Out of the Storm

Hi all,

As part of my recovery i have discovered via EMDR and other things, that one of my biggest trauma, likely my biggest was in infancy.  My mother was post natal when i was born, and that quickly developed into schizphrenia (and i had to be there - not loved, not cared for, and abandoned as she got worse and worse).  My dad was not around much / he isnt a father anyway. 

I share this, as its very difficult to capture such early trauma, to really feel it, although i am trying. 

Wondering if others have had infancy trauma that they recall and have resolved / or i mean worked through and have any comments / advice??

thanks

I can relate all too well.  My mother got pregnant to manipulate my father, and because that didn't work out the way she expected it to, she started resenting me and not wanting me before I was even born, and I became the scapegoat for everything wrong in her life from then on.  I don't know for sure what she did to me when I was an infant of course, but I've put together what I can of it from family photos and documents, information from other family members and family friends, extrapolation from things I remember from later in my childhood, and some devastating flashbacks.  I can't say that I've resolved it, but knowing about it has certainly been very helpful in informing my therapy and my understanding of my symptoms.  I have recently begun working with a practitioner of Somatic Experiencing because although the cognitive therapy I have been doing for many years has been very helpful, I feel that I've reached a bit of an impasse with it.  I chose Somatic Experiencing as a complementary therapy because the concept that I have trauma stored in my body that cannot be released through talk alone makes a lot of sense to me.  I am hopeful that this will help me progress further, but also rather afraid it will be yet another thing I will try that seems so promising in the beginning but turns out to be dead end.

I'm very interested in how it works to come to understand and resolve early infancy trauma. I don't have any insights but relate to both your posts, not exactly, but similar.

My mom was mentally I'll. Dx is bipolar but I really suspect it was schizoaffective disorder. She was very depressed, very anxious, often nearly catatonic, and traumatized too. I think. But she told so many lies big and small I don't even know about that part anymore. I know watching her with my own kids she had no idea how to interact with or mirror a baby and instead would amp up their distress 100 fold. She was irritable and rageful and unpredictable and while I don't have my own memories what my sister tells me, it would have been a very distressing environment. I do know I wanted nothing to do with her and couldn't look at her or stand to be touched by her as a kid and till the very end.

My father was not there i never knew him but the stories are that he was an abusive alcoholic and drug addict who left home at 14 and that he tried to kill my mom while she was pregnant with me and stole everything including my sister's baby photos when he left and would threaten to kidnap us. But now I just have no idea which pieces are true. Some are, some probably aren't.

She apparently stayed with my grandparents the first 3 months of my life and then we moved away. I loved my grandparents so much. They are what saved me when things really went haywire with my mom when I was a bit older.

I'm not sure if you all have watched videos of the "still face" experiments but that really made me feel like yes that is what was happening.

I used to think if I could figure it all out, I'd find a sense of peace about what happened. All I know now is that I don't want to know any more. It was all senseless then, and remains so today.

I've found it's impossible to disavow all the emotional and physical remnants from extremely early abuse on the part of the m. I've found that trying to return there, even for the purposes of ironing out the m's motivations, are useless with regards to making me feel better about what happened and/or why.

I've tried various approaches over a number years, but all it accomplished was to wear me down further. Instead of understanding anything I just felt the memory was keeping me stuck in some world I can't fathom. It just hurts too much.

Obviously it's still a major wound, or I wouldn't be responding.
Other than that, I keep working on where I'm at, instead of trying to recapture what happened in an awful time I can't wish away, but will have to leave it at that.

Sorry if I wasn't able to offer much encouragement; just my experience. Perhaps you'll do better with this. 

Hi John,

Thanks for posting this - it resonates with what's come up this week for me and my therapist has mentioned this in the past as well. I can see that NPD and enmeshment runs in my family, so am pretty sure there is stuff there from infancy that I'm only beginning to realize. I feel this deep sense of panic when ppl get too close or sometimes just around ppl that don't feel safe in general, and I think it has to do with early childhood/preverbal stuff and how my mom was. I've also done some EMDR which was helpful. IFS has also helped me reconnect with a young part (2ish) that I had to hide away because it wasn't safe and given me access to emotional parts of myself/inner workings that I couldn't identify before.

Also, I have been doing a certain type of Tibetan meditation which has been surprisingly helpful to settle some emotions. I'm still working on that "underlying feeling" though which I think probably comes with this type of trauma, that there's something there but you don't know how to verbalize it.

Bach - I hope that goes well for you. I found my limits with cognitive therapy as well and started seeing an EMDR therapist which opened up some new doors for me.

dolly

After some time in Somatic Experiencing I had a deep raging cry that was definitely, I just felt it in my body, from infancy. My brother had told me that Mother let me cry myself to sleep. Really convenient for her that that was the advice at the time. Don't know if she did that with my elder siblings. I trust my body to tell me what happened. After all the healing I've had, and my life expanding, I continue to have friendships that are not satisfying and no one really close. It's frustrating. I have a sinus headache today because of it.

I know this is an old thread but I so relate and want to reference and possibly get "updates" from the folks who've posted here. So I'm gonna continue here...

So yes, I pretty much suffered strictly and only infancy trauma.
This is what I've been told:
TW
Punched in-utero. First four years of life listening and witnessing, physical, verbal and psychological abuse of my biological father directed at my mother and older sister. Once "kicked" out of the way by my bio-father. After about four years my mother got a lawyer and my father left. Almost never saw him again. My mother remarried, a decent guy, good enough father. Totally non-violent. Emotionally limited, but deeply caring nonetheless.

I resonate most with Woodsgnome: Things seem to have only gotten worse for me as time and "knowledge" has accumulated. Discovering Cptsd was relieving at first, but paradoxically my symptoms have actually gotten worse!!! I'm totally bedridden outside of two fundamental demands: work/financial demands (this means I have to go to work so I go to work) and taking care of my daughter one week out of two. But both of these things are extremely difficult for me. I feel like I am just barely holding it together. Suicidal Ideation comes up a lot. But I CANNOT inflict that on my three kids, especially the youngest who is 11 and would be certainly severely traumatized by such an event. Not to mention the pain that my action would reverberate amongst family and friends. Complicated, but destructive for others for sure.

