Why do some adults & elderly people display large childhood portraits of themselves?

I don't know if what I'm about to share sheds light on anything, but here goes:

I'm in my 40's, and I have a photo of myself when I was about 7 on my desk. (I want to add other photos in the corner on the wall of me and my friends doing things in the past, places I've traveled, etc. but haven't gotten to it yet.)

The reasons I put it there:

- One, it's a reminder of the 'clean slate', and my inner child. Who I was before a lot of s*** hit the fan and my family life was destroyed. I am trying to heal from a lot of difficult experiences and loss, and I put that photo there to remind me that I was once a child, full of love and potential, who didn't feel negative about herself -- and maybe as an adult I can get back there again somehow.

- Two, the photo was taken by my father, who at the time wasn't the horribly abusive person he was about to become but a person I remembered as loving photography. He was playing around with his camera a lot and taught me how to use it.

- Three, I keep it around to show the kids who visit here from time to time who are naturally curious about what I looked like when I was younger. They also tend to want to see photos of me when I was a teenager, or in my 20's, or getting married. So I indulge this curiosity if it comes up.

That's pretty much it. I don't view my own display of it as creepy, but then I could add here that it isn't a really large portrait and maybe no bigger than 4 x 6". I think having one large portrait of when someone is young is perhaps a bit weird -- but it was also a more common style of portrait to hang (culturally) back in the 1960's and 1970's, so the person having it may just be continuing to display the same photos their parents put up ages ago.

Maybe its nostalgia

A way to bolster one's self esteem. If I looked at a picture of myself as a child I'd feel more protective and self nurturing of myself.

The people I know who do this all had horrible childhoods that they blame for their current mental health disabilities... They all say they have ptsd left over from childhood abuse. I guess that's part of what makes it creepy to see a gigantic framed childhood picture of them when they were an unhappy child. And it seems weird to me.

If they never dealt with childhood abuse they maybe never fully grew up and still are children in their minds. I know somebody who is obsessed with her childhood pics but she was never abused she is extremely immature though. Her obsession with her own childhood is kind of an excuse to never grow up

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i have a painting of me when i was young on the wall...not because of any deep psychological trauma but because my husband had it commissioned to be done from a photo as a surprise for me. it's definitely not something i would have thought of myself.

I suspect that it the reason is something like this. Just noticed that one of them keeps posting her childhood picture on facebook too. Maybe her therapist told her to do it. To me it's creepy. I wish they would just get better (without the pictures)....

I think your finding the pictures creepy says more about you than them; that you feel what they like/need/do personally? Creepy is evoking "horror" or "fear" and that would be in you, not inherent in a picture. Reminds me a bit of The Picture of Dorian Gray? The Picture of Dorian Gray - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia almost in reverse.

I like pictures of myself at a young age because I looked sweet and innocent and know I'm still "Me" so that sweetness and innocence is still there. I am all I have ever been and reminding myself of that, the good things too, is comforting to me.

If sweetness and innocence is still there wouldn't it show in current pics too? I understand you look older but sweetness should still be in your eyes etc?

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