I look similar enough to my childhood self that I don’t want to see her either.
I feel that when looking in the mirror. I sometimes can’t believe that is me. It feels weird, like I’m in someone else’s body and this hasn’t actually been my life.
Makes me wonder if life is a Twilight Zone episode for me and I just keep waking up as other people but can’t remember it for some reason.
Sounds like you got DID. Dissociative identity disorder. I’m not shrink and this is just a random commenter that doesn’t know you so take that with a grain of salt.
Thanks for the concern and information, but I’m clear of that disorder by a professional lol.
It’s not something I often think about, but it comes up. I think there’s a practical reason behind it when it does come up but I’d risk doxing myself if I go into detail.
Yes, and that’s why I don’t like looking at old pictures of me. I feel like old me isn’t the same thing as current me. It also sparks lots of Ship of Theseus type thoughts.
The atoms and cells the old me was built out of are mostly gone now. The emergent properties of that collection of brain cells is also different. Thoughts, beliefs, emotions, habits and attitudes have changed. The old me and new me are different parts of the same continuum. If we lived in the same time, everyone would consider us two different people.
No but I look at how old people looked when they were young, and it’s always a shock.
I used to feel that way about anything from more than a few years ago. I had to grow up fast, and so it was often easier to forget and move on than remember or even process anything. I grew up with too few memories of my childhood.
In order to become a more integrated self, it was necessary to face the past. It can be a difficult process.
I’m trans so it’s not just the kid photos for me, even ones from as recent as four years ago give me this feeling. While I’m not yet out or passing, so other people still see me as I was and not as I will be, when I look at old photos I have issues recognizing myself, I just see a stranger. Something about the tiny little changes in the face that HRT does I guess.
I mean I recognize myself and even remember what it was like back then but man I don’t remember thinking of myself as looking like that. I find my memories of people and things are sorta an averaging of the whole time I knew them with stronger bias to more recent. Since I see myself everyday it is relatively up to date but man pictures from years ago. wow.
I typed a lot but it was pretty incoherent so I’m just gonna say yeah, but more so via memories than pictures.