So now I'm wondering what I am going to do with the rest of my life. I am as utterly lost as I have ever been. I literally don't know what to do except doing as little as possible. I live on this forum. I literally live on this forum. I keep rereading stuff, I keep rereading my own posts, I keep searching in old posts. It's very hard to finish Pete Walker's book. It's very hard to cook and clean. I know I should take a bike ride, but I am just too terrified. I went back on antidepressants for a week, but that just exploded my anxiety. I am now on no drugs whatsoever except caffeine. I am really really lost. I was in therapy but I have stopped for several reasons. I've made an appointment with a psychiatrist. I know this might be a mistake. But I don't know what else to do. I have very very little support. This forum has almost become my only support. I try to participate and support others but I feel I'm not that good at supporting others right now. Maybe that's my inner critic. It's just everything is so very hopeless inside of me right now. Finding a trauma informed therapist where I am located is nearly impossible. I've thought about trying to find someone online and doing it by zoom or Skype or whatever. The problem is I'm scared it's so little, so infrequent, and costs money. So taking that decision is really hard. I also know just how ineffective talk therapy is. When what I really need right now is to be held, hugged, loved by the woman I broke up with eight months ago. I so desperately need to be loved. And I so deeply feel utterly unworthy of being loved. And I so utterly feel hopeless. I'm so sorry, I just had to get all this out. Thank you for reading, thank you for listening. Any hope you can pass along will be greatly appreciated. I am managing to meditate a little, but I call it "desperation-meditation". I've no idea how effective it is...

Hi Chart,

I've come to understand a bit more how this stuff shows up in me a bit more over the past few years. A recent revelation has been Healing From Developmental Trauma both the first book and the Practical guide. It deals with the connection survival type which very much relates to infancy trauma. Perhaps it might help in understanding the foundations of what you're experiencing a bit more. He has a very good explanation of "impending doom" and where that comes from when you tried to resolve things as an infant with no resources.

I've also recently started seeing a NARM therapist, which sort of hits straight to the core of issues, but can also just leave one feeling a bit sark and heavy. It's only been a month, so waiting to see how it goes.Most of the infancy stuff is also preverbal, so emotions etc coming up for me often don't have a logical/thinking component which I rely on, so I think I sort of spin out with stuff like that.

I'm sorry you're going through so much at the moment and hope you can find some space with that.

Sending you support,
dolly

Thanks Dollyvee, I was just at the point of ordering that very book 2 or three days ago. I haven't ordered it yet because I'm still trying to finish Pete Walker's book and a book by Siebern Fisher and Neurofeedback. Narm therapy is also something I looked at recently. But I'm in France and I'm pretty sure there's nothing anywhere close to being a Narm trained therapist even as close as Paris. As mentioned I could try to do something online but at the moment I have absolutely no willpower and no idea how to even go about getting that going. I'm just riding out the storm at the moment. Thanks for your feedback, it does help. If you can keep me posted about Narm therapy.

Quote from: Chart on April 21, 2024, 09:30:26 AMI am as utterly lost as I have ever been. I literally don't know what to do except doing as little as possible. I live on this forum. I literally live on this forum. I keep rereading stuff, I keep rereading my own posts, I keep searching in old posts. ... This forum has almost become my only support. I try to participate and support others but I feel I'm not that good at supporting others right now. Maybe that's my inner critic. ...  When what I really need right now is to be held, hugged, loved by the woman I broke up with eight months ago. I so desperately need to be loved. And I so deeply feel utterly unworthy of being loved.

Me again. I'm responding to this because I hear you, hear your desperation. I'm not worried for your life or anything like that. We used to have a "Very Difficult Day" thread on the forum, not anymore for various reasons, but if we still had it, this post of yours would belong on it and you'd get the support mbrs can give - being read, acknowledged  :hug:  :bighug:  :grouphug: 
As well as reminders because it's easy to not be able to reach this knowledge when in a semi-permanent EF: Of course you are worthy of being loved; hard to believe, but this state you are in will change, it will get better, you will come back out and see that the Storm has lessened. 8-force wind is not pleasant but better and a little safer than 10-force.

Please do not feel that you need to respond to others on the forum rn, especially not in order to support others! When you are able to, you will. If you want to, an emoji is more than enough. What I'm saying is: Here on this forum, you don't have to support others in order to get support yourself when you're in a really bad way.

I also hear that in spite of everything, you are actively trying :cheer:  - thinking about bike ride, doing a little meditation. It really is OK to do nothing, to just allow yourself to recuperate and rest! Other possibilities that can help: Note one Good Thing per Day. Or one instance of Joy per Day. (Or more of course.) There are threads on the forum which can give you ideas of what a Good Thing or a Joy could be. It's not positive-thinking, it's focussing the mind for a couple of minutes on something soothing, non-triggering, possibly even emotionally-strengthening for YOU. These tools are very useful for me, they may not be for you. It's also OK to ignore my suggestion - it's all OK. It is also perfectly OK to more or less live on the forum. Some mbrs don't - nice for them. Others need it. It's a support for you - use it! :grouphug:

:yeahthat:

And as a wise person I know once said (and made me chuckle :rofl: ):

Quote from: Chart on April 10, 2024, 08:17:44 PMwell, the housework can get as bad as it likes... I don't believe housework or showers or fashionable pants heals a traumatized amygdala

From the Lack of Self-Care from Shame AND Suicidal Ideation (https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=15936.0) thread


To bring this back to infancy trauma, the more I hear about post-partum depression, the more I understand how devastating it is.  My mother told my brother and me repeatedly that she experienced it with both of us.  At the time, she issued it as kind of a warning to look out for it and be prepared.  I guess she never thought it would reveal so much abuse.  I, too, imagine I was left to "cry it out on my own" as an infant.  I haven't even attempted to feel anything that occurred before my first memory of abuse at age 4, so I have to say I'm sorry for not being able to offer any advice.  I think we're all here trying to figure out how to feel our pasts and reconcile them.  Thanks for sharing your stories, everyone.
   -Cascade

Yeah, for sure I'm not doing any digging around in the memory banks before four anytime soon. Gonna be a long time before I have the strength for that.

Hi there, Chart. I want to reiterate all of what Blueberry said with a big:  :yeahthat:

When I first grasped this trauma stuff and cptsd and this forum it was pretty much all consuming. I'd like to say for months but it was more like a few years. Use the forum as you need to and as is healing for you. At some point it might feel like too much and you might even need to take a break from the forum. There's a section for that too rather than just disappearing...a little place to say I need a break. You'll be welcomed back with open arms if you take a break and return. So please know that is ok when you need it. You can leave, come back, leave, come back. You can just write in your own journal. There are no expectations.

You asked for an update from people who have posted before on this thread. I'm still here. I'm doing well most of the time. I had not the very most severe traumas but I can say now...pretty darn bad enough, and a lot of layers of it from in utero (like you, suffering the physical abuse directed at a pregnant mother, and being left for hours to cry) and lasting until age 20 with multiple types of traumas, with some retriggering events in my 40s that unleased the full fury of cPTSD and dissociative disorders.

