False Memories

is

When they were little one time I was asleep on the couch and one of them whispered is mum dead and I waited a few minutes and they sat up with a shout and they ran back screaming then roared with laughter and said do it again do it again so it became a game ( which presumably they enjoyed) and every now and then they request we played the game again

Roll on many years and my daughter went to counselling when her partner died they got to discussing childhood and my daughter says she told the counsellor she didn’t have many memories of childhood but how frightened she’d been when I played dead
I was mortified I had tried so hard to be a good mother and father to them and shield them from so much and do stuff
they d remember although we didn’t have much money and all she remembered was a blxxdy stupid game I d been requested to play !!!!

And being traumatised by it

My daughter sometimes trots out the tale that, when she wouldn’t eat something, we would put it in a tupperware box and bring it out at the next meal, reminding her that children in Cambodia would be grateful. There is an element of truth in this, though I not sure it was every time.

One of my daughters mentioned something that had happened to her that was quite traumatic and I genuinely couldn't remember it at all. The memory did come back slowly over the next few days but I had managed to put it completely out of my mind. Often I find our memories of events differ, I just think memory is selective and certainly I know that if something is strongly felt, it's more likely to be remembered. I remember being made to finish a meal I disliked, retching and being smacked for being silly. I bet my mother, long dead, would have forgotten it in an instance. (not that I am saying OP would have done that). I also had a basin cut, no basin involved but I remember the phrase being used.

Cabbie21

My daughter sometimes trots out the tale that, when she wouldn’t eat something, we would put it in a tupperware box and bring it out at the next meal, reminding her that children in Cambodia would be grateful. There is an element of truth in this, though I not sure it was every time.

I remember being told a similar thing when I was small and refused to eat something. My retort was, ‘well, give it to them then!’
That usually got me a clip around the ear from my dad!

I've heard my brother relating stories of things that happened to him and thinking 'I'm sure it was me that happened to, not him'. My sister calls it changing history.

Surely we remember things differently, in the same way as two people listening to the same conversation may hear very different things.

Kate1949

I've heard my brother relating stories of things that happened to him and thinking 'I'm sure it was me that happened to, not him'. My sister calls it changing history.

DH does that all the time, particularly when it was something I'd successfully sorted out.
Perhaps it's a man thing 🤔

False memories have become a thing. Is your daughter seeing a therapist? Many, many younger people are these days whether they really need to or not. It's become fashionable to have therapy for everything and anything and the recipients are often encouraged to believe they've been mentally scarred by the most mundane of things. Like eating stew for example. Social media also adds to it. There was a disturbing article recently from various parents whose adult children, after seeing therapists, had false memories. They accused their parents of being drug addicts, child abusers, thieves and all sorts of sinister things. One of those adult children actually underwent treatment to reverse the harm caused by the therapist and one set of parents were actually arrested. Although the case was thrown out as it was clearly ridiculous.

cross-stitch and Cabbie my husband used to tell a similar tale, except when he said the hungry children could have his meal then, his mother hit him over the head with a frying pan!!! She was a fiery redhead, but I don't expect that she did that!!

Stews and casseroles have always formed a major part of our family diet, I love them. Since we were first married and ever since (56 years and counting). Both children seem to have survived undamaged, mentally or physically.

M0nica

Stews and casseroles have always formed a major part of our family diet, I love them. Since we were first married and ever since (56 years and counting). Both children seem to have survived undamaged, mentally or physically.

I do too.
I was brought up on casseroles!

Our DC ate them but DS doesn't like beef casserole much now at all.

I think Stews and Casseroles are just about the healthiest food there is ….

So is eating air fried crickets but i don't suppose many of you would care for that.
Some of these admissions have quite shocked me.
And I think it helps explain why some young parents are so indulgent with their children. One extreme to the other.

We have 5 (now adult) children.
They often remember the same event differently (or maybe don't remember it at all).
Some ideas of what happened are quite fantastical (!)

The benefit of having lots of people involved is that it's not "one-on-one" and often seems to end in laughter.

I assume most carry on as they always have, ignore happily.

Funny how these myths get passed around family and friends. For a long time I laboured under the belief that one of my aunties was once kissed by Frank Sinatra, I told friends this as well. The story was that when she was visiting the US with her then husband who was American many moons ago, she saw ole blue eyes live in Las Vegas, he spotted her in the audience and invited her on stage where he serenaded her and then kissed her before she went back to her seat. Was believable because my auntie was extremely beautiful.
But later in life she told me it was not true, she had gone to see Sinatra in Vegas but that was all there was to it. The story then became embellished every time it was told.
A bit disappointing tbh.
🙄

I think all of us have minds that are far more fallable than we believe.

Many years ago , just before Easter, my younger sister died in a road accident My immediate and biggest regret at the time was that I had not seen her since the previous Christmas.

Roll on 20 years and in a clearout I found some letters DH and I had written to each other at this time. He had been working in Japan for six weeks and in the days before email and mobile phones, we kept in contact by letter. I was rereading the letters and was amazed to discover in one of the letters I wrote a description of seeing my sister, at my aunts, me there to visit my aunt, she passing through very quickly as my aunt lived in Dover and DS was on her way to France for some reason. This event had happened a fortnight before her death..

Yet 2 weeks later, when the tragedy happened I had no memory at all of this visit, and it was another 20 years before I was reminded of it. Since then, I have recreated the event in my mind, and several details have crept in that can only be there because deep inside my mind a memory of that night still exists.

I still do not understand how, even in the shock of the event, I could have fogotten that my sister and I had had an evening together, and shared a bedroom for the night ony a fortnight before her death and I had no memory of it.

She sounds like a liar and attention seeker........just how serious will her untruths get in her efforts to perpetrate this "look at me everybody!" aspect of her personality?
A couple of decades back there was almost a tidal wave of people being encouraged by quack therapists to indulge what became known as False Memory Syndrome, usually accusing parents of abuse quite without foundation. It caused volcanic schisms in families.

The problem is not lying but they really are false memories. I remember my mother told me that I was in my pushchair and it tipped up while she was in the shop where she could see me, it all happened in a flash. I'm sure I told her that I didn't remember it, I was about eighteen months old, but I did have a vivid picture in my mind of it happening when she recounted the story, so not a memory but simply a re-imagining of the event.

I'd be inclined to tell your daughter - " recollections may vary " in the words of our late Queen

Eddiecat78, I couldn't agree with you more. Apparently I ruined my daughter's childhood, and she'll never forgive me for it. We have supported her through two disastrous marriages, always been there for her, practically and financially, we have not been invited to her home for over 10 years, and yet she tells me that I am the wicked witch of the east. currently, she's not even talking to me except for a text to thank me for her christmas present.

I think she is just being hurtful and stupid.
I wouldn't push it in case she makes up worse stuff. Many adults blame their parents for everything they don't like about themselves. Just counter the remarks with neutral comments like ' I think you are confusing that with something you saw on the telly when you were small. It won't help calling her liar in front of other people.

When she is alone, you could tell her that these things didn't happen, and that you are upset by the repetition of these tales and would she like to discuss why she feels the need to repeat the stories. Maybe if she's confused she could get some counselling from a reputable counselling service. False memory syndrome is recognised in psychology, I believe.

People with psychosis and/or depression can have false memory syndrome.