Anyone ever look at pictures of themselves as a child and feel no connection to them?

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.

There's a picture of me as an infant which everyone in my family says they were so happy when I was born. I look at the picture which everyone in my family loves, and I think I look depressed. Which makes sense, because I've been depressed my entire life. I can remember being 5 years old, and my parents getting me Super Mario 2, which was incredibly hard to find in 1988. And I love that game. I wanted that game. I begged for that game.

But I was having a bad day that day. I remember saying "I don't deserve this. Other kids deserve this, but not me."

And then my mom yelled at me. This was all recorded on VHS. Whenever I see the footage, I feel ashamed that I said that. Because here's someone trying to show love to me, and here I am at 5 years old rejecting my own mother.

But as far as not connecting with those old photos and videos, no. I DO connect with those old photos and videos. I'm 41 years old, but I'm still the same depressed self hating individual. I only feel ashamed that I rejected someone who was trying to be nice to me.

Someone showing love for you shouldn’t yell at you because you are unhappy with the present. If they loved you they’d try to understand why.

I have been upset when someone didn’t like a present I got them, but I never shouted at them. And I’ve also been given out to when I didnt “appreciate “ a present I was given. I now think that’s more of a them problem than a me problem.
- I did want the present. I did like the present. I just felt like I was unworthy of the present. I was being given a present that they went through a lot of effort to get (I genuinely can't put into words how hard in 1988 it was to get that game to someone who isn't familiar with the time period's methods for acquiring such things). I just felt that other kids deserved it more than I did.
  
  I did the same thing with food. I'd go to other friends houses, and they wouldn't eat vegetables or whatever. So their parents would say things like "There are starving kids in Africa!". I would overhear this, go back to my own house, and feel I was undeserving of food if there were starving kids in Africa, and here I was presented with a 4 coarse meal every night. Who was I to be special to have those options while others starved?
  
  That's how I felt about the game. Who was I to be deserving of this highly sought after game, which kids were literally killing each other for in poor neighborhoods, to just be given this game without earning it? What had I done to earn it? That's what offended my mom into yelling. She went through all this trouble, and now I was saying "Woe is me to be given this gift".
  
  I don't know how else to describe it, if I'm failing to do so.

Oh be careful guys, everything you've been saying in here are clear symptoms of being replicants with fabricated memories!!

My whole family makes me feel like that.
- That's right, I almost forgot

I try to avoid thinking about the past forces me to look forward in life.

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.
Plot twist, you were a cute baby but just have low self esteem.
Everyone else thinks I was cute. Which I take to mean everyone is being polite

I don't know if this helps, but someone who loves the adult-you will absolutely look at your baby photos through the same filter as they look at you now. They'll see those photos as a little peek into the past of someone they already like. So you could genuinely be ugly as hell as a kid--but if they like you now, that's not gonna matter to them, you'll be cute.

This doesn't have such a large age-gap, but someone I knew had a crush on me looked at my employee photo (that I fucking HATED) and decided they liked my "little smirk". Why did they love the photo I hated? Because they had an emotional connection to me (on their side at least) anyhow.
- Your sentiments are appreciated and we need more reminders like this out in the world in these dark times.
  
  Yeah, family and loved ones will always have that bias because people are more than their physical appearance. Thoughts, attitudes, habits, feelings, kin. You love someone for all of those reasons and more.
  
  But if I saw a doppelgänger child I’d be lying right to the parents faces to remain cordial.
  
  YMMV. Highly subjective and all

I don’t even have a connection to the memories I have as a child- or even a teenager for that matter.

I get that looking in the mirror

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 don't intend this to be flippant, but have you considered therapy to talk about why you feel this way?
- Not flippant at all. I'm in therapy now actually. 🤗

I don't take or look at pictures of myself. I've never felt value in that. I can often recall moments vaguely if I look at even my oldest pictures. I'm intuitively connected but not emotionally. I don't have much nostalgic emotion.

Are you... me?
- I'm five years in your future but I can't tell you about it

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 typed a lot but it was pretty incoherent so I'm just gonna say yeah, but more so via memories than pictures.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As a kid I never recognized myself in pictures. I hated myself and would avoid mirrors. Looking at my face was like looking at gore. Just gross if not shocking. To this day if I find any childhood photos I destroy them to help eradicate any trace of my childhood ever happening.