I am lucky to have great mental health support and a therapist dedicated to seeing this through with me and learning new tools when the existing set doesn't cut it. It's really really important to me to not pass this crap on to my children and to be a wife that my husband deserves, because he is a good person. I work crazy hard at addressing these traumas because I am hugely motivated to be ok. I don't want to be like my parents.

I have the resources and support to do this work. Sometimes I still have quite bad EFs, nightmares, flashbacks, etc. But in between those I am getting better and better. It is a slow process and for periods of time it will feel like you are getting worse not better but keep looking back at where you came from and you WILL see changes and improvement. Slow is fast...go slow. Going fast on this stuff backfires. Read a few pages of a book and put it away and do something soothing when it triggers. It will trigger.

And keep looking back at how far you've come. Even getting knocked down is progress because now you are looking at the things that need to be healed and figuring out the pieces of the puzzle, all toward becoming whole. 2 steps forward, 5 steps back, a couple steps forward, a few steps back, then a giant leap will launch you beyond your starting point.

We'll be here with you.

Certain images or vignettes are frozen in time for me, and not accessible easily. However I will share this.

In the mid 70's I was "committed" to a state facility after a one, two, three, punch of life events in quick succession. 1. my grandmother died suddenly 2. my mother took her life a month later, 3. my husband burned our house to the ground.

I was sitting in my room, in the evening, and a male staff member wandered in. Perhaps, I called for someone, I don't remember. He sat nearby while I recounted events as an infant from my crib, particularly listening/witnessing to domestic violence and later being SA. While I have hazy memories of the content now, I was shocked to see him crying openly. 

During my life, I've had multiple admissions, that was the only involuntary one.

Now the reason it no longer bothers me, in that particular way is: while I can't say what happened, I do know it is locked up tight. I also know that is a lie, because I have times when "feelings" or auras come over me, unrelated to present day or even accessible memory, and I am in a dark place where there is no light or help of any kind.

My conclusion is: yes, terrible stuff happened. Yes, I survived and went on to lead a reasonably normal life. No needles, jail, financial devastation. I see it as a function of perhaps spiritual connection. I recognize when I go rouge with ordinary feelings, but I have enough objectivity to allow my executive to have the final say, even if it's just a whisper. That whisper is the result of 50+ years of therapy.

Lakelynn,

I resonate with the orderly who sat by and sobbed as you told you story. I am a huge fan of empathy, as I believe it can be the greatest healing tool known to mankind. When we know someone is touched by our stories, it feels like a hug all the way to the heart.

Thank you for sharing the story here. I'm drawn in by your post. And the trifecta of things that sent you to be hospitalized, the death of your GM, your mother's act of taking her own life, and the housefire...oh my gosh, ANY ONE of those things was a trauma almost too serious to deal with. My little sister took her own life in 2008, and I have never stopped having crying fits over it. Your story is touching my heart, and I just want you to know that.

I am sorry all these things happened, but I'm glad you are open and willing to share them with us.

Know that, as today progresses, from my heart to yours, I'll be thinking about you and this post.

I'm sending you as much caring energy as I can today.

:hug:

Infancy trauma here too. But I don't want to write it out this evening, don't feel up to it. It will be in other posts of mine or my Journals. Just saying - yup, it exists.

My mother once told me she prayed and prayed for a baby boy. She thought that because my father was abandoned by his father that having a son would change his violent behavior. I was conceived with the sole purpose to save my mother's marriage.

Oh Chart, your words break my heart.  :'(

First, please hear that you have every right to be alive, just for you.  You are your own person with your own soul and your own purpose in this life.

The more I learn about childhood abuse, the more I understand that many parents have children for the wrong reasons.  For example, my mother wanted to feel loved, so she birthed brand new human beings who would love her unconditionally.  For me, that love lasted about 40 years before I saw and truly felt what she had been doing to me with her neglect while also expecting me to fulfill her emotional needs.  When I was curious about why she left my father and asked her about it, she once told me she truly thought he would be a good father.  Then she realized he was still just a kid himself and wanted to be taken care of, too.  She never admitted to knowing about the sexual abuse he was inflicting upon me.

I can imagine that your own mother probably never expressed her guilt about her reasoning, once she saw the inevitability that having a son (or any child) wasn't going to change your father's behavior.  It sounds to me like her statement was as close as she could come to admitting the truth.  I say that not to excuse her, but in hopes of offering a perspective that might be helpful to YOU.  None of us deserved the abuse we experienced.  We are all here now, though, struggling to find meaning in this life for our own selves.

Reaching out with a warm hug,
   -Cascade  :hug:

Thank you cascade for your insightful reflections. They are pretty much spot on. I think we had a similar experience with our mothers. My mother has never seen the twistedness of her logic in bringing me into the world. This is just something that clearly has never crossed her mind. She, like your mother, used everyone around her to satisfy her emotional needs. She ate me whole emotionally my entire childhood. It was always her emotions that had the priority. If I wanted emotional support I knew I would have to give back twice as much as what I gave. No love at all, then having to pay for love was a horrible double whammy. This morning I looked myself in the mirror and told myself that I love me. Thank you for helping me and thank you for inspiring me to continue to try to heal.

Perhaps someone has information or feedback about this idea: Neurological development in principle begins at conception. Thus it stands to reason that trauma will have a different effect or outcome depending at which stage of neurological development the trauma begins. Trauma at age 30 will have certain differences compared to trauma at age 15. I think the earlier trauma begins in an individual, that is to say in-utero or very early infancy, the impact is significant regarding the stage that the brain is at in its development. I hope that made sense. I think in-utero trauma is very real, and it seems to make sense that this would impact many other aspects of the mind-body relationship. To be brief, it seems trauma also fits the description of a spectrum. And maybe that spectrum is amongst other things, dependent upon the neurological developmental stage of the individual when the trauma actually starts or happens.

Quote from: Chart on April 24, 2024, 11:23:39 AMPerhaps someone has information or feedback about this idea: Neurological development in principle begins at conception. Thus it stands to reason that trauma will have a different effect or outcome depending at which stage of neurological development the trauma begins. Trauma at age 30 will have certain differences compared to trauma at age 15. I think the earlier trauma begins in an individual, that is to say in-utero or very early infancy, the impact is significant regarding the stage that the brain is at in its development. 

 :yeahthat: absolutely.

The earlier traumatisation takes place, the more of a cumulative bad effect it has on child development. Say you're traumatised at 3yo and dissociating half the time to survive, there's a lot of emotional and relational development that's going to pass you by. But both are very important building blocks for your continuing emotional and relational development! Also lots of us (maybe all of us) have all sorts of unhelpful habits and behaviour patterns we learnt and discovered in order to survive emotionally in our FOOs. They can be very deeply ingrained and it's a lot harder to catch up on all that emotional and relational development stuff and find behaviour patterns later as an adult during and around bouts in therapy. I know, I've been working on this stuff / being on the healing path for decades and I'm not the only one who's ever posted on the forum in that situation.

