Written timeline of memory. Anyone else?

I came up with the idea on my own, to write down the years since I was old enough to have memories. I've been filling in things I can remember from each time period. I've long since known that there are missing blocks of time, but thought maybe I could figure out when or where they occurred.

It has been very revealing to write things out on a timeline basis. There are so many things that I do remember, but have not thought about in so many years. Some good, and some bad. It's kind of like reading an old scrapbook, only from my own mind. I can't work on it continuously, and and have made several attempts, as I can't focus on some time periods without disossiating. I really want to make the most of my time with the T when I get one I can feel comfortable with. And I'm curious how much time is missing from my past.

Has anyone else made something like this? Did you give it your T? I plan to give this to a T I trust, so they will know if I'm avoiding things, because I know I will try to avoid things.

I wrote one 20 years ago. Im almost afraid to look at it altho im sure i will someday soon.

I did this and it was many, many pages but my T read it all and I do think it helped her understand me better.

I might not give it to a new T first thing, I would probably wait a while to make sure I was comfortable with them having all of that information. I didn't give mine to my T until I'd been working with her for eight months, even though I started writing it five months in.

I have a chart of all the important things that happened in my life. Actually, there's two. One for life events and one for mental health.

I give it to all my Ts at the start. It helps to get the history out of the way.

i couldnt do that, my memory is so jacked up from dissociation and drug use. i remember things, like snapshots or photographs in my mind. i have no knowledge of my age or anything... i could give a ballpark on some, others are just random snippets with no chronological knowledge

I have thought about it but I think I would struggle with what and when etc and may just end up spiralling in frustration at not being able to remember so much of my own life. It frustrates me enough as it is now, I mean seriously, where did it all go?

I can totally see how it could be useful though, if the doing it isn't too much for the brain. I wrote a letter about my past, my story, to my Mum when she passed away and read it to my T a couple of weeks ago. I found this really helpful in a similar way. For me it was about straightening out a massive balled up knotted bit of string and I do think it has helped hugely in that department.

I hope you find it helpful to share with your T if and when you decide to.

So much happened to me before age five that my memory is all jacked. There are things I remember that my family would deny and things that trustworthy family members remembered that I have no recollection of at all. It is a really good idea though and I don't remember anyone starting a thread dedicated to this so thank you

my first therapist had me do one.

I didn't write a timeline of all my life and memory, but I wrote pages and pages of all my mental health history that I could remember and piece together. I wrote snippets on index cards every time they would come to mind and then after about a month I organized them in order and then checked it with my husband to get his point of view, because usually I've forgotten things or viewed them slightly skewed. Then I wrote it into pages and prepared it to discuss with my T...aaand...she didn't want to know about it. So that was kind of a waste in a way, but it also felt helpful to my own mind to just organize everything.