I have something similar, albeit maybe not quite as bad as you. Most of my far past is just vague sweeping notions or basic facts of what happened, and a still

I have something similar, albeit maybe not quite as bad as you. Most of my far past is just vague sweeping notions or basic facts of what happened, and a still mental image here and there, and whatever I recorded in my journals and old chat logs and forum posts when I reread them. Which is what I'd recommend to you, if you'd like to have some of that memory. I go through phases where I'm a lot better about journaling my life as it's happening, and I tend to remember those more easily (or go 'oh yeah!' when I reread them). But I also like taking pictures to help me remember, which it sounds like you explicitly don't. I've been using the vacation we just got back from yesterday to get back into the habit of writing a journal, and I still need to write up the last few days, and will need to soon because it will fade fast. I thought that other people had much better memories than I did, because they always were able to tell such great stories. But I rarely tell my own stories, meanwhile some of these people that seem to have great stories I hang out with them and realize they're telling the same stories over and over again, to just about everyone they meet. I suspect the telling of those stories so many times is helping keep those memories alive. If you don't share them somewhere (at least to a journal), the memories wither and die. Unless you're someone with a photographic memory, of course.