I hope all that made sense too!

Quote from: Chart on April 24, 2024, 11:23:39 AMI think in-utero trauma is very real, and it seems to make sense that this would impact many other aspects of the mind-body relationship.

Oh yes, it's real. I honestly don't know if there are any qualified/respected researchers of trauma who disagree on that, I really have no idea. If there were disagreers, I would say to them - a fetus can hear what's going on in the environment its mother is in, by the time a baby is born he/she knows their mother's voice. I know this through language development - the baby doesn't just recognise their mother's voice, he/she also recognises the language, their mother tongue so to speak. Doesn't understand cognitively but there's linguistic brain development going on in-utero. That baby can then also hear any raised, angry voices and other forms of violence I won't go into. Apparently when the baby is in-utero he/she is very attuned to the mother's moods and will absorb them, so if the mother is in a difficult or traumatising situation especially over time, the baby kind of absorbs that. Not to mention any physical harm the mother goes through - that obviously affects the baby in utero too.

Quote from: Chart on April 24, 2024, 11:23:39 AMI think in-utero trauma is very real, and it seems to make sense that this would impact many other aspects of the mind-body relationship. To be brief, it seems trauma also fits the description of a spectrum. And maybe that spectrum is amongst other things, dependent upon the neurological developmental stage of the individual when the trauma actually starts or happens.

All sounds very plausible. As you say amongst other things because the development of cptsd within the brain is probably pretty complicated.

Chart,

Absolutely. I even go farther. I have found that trauma is passed down before utero. For example, my x-rays show that my skeleton is contorted with Scoliosis as if I were compensating for a missing right arm. My son's x-rays also show that his body seems to be compensating for a missing right arm. When the doctors ask about my father, all I can say is that during WWII, he lost his right arm when he was 20 years of age. I was conceived when he was 40. His physical traumas were passed down through DNA to me, and then to my son. So, if physical trauma can be passed down through DNA, I assume emotional trauma can also. There's a book, It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle, by Mark Wolynn.

And when we're babies, our brains are wide open as we learn who we are, so traumas that happen in childhood set the direction for the rest of our lives, so the younger we are when trauma happens, the deeper it seems to embed itself into our wiring.

To summarize, I agree with your theories above. I think trauma definitely started early: In utero, in infancy, even in our ancestry.

Amazing story Papa C. Also adding into the layers...maternal stress hormones pass thru the umbilical and in an anatomically female fetus all the eggs they will ever carry are formed in utero as well. So the eggs that went on to become MY babies were formed in my mother's womb while my father tried to kill her.

I think this is going to take a little while to sink in...

While all that great stuff from everyone is sinking in, I love that you looked in the mirror and told yourself you love you.  I'll try it for myself, too!  :applause:
   -Cascade

Cascade, I keep trying it, but I don't really feel it. I do however feel really really sad. Black hole sadness. I really want to evaporate. I think early early developmental trauma is perhaps yet another beast in the monster manual of cptsd. I ordered the books recommended by PapaC and Armee and Dollyvee. Threw in Van der Kolk for good measure. I think I've been pretty badly shot up. Problem is there's no blood to show just what cptsd is actually doing.

Facing this stuff is difficult and painful and causes a lot of sadness but that's part of moving through it and healing. There's better days ahead. Keep going, slow.

If I slow down any more I'll start moving backwards...But thanks thanks thanks, support is so helpful.

Any suggestions on the two books of Laurence Heller? The Practical Guide versus Healing Dev Trauma? You suggest both? One is better before the other? Thanks in advance.

Here we have a new pathology topic, no? Prenatal and Infancy  Trauma... Often this is followed up with more trauma, if the "caregivers" are still around... but in my case not so much... My mom was (still is) pretty messed up but not so extreme toxicity as my biological father. So sometimes the major trauma comes to an end and "normal" childhood sets back in. Of course I remember my childhood and I was pretty messed up by that point. But at least the severe trauma was "past"... Or rather, no new trauma...
Course the question of this thread remains: How is infancy trauma "different" than later childhood trauma? And what are some ways to approach it to try to heal? Specific to pre-verbal and pre-memory...

Quote from: Chart on April 25, 2024, 05:14:20 AMIf I slow down any more I'll start moving backwards...But thanks thanks thanks, support is so helpful.

The feeling of going backwards in healing or moving backwards because so slow is pretty common around here too. 25 years ago I was told I needed to do less. I couldn't believe it because I was already doing way less than other adults my age, I mean I couldn't even clean one room in my apt all in one go, never mind the whole apt the way my age group did back then. Little did I know that for some reasons that I'm still not clear on I was being triggered and my energy disappeared at the mere thought of cleaning. The more I followed the "do less" (for a lot more examples than cleaning my apt), the sicker I seemed to get, my ability/energy/wherewithal to do whatever got less and less... As crazy as it may sound, doing less and less was still the answer in my case. The less-and-less might not be the answer in yours but the slow-and-slower-and-even-more-slowly might be in your case.

As Armee says, there are better days ahead. She's right, it does get better!! Probably not 100%, certainly not in my case, but better. Just as baby steps count in active healing (what I do in and out of therapy), it's good to look for and notice the tiny shifts that come to each of us over time during recovery. If you don't notice these yourself, in time forum mbrs will notice and let you know. We're often perceptive of other mbrs' progress while not noticing our own.

Indeed doing still more less seems impossible. But I guess I can try. ???

I know this is not too relevant to your core question of how is it different but I wanted to suggest a couple thoughts...


1. Blueberry answered really well I think about going slow and doing less. I'll add that opening these boxes can be pretty destabilizing that's part of why slow ends up being much much faster. You don't get knocked as far back. You shuffle forward instead of leaping ahead and straight over a cliff. I've learned this lesson the hard way as have pretty much everyone else here. Over and over I've learned this lesson. You'll learn it too and then you'll be able to go "oh yeah...slow is faster." :)

I also want to gently point out that the ongoing emotional trauma with your mom might be more significant than you are letting yourself realize right now.  :grouphug:

Quote from: Chart on April 25, 2024, 06:33:33 AMHere we have a new pathology topic, no? Prenatal and Infancy  Trauma... Often this is followed up with more trauma, if the "caregivers" are still around... but in my case not so much... My mom was (still is) pretty messed up but not so extreme toxicity as my biological father. So sometimes the major trauma comes to an end and "normal" childhood sets back in. Of course I remember my childhood and I was pretty messed up by that point. But at least the severe trauma was "past"... Or rather, no new trauma...
Course the question of this thread remains: How is infancy trauma "different" than later childhood trauma? And what are some ways to approach it to try to heal? Specific to pre-verbal and pre-memory...

