**trigger warning for brief mention of sui thoughts/attempt in childhood**

I've searched through this forum for threads about lack of childhood memories but they don't seem to be relevant to my situation, so I hope no-one minds me revisiting the topic.

Unsurprisingly T and I have been talking about my childhood I had a perfectly normal childhood (no abuse/neglect whatsoever) until 13+ years old, except for some bullying at school and my beloved Nan dying. Now I can understand why someone with a horrible, abusive childhood would block out childhood memories, even good ones, but I can't understand why I have so few memories from before I was a teenager. I remember 1 happy birthday party, being with my Nan, playing with my brother, and spending lots of time on my own reading or using my imagination. Apart from the one birthday party, none of my memories include my parents

So I guess my question is for those who had happy childhoods, how much do you remember? Is it weird that I remember so little?

Another thing I've been thinking about since my last session, which I also plan to bring up with T, is about keeping secrets as a child. Do you think some children are more private than others? Otherwise how do they learn to keep secrets without learning from their family? What I'm mainly referring to is being suicidal at 8 years old after my Nan died, but telling no-one. How does an 8-year-old know that suicide is a taboo topic and should be hidden from everyone? My family had NO IDEA! I stopped eating much for at least a year after my Nan died, which a psychologist said was due to feeling out of control because my Nan died. My parents thought it was because I got 'carried away' with learning about healthy eating in school. They had no idea that I tried to kill myself, or that when that attempt failed I felt that I deserved a slower, more painful death and so tried to starve myself to death.

I'm wondering how good parents can not notice that I was in that much pain, unless I was so good at hiding it? And if I was, how did I learn that? How did I know that I wasn't 'supposed' to talk about feeling so bad?

I'm spotting links between my past and current situation. I keep putting this mask on and then being surprised when my family and T can't see through it. Clearly I must be incredibly good at pretending everything is fine to convince those close to me so completely. I've realised that I need to let T see 'behind the mask', but it's hard, and I guess that's what led me to question how the mask formed at such a young age with a perfectly normal childhood

Any insight would be appreciated. As I said, I will bring it up with T but he is only one person and many heads are better than one :group hug:

Many thanks for reading!

*Willow*