At what age did you become aware that you were alive? Do you remember?

[sage2021]

I was 3, and I do remember certain aspects of it very well. It's like it just hit me one day and all I could do for a few minutes was to just stand there and look at stuff in the room. It was like I came from no where, and was just placed in a standing position in my Grandma's living room. It scared me and I think that's why I remember it so well.

[FunkyMonkee]

At least as far back as 1 year old.
Shortly after I turned 2 that summer, it was probably in Sept. or early Oct. and mom was giving my brother & I a bath up on the second floor. Bobby was either just about to turn 1, or had just done so days to a week or 3 before this. She pulled me out of the tub and dried me off and then turned back to the tub to get Bobby and either finish washing him or dry him off. As soon as she let me go, I wandered out of the bathroom and down the stairs to the first floor, completely naked. Once I got to the first floor, I went to this old brown dresser that had always been under this huge antique mirror in the foyer a couple feet past the front door; on the wall opposite the door. In one of the top drawers was mom's make-up. I know because I'd seen her stand there many times before this and apply it so, I pulled open the drawer and pulled out a tube of very red lipstick and started to put it on MY lips... and then my face, my chest, my arms, my legs, etc.. When I was done, I turned around and walked out the front door! Down the front steps, turned left and over to the alley about 50 feet away, left again and all the way to the end of the alley, a block away! Once there, I spotted Dickie Gannon, a much older kid, at least 12, and some other kids cross the street in the ballfield playing football. So, I ran across the street and went into the ballfield. I already knew how to get in as I'd done it a few times before. Then I ran over to where those guys were playing and they started laughing their asses off at me! Next thing I know, I can hear my mother yelling for me! There's a garage at the end of the alley and she's so embarrassed with me that she's trying to hide behind the garage so those kids don't know that I'm HER kid! So, she's trying to whisper, angrily, at me and tell me to get the hell over there where she is so they can't hear her. Once I spot her, I run over the fence around the field and stand there waving at her and yelling, "Hi, mommy!" By now, those kids are howling! Finally, I come out of the field, I think, or mom came in and got me, I don't recall which, and she took me back home and probably gave me another bath!
Anyway, the point is, I'd already known about the ballfield, the way to get in, who Dickie Gannon was, had hung out with him a few times, and I'd seen mom put her make-up on plenty of times before this so, that means, I HAD to have known about this stuff from when I was 1 year old!
For the longest time, I had thought THIS was my very first memory and then I realized that I MUST'VE had earlier ones if I'd seen mom use make-up a number of times before, etc..

[NathanDavis]

I was age two, but very close to turn three years old as well...

and it's also one of my earliest memories, I do have two so, I am not sure which one happened first...

one is this very vivid memory of me playing at the patio and around a garden's fountain, which was our first place, where I was born but I was not supposed to remember... and I also have another memory of the bus stop nearby and the one sign that was at that stop

all other earlier memories are from the home we moved next to, or my great-grandmas house as I grew up in both

[WhiteSteve]

My earliest memories, going by where we lived that year, were when I was between 2-3 years old.

I don’t remember the sequence they came in, but I can vaguely recall a few events.

One was getting a splinter in my finger from the fence around the back patio, and my mom digging it out with a sewing needle while I screamed bloody murder.

Another was Halloween, my first time trick or treating, and my mom dressing me up as a black cat (not the manliest costume😂) and I sort of remember people making a big deal out of me when they answered the door.

I used to have play dates with this kid Adrian who lived down the way, he was my age and our moms apparently knew each other a little. I remember both of us jumping up and down on my bed, laughing like crazy, but then our heads smashed together, and I swear it sounded like that noise when you drop one big rock onto another big rock. We just fell down on the bed, stunned, and I just remember being on Queer Street from it. Some say I haven’t been right ever since😝

And the last memory was me sitting in the living room, watching cartoons, and seeing a Trix cereal commercial. I almost want to say I was eating Trix at the time, I sort of feel like I was, like I was surprised to see an ad for what I was eating, but I couldn’t say for sure, my brain might be making that part up. I might’ve been too young for cereal at that point, I don’t really know how toddlers work, haha. Anyway, I do remember feeling sad that they wouldn’t give the Trix Rabbit any cereal, I thought that was messed up, lmao. I was DYING when I saw this on The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air a little over ten years later😂😂😂

https://www.youtube.com/embed/PwHf_06A-P0

[Middleman]

My earliest memories of knowing I was alive was probably about 2 when I was at a hospital with a minor sickness. I remember very clearly one early morning the nurse in white gave me a bowl of Kelloggs Cornflakes with really fresh tasting milk.

The other times were when I was about 4 and I was sitting in the living room watching Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon on VHS tape, and running next door to my local confectioners to pick up a packet of strawberry Tunes menthols with my grandpa nearby.

As to your experience of being scared, I can relate to it. I remember when I was about 7 and alone by myself I once stared into the mirror in my family's bathroom, asking myself why I was there. I guess Supertramp's The Logical Song made sense for many of us.

[Likes2drive]

I remember stuff as far back as when I was about one and a half or two years old but I never remember anything about thinking about being alive. I do remember at 11 becoming more self-aware

[menina]

I think I was 5 years old. It was the first time that someone hurt me (physically and mentally).

[sage2021]

@menina
Aww, I am so sorry you have bad memories like that. I hope you are ok now! 🌹

[menina]

Thank you. I am ok, but thinking about this still makes me sad.

[Simslover92]

Probably around 2 or 3 when my mom got physically abused by my dad and he put a knife to her throat. That was my first memory.

[slatyb]

No idea. I remember learning to read (I was 4), and I remember certain television shows for pre-schoolers.

[CrimsonAngel09]

32 years old and still dead.

[DeeDeeDeVour]

More-or-less 2 years old.