To go back to some of your comments and questions here. I agree with Armee on not discounting how much you may have continued to be traumatised by your M, even if it might not have been intentional on her part. In your own words you were pretty messed up already by the time your bio F left, so having been traumatised already makes it easier for you to be re-traumatised by ensuing stuff.

How is infancy trauma different from childhood trauma? One way is that your brain is being damaged or wrongly wired from conception or birth onwards and so there is no healthy to go back to. You can't recover your emotional/mental health because you never had it in the first place. This is actually more of a difference between adult onset and childhood onset. An adult who got ptsd only (no complex in front) due to an accident or earthquake or witnessing too many bad things (as emergeny workers do) can recover a healthy self, they can reconnect with a healthy or healthier adult self from before the traumatising event. Even with childhood onset that doesn't really work, because a child by definition hasn't even nearly finished developing by the time the trauma starts.

Maybe a teen has a better chance, especially if traumatised outside the family and then supported by the family and doctors, therapists etc. Because a teen from a good-enough healthy stable family would normally have learnt some healthy behaviour e.g. knowing (some of) what emotions are which, being able to stay with the emotions briefly instead of dissociating, maybe have some healthy self-soothing mechanisms in place and some healthy belief-in-self (or not such a huge and virulent Inner Critic as lots of us have) despite everything going topsy-turvy during adolescence anyway.

Healing pre-verbal, pre-memory? I'm not sure that it's that different to healing trauma from a later date because processing and healing trauma doesn't necessarily mean being able to remember it detail for detail and talking about it. Traumatic memories are by definition usually all over the place in our brains and in our bodies. Trauma really does get stored in our bodies, like my body used to run cold, and my hands and arms used to get really painful. Long ago I thought that was really weird because I know nothing physical and drastic was ever done to my hands and arms like being tied up. It was actually emotional abuse that contributed to hand and arm pain.

The above is based on my opinion and my experiences and what I've read so may not be completely correct or completely based on scientific evidence, but it's what I believe.

There are different ways of healing trauma and I hope at some point you can find a qualified therapist again with whom you can work and who can work with you. A good therapist ought to be able to find the method or a method or even a mix of methods that works for you.

btw your FOO (family of origin) may think or tell you that their care and especially emotional care of you as well as your childhood was/were 'good enough' but if that were the case, you probably wouldn't be on the forum. My parents think they were 'good enough' too :aaauuugh:  :aaauuugh:  :stars:

Well actually here is some professional information on the differing affect on traumatisation on very young children versus older children and obviously teens/adults. I came across the info quoted below in another post of my own
https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=13694.msg104359#msg104359  (or if my link doesn't work for you, then see: Physical and Psychological Comorbidities / Co-morbidities / Physical issues / Itchy lower legs  (1st post Aug. 17, 2020)

"In one of the multiple recent free trauma seminars, they mentioned how in early-childhood trauma the whole physical body slows down so it doesn't digest properly, the blood doesn't flow properly, and things like that. I know that's what happens physiologically in a dangerous situation so that you can fight the wolf or flee from the sabre-tooth tiger. It seemed that with infants or toddlers the effect is immediate and turns chronic quite early on, whereas with an older child or adult the chronic stage doesn't happen so early. Or something like that. Don't quote me on it. It would make sense though for some of my not very serious but nonetheless bothersome physical symptoms I've had since early childhood."

Although you are more interested in the long-term emotional results of infancy trauma (most of us probably are), you can't separate them completely for reasons which my tired brain can't explain rn. Maybe tomorrow.

Papa Coco,

Thank you so much for your kind words and sympathy. Yes, that trifecta was THE moment in my life which set the path/journey forwards. This is the first time I dared to type it all out. The earth didn't shatter, and you responded sweetly-your reply feels like that same hug to the heart. I haven't been on for a week, and today is the perfect day to receive your energy.  :hug: 

I can really really really relate. My mother was a teenager who was being physically and emotionally terrorized by my father. She did not want children and abortion was illegal back then. Her brain wasn't even developed enough to have empathy or understanding of other human beings suffering, let alone a child's suffering. I don't remember my mother even talking to me about anything my whole childhood until I came into adolescence when she always screamed at me and treated me like an enemy, always trying to catch me doing something wrong, so she could psychologically terrorize me. She always screaming that she'd never be a mother who baked cookies for her kids, like if we needed food or clean clothes.

 :grouphug:

One week ago today I met up with a person who knew my FOO before I was born. She told me things nobody had ever disclosed to me before. Dad, who was a son to Norwegian immigrants, came back to the farm from WWII after a massively traumatic experience. He had 8 sisters and a brother. Mom was a 15 year old Catholic girl. They got together. Mom got pregnant.

Here's the part I did not know: Dad's family hated her. They treated her horribly for being pregnant and young. She had the baby, married Dad, and over the years, made general peace with most of Dad's family, but there was always tension.

Mom had 5 more pregnancies, (4 live births) after that. Each pregnancy made her go crazier than the last one. She would go into severe anxiety and Dad, who was 100% non-violent, but extremely strong, would have to hold her down to keep her from hurting herself or others until she could calm down. This was the 1940s and 1950s so there was NO help for a woman who had these anxiety spells.

After my discussion with this friend, I went into some deep meditation and I realized the true story of all that had happened. Mom, who, I already knew had almost died multiple times from a kidney disorder when she was 10 years of age, had a fragile emotional connection to safety and the world, and was then seriously shamed for being pregnant when she was way too young to know how to process the vulnerability of being attacked by an enormous family.

I now believe that each pregnancy acted as a stronger trigger than the one before it. She had to feel at serious risk of being abandoned or hated for being pregnant. We all understand how irrational these triggers can be, and how powerful they are. She was unsupported and probably felt like her anxiety was her own fault. I was in Utero 13 years and 4 pregnancies later. This person I talked with last week remembers Mom being in a severe anxiety chaos for parts of each follow-on pregnancy, including her pregnancy with me.

I was born HSP. Stories I've heard over the decades are that I was an anomaly in the hospital with the nurses who couldn't get over how alert I was. Staring at every person and jumping at every noise. Well of course I was born hypervigilant. Somehow, in utero, I already felt the terror that the world I was about to be born into was going to be a world of danger and hatred and shame. I was the subject of that shame. I came into the delivery room watching to see who was going to hurt me first.

It now makes clearer sense to me why I have lived a life unable to feel like I'm welcome on the earth. I watch every face, and read every word, trying to spot who is going to hurt me next so I can adjust or run.

After reading It Didn't Start with You, I can clearly see that Mom's trauma of being attacked for being pregnant with her children, translated to each of us 5 live births as a feeling that we are not wanted by the world. SHE wanted us. The world didn't.

For 40 years I've been angry at how Mom reacted with each of my wife's pregnancies. Each time I told her we were having a baby, she'd instinctively go into anxiety and yell into the phone, "OH NOOOO!!!!!!" It would take several conversations with her to get her to stop thinking that our babies were the worst things that could happen to us. I have been angry about that for 40 years, but now, after hearing what she went through, I, at least, understand why she did it, and why each of us children felt like the world is a dangerous place for us.

For the past week, as I've been pondering, reading, and meditating on this new information, I've been reaching all new levels of forgiveness for both she and Dad. I'm starting to hear a new voice in my head whenever I feel like the world isn't fair or isn't welcoming to me. The voice says, "this is Mom's trauma playing out in me." The old voices would have just said "This is Mom's fault." I'm still struggling, but I have a new voice now helping me see my struggles from a different perspective. I can now see a longer arc in the wave of abuse in my FOO. It didn't start with me, but it didn't start with Mom or Dad either. This is a longstanding multigenerational trail of racist hatred that attacked the little Catholic French/German girl for infiltrating the Norwegian family.

One reason I never knew any of this is that by the time I was born, we had left. Dad didn't speak to, or about, his family. Mom only told snippets of them, never really saying she hated them, but never connecting any love to them either.  I knew nothing about them because nobody had any good things to say about them.

I don't hate her anymore. I don't hate Dad anymore either. I still know what they did to bring me so much grief in my life, but I'm not taking it as personally as I always have.

Wow Papa Coco... Thank you for that history and everything woven around it. It resonates deeply with me. I'm reading It Didn't Start With You but it is sooo much information and I'm struggling to process it all. Your personal story is much more accessible and there are some distinct similarities in my own family history. Your post possibly makes me see my mother a little differently. And oddly I just saw her tonight by video-telephone. Your story hints at a kind of closure for you (if I understand correctly). I hope that translates into a more profound peace for you, parallel to the healing you so rightly merit. Thanks again and sending hugs. -Chart

Knowing out histories helps so much.

Quote from: Chart on April 21, 2024, 09:30:26 AMI know this is an old thread but I so relate and want to reference and possibly get "updates" from the folks who've posted here. So I'm gonna continue here...

So yes, I pretty much suffered strictly and only infancy trauma.
This is what I've been told:
TW
Punched in-utero. First four years of life listening and witnessing, physical, verbal and psychological abuse of my biological father directed at my mother and older sister. Once "kicked" out of the way by my bio-father. After about four years my mother got a lawyer and my father left. Almost never saw him again. My mother remarried, a decent guy, good enough father. Totally non-violent. Emotionally limited, but deeply caring nonetheless.

I resonate most with Woodsgnome: Things seem to have only gotten worse for me as time and "knowledge" has accumulated. Discovering Cptsd was relieving at first, but paradoxically my symptoms have actually gotten worse!!! I'm totally bedridden outside of two fundamental demands: work/financial demands (this means I have to go to work so I go to work) and taking care of my daughter one week out of two. But both of these things are extremely difficult for me. I feel like I am just barely holding it together. Suicidal Ideation comes up a lot. But I CANNOT inflict that on my three kids, especially the youngest who is 11 and would be certainly severely traumatized by such an event. Not to mention the pain that my action would reverberate amongst family and friends. Complicated, but destructive for others for sure.

So now I'm wondering what I am going to do with the rest of my life. I am as utterly lost as I have ever been. I literally don't know what to do except doing as little as possible. I live on this forum. I literally live on this forum. I keep rereading stuff, I keep rereading my own posts, I keep searching in old posts. It's very hard to finish Pete Walker's book. It's very hard to cook and clean. I know I should take a bike ride, but I am just too terrified. I went back on antidepressants for a week, but that just exploded my anxiety. I am now on no drugs whatsoever except caffeine. I am really really lost. I was in therapy but I have stopped for several reasons. I've made an appointment with a psychiatrist. I know this might be a mistake. But I don't know what else to do. I have very very little support. This forum has almost become my only support. I try to participate and support others but I feel I'm not that good at supporting others right now. Maybe that's my inner critic. It's just everything is so very hopeless inside of me right now. Finding a trauma informed therapist where I am located is nearly impossible. I've thought about trying to find someone online and doing it by zoom or Skype or whatever. The problem is I'm scared it's so little, so infrequent, and costs money. So taking that decision is really hard. I also know just how ineffective talk therapy is. When what I really need right now is to be held, hugged, loved by the woman I broke up with eight months ago. I so desperately need to be loved. And I so deeply feel utterly unworthy of being loved. And I so utterly feel hopeless. I'm so sorry, I just had to get all this out. Thank you for reading, thank you for listening. Any hope you can pass along will be greatly appreciated. I am managing to meditate a little, but I call it "desperation-meditation". I've no idea how effective it is...

Chart, my heart goes out to you. Being divided against ourselves is so painful. And I think this forum is probably exactly here for you to be able to express things like that. I'm sure it strikes a chord with many people, as it does with me.

Thanks Musicforever, I'm working but took a break to go into the back garden to have a good cry. Fell upon your post here. Amazing... how did you know I needed a special little note?  Thank you so much 😊

This topic resonates.

I am pretty sure I suffered infancy trauma. My mother says her pregnancy with me was so awful and dangerous that she was advised by doctors never to have another child. She has never clarified what exactly the problem was, just that it was life-threatening. She had a second child because she says she did not want me to be an only child like she was. Apparently the second pregnancy was also bad and dangerous, although I do not remember there being much atmosphere of peril in the house and I was 5 at the time. That said, I don't remember much about that time so perhaps it was awful and I have just blanked it [I will come back to this point later].

She has never said she suffered any pregnancy trauma as such (apart from claiming the pregnancies were physically dangerous) but I would not be surprised if they were. She has never told us, but an old friend told me some years ago, that her own mother did not want her and would have terminated the pregnancy had it been legal at the time. Indeed she was going to terminate but the father found out and threatened to tell the authorities. So my mother was about as unwanted a child as you could get.

I know, because she has told me, that I was an ugly and imperfect baby and child and she had been quite horrified by me when she first saw me. I imagine bonding was absent and I suspect she may well have had PND or similar. I don't think she ever wanted to know me as a person or was interested in my development beyond hoping that I would reflect well on her. Which of course I did not, in her view, being ugly and imperfect. We moved overseas during my infancy and she would have been able to park me onto the hired help there. I am very, very sure that my first few months were utterly grim (for her as well as me) and I suspect my time in utero would have been bathed in stress hormones. My father was present as a provider but in no other way.

Coming back to the point about blanking memories - the second pregnancy was while we were abroad with hired help. The more I talk about childhood memories (or lack of) with my T the more I feel that I must have shut down my emotions very early. My T asks if I felt sad or angry about bad things I do remember and I don't think I did. At least not much. My memories come with a rush from age 6 when we moved back home and there was no hired help. I think I had shut down emotionally from my mother as an infant and then chugged along comfortably enough with the hired help, but would not have bonded. Any memories I have of my mother interacting with me from that time are not pleasant, but I think I was sheltered from her to some degree. Once we were back home with no hired help and my mother having to cope with an infant as well as me, the full force of her emotional stress crashed onto me. My memories start very vividly from that time and I think it was probably a big shock to have to deal with that. Having shut down emotionally (thank goodness) I simply had to concentrate on surviving the onslaught and placating her as best I could.

Papa C's story resonates because my mother, too, is from a different country. I know a lot of my father's family very much resented some foreigner being brought in. She had support from my father's mother but that was about it, I think, until she was able to make some friends here. Even then the friends would not have been close given her narc and mistrustful characteristics. I'm not sure how I feel about her difficulties. I am sorry for her on one level. I would not wish her mother on anyone. I realise she was woefully ill-equipped to marry and have children. I realise she chose her husband to escape from her mother and because he was someone who would be likely to provide a comfortable life. Why he chose her I have no idea. I think my emotions are shut down towards her, still, in some ways. Since she is still alive and we are still in contact the main focus of my efforts is to stop feeling scared of her and to find out who I actually am.

I find infancy trauma particularly hard to deal with because of the EFs. It is very hard to rationalise or understand something with the logical brain if there is no full memory of what is causing the emotional reaction. It feeds very much into a feeling that many of us report of being wrong, or misunderstanding what happened, or of it not being "that bad". I dislike "knowing" at an emotional level that I had infancy trauma but not being able to prove it to myself. Also, although I know that attacking a narc is usually a really bad idea, I feel at a disadvantage because I can't ever challenge her on what I only know emotionally. There's no hope of mending the relationship. In fact, I don't even want to try. Even if she suddenly of her own volition apologised for something I don't fully remember I would have no way of knowing if it was a proper and full apology or just some love bomb attempt.

I just joined this forum and read some of the heart warming stories of other peoples struggles ....i don't feel so alone in my own struggle as I am sort of living and an almost permanant flashback that started many years ago. I know I'm a good person with good principles I try to live by but I struggle socially to keep up with the banter of social interaction. It all comes at me all at once , too much at times. I find that I am slow to respond ...part of cptsd and brain development I think. My main issue was a mother who was neglectful and emmotionally abandoned me from an early age lus I did lots of rebirthing and found similar systematic abondonment at birth.

My M had 6 children. She did not raise any of us. I have  brother that I never met. He died two years age. A sister I didn't meet until about 20 years ago. 

One brother was given to my M's parents as an infant. The brother I didn't meet and my sister were in an orphanage ten miles from the orphanage I was in with my other brother. The last brother died in infancy in a home as well. 

The thought of not being wanted by my M is the most profound pain I carry. Unfortunately my M got me out of the home at 8 yrs. old. 

From that point I endured physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. I never felt wanted or loved. 

Having said that I am loved now. By my wife, children and grandchildren. I still carry the pain of the past, though I am working on that. Gratefully I am no longer alone, unwanted or unloved. 

Hi L2N,

Yes, I deal with this too. My m told me I was a "mistake" as in you were an accident, we never meant to have you. My t's seem to flinch when I say this as I guess the other meaning is, I wish you'd never been born, which is quite awful.

The idea of not being wanted has come up over the recent months, but I don't think I ever had a profound awareness of it. I can imagine you felt it more acutely at an orphange. Mine was clouded in she was around, so my focus became trying to get her attention/approval, and then likely being reprimanded or pushed away, leaving me with the feeling like there was something wrong, I was never good enough. So yeah, as infants we look for that person to attach to to keep us safe and if they're not there, it stays with us.

As an update to what I wrote before - I've been discussing with my NARM t this week the feeling of looking to someone for protection, or that I might need that person, with an underlying feeling of being excluded from the "group." I think this is basic survival stuff stemming from infancy trauma, and/or family scapegoating. I guess it shows up as an anxiety, or need.

When tracking my responses to things, t was asking basic questions like, how does it show up for you? and I say I don't know a lot of the time because I don't. It's like a question mark, or murkiness, maybe in the body as a feeling - like the beginning of excitement or anxiety, but I don't know how to define it. And maybe there is also the possibility, as t suggested, that I am scared to define it because it will mean a seperation.  I haven't really looked at this feeling of "not knowing," or whatever it is, in itself. Maybe it's always felt like an obstacle to overcome, that I have to provide an answer to what they're asking. I think it's helpful to stay with this feeling.

dolly

I totally relate.  From birth till 9 months old, total black hole as far as any indication of where I was, who I was with, I know it wasn't 1st mother.  To many 'convenient' fires in places that held records.... That life threatening situation of no more mom around.. yeah, scars. Deep. Way deep.  then the gaslighting from the 7th level of hades.. "Your mother loved you enough to give you up."  *?!?! H377 of a thing to tell a kid. 

The dogma was another mind -uck.  Unmarried parentage was a huge no no, big sin, massive sin, even if you repented yada yada yada, good possible of burning for eternity,  and yet that was the story they were repeating to me ?!?!  :aaauuugh: Young unmarried couple, out of state, didn't have the $ to raise me.. Wait, Da Fuq?!  ???  Soooooo somehow paying money to the state to create a legal fiction (me) was the golden ticket so I wasn't a basta-d ? (in the old meaning) Now I am blessing??? Because a state employee deemed it so?   ???

2cd mother had, Something I have no d-mn idea, like she 'needed' another child.  She had given birth to 4 before me.  yeah figure that one.  Wanted to "round out the kids"  huh?  Maybe because you can't get pregnant again is like the will of the universe or something?  Then the social proof from all the people in the positions of power. 

wishing all here all the best 

Quote from: StartingHealing on August 30, 2024, 11:21:14 PMThe dogma was another mind -uck. Unmarried parentage was a huge no no, big sin, massive sin, even if you repented yada yada yada, good possible of burning for eternity,  and yet that was the story they were repeating to me ?!?!  :aaauuugh: Young unmarried couple, out of state, didn't have the $ to raise me.. Wait, Da Fuq?!  ???

It's unfortunate that I relate to this much. I always found it to be telling how my parents had the ideal model of a relationship in their perception and still couldn't be bothered to follow it. Yet I must follow it to an exact tee for them in my own relationships. I feel like some parents tend to try and turn their child into the person the parent wished to be, which is incredibly selfish.

Regards,
Aphotic.

Quote from: AphoticAtramentous on August 31, 2024, 09:46:36 PMI always found it to be telling how my parents had the ideal model of a relationship in their perception and still couldn't be bothered to follow it.

I'm fascinated by the brain's ability to "perceive" reality by modifying reality to another format or order...

Quote from: AphoticAtramentous on August 31, 2024, 09:46:36 PMI feel like some parents tend to try and turn their child into the person the parent wished to be, which is incredibly selfish.

I was conceived with the mission of "changing" my biological father and making him "come back" to my mother. My mother, in total obliviousness of the morality, told me she "prayed and prayed" for a little boy, thinking her husband would NEVER abandon his son like he himself had been abandoned. Surprise! He did... So I failed in my prescribed mission. My mother still doesn't see anything wrong with what she did...

These are the ideas I've noticed;

Blueberry's experience with leg issues related to the concept that very early trauma causes impairment in the developing child's brain and circulation
Papa Coco's experience of seeing his parents more compassionately when learning about his parent's history through another person
Little 2 Nothing's lifelong pain of being unwanted
dollyvee's questions about the effect of searching and separation
StartingHealing's experience from surrender
Aphotic's thoughts about creating and raising children with a corrective mirror in mind
Chart's experience of being a magical solution for the parental relationship

I briefly accessed specific infancy memories 50 years ago, during an inpatient hospitalization. The response from the nurse was crying. I felt nothing at the time, and now it's buried so deep, it won't ever come up again.

What I am taking away from this is that parents leave a permanent mark, the more information we can gather, the better. We are fallable people that can learn, change and lessen our pain. Whatever we gain from others can be applied to our own parenting, if that's the case. We can re-parent ourselves. (Growing up Again-Parenting Ourselves, Parenting Our Children. Illsey & Dawson) It's never too late to start. 

Hello John

Maybe it's a little late for this reply and I hope you already found a solution. I'm about to start ERMD next week, so it gives me hope to see that you already had some results with it

I can relate. My mother had some postpartum depresion and wasn't there for me. I don't really remember it, but later she was very distant. She never wanted to play with me. She arrived from work and took a nap everyday. But for some reason she always wanted to do things with my little brother. My father was there for me but he died when I was 12. I felt very alone in the family, he was my only ally. My mother never spoke to me about his death. I did my mourning all alone and incomplete, so I got to do it a lot later in life.

Before I even could name what was going on with me and my family I discovered the art of letting go. And it was life changing for me. It's very simple. I just take some time of my day to feel the emotion I'm feeling. Not to thing much about it, as to name it or from were does it come from. Just feel it as a bodily sensation.

It's extremely intense, and it feels horrible at the beginning. Cause is the most direct approach, feel the thing you don't want te feel, feel the feeling you've been avoiding your whole life. It sucks at the beginning but with some time and persistence I felt the intensity of certain emotions diminish, and I don't get trigered as easily

Hope it helps.

Chart and others in this discussion, I do resonate with this. Chart, I clearly remember my father standing near me while I sat on the floor watching televion when I was about 5 or 6. He was wringing his hands and saying how he would never be able to pass on our family name. His brother who he had a very competitive relationship with has a son. It killed my dad. I remember sitting there knowing that it was me who was supposed to be the son.  I am so sorry for what you have experienced. Just remember you are worthy of giving and receiving love. I have only been on this forum for a few days but just reading posts from people like you is so helpful. I feel less alone. I know this is an older thread and I hope you are feeling better.

Quote from: Chart on April 23, 2024, 04:20:52 AMMy mother once told me she prayed and prayed for a baby boy. She thought that because my father was abandoned by his father that having a son would change his violent behavior. I was conceived with the sole purpose to save my mother's marriage.

Thanks Regardz. It is nonetheless amazing the brutal insensitivity we experienced. It's like the things that are the most blatantly obvious are/were totally invisible to our caregivers. I'm so sorry your father was so blindingly selfish. Pity you for sure didn't know at the time that it's the male spermatozoa that carries either an X or a Y chromosome which is the determining factor for gender... "Actually Daddy it's "your" fault... seems your Y-female sperm are just so much more fit and strong they succeeded where the boy-sperms failed!"
;D  :boogie:

I'm glad too you feel less alone. Me too. So many people have supported and validated my experiences here. It helps so much. We are not crazy. We are good people who were treated horribly. It happened when we were young and couldn't even know there could be a difference...

I believe the conceptual identification of Cptsd / Developmental Trauma, is the single most important discovery in the mental-health field since the birth of psychology. Genetics is important, but it's responsible for very little chronic mental pain. An unhealthy environment, particularly during development is by far the main indicative factor in mental "disorders".
-End rant-
(Yeah, I guess I am feeling better... at least tonight:) )

Thank you for responding and I am so glad you are feeling better. It is literally day to day with trauma.


-End rant-
(Yeah, I guess I am feeling better... at least tonight:) )
[/quote]

It is absolutely day to day, I agree Regardz. Developmental Trauma is like a car arriving at the end of the assembly line and realizing the engine wasn't installed. Putting it in now is a nightmare. We have to take apart all sorts of things to try and get the motor in. It would have been SOOOO much easier if it had been done at the proper moment much much earlier on. That's trauma. We're doing all the work over again. And by ourselves. It's not easy. We're getting better, but it's insanely hard.

 :yeahthat:

Hi all, I'm late to this discussion but I can relate too. It's unbelievable what some people do to others to feel better themselves. I'm so sorry for all of us here.

My parents didn't have me on purpose either. They thought they were unable to have children. And then, my m turned out to be pregnant after all. And she said to me once she really didn't think "it was necessary". It's hard to translate this one. I hate it when she says this. It either means: "don't bother on my account" or "I really don't want this".

- Trigger warning maybe -

I did do some great imagery/imaginairy rescripting around the image I had of me as a baby. It was an image of a baby very still and very tightly wrapped.
And in therapy, we worked with the baby part, we unwrapped her, held her (the T held the baby actually after she asked if that was okay and I sat with them), we gave the baby a nice room with some soft toys, sang songs to her. And the baby started making little sounds and playing with her toes (I'm surprised how fast this happened) and it was very nice and comfy.
And now I have this new image I can return to when I want and that feels very nice.

Beautiful image DF. There's another thread on the forum about inner children. A lot of people struggling immensely with the concept of inner children. I did (and still a bit) struggle as well. But I've seen an "evolution" in ic awareness and "progress" in myself over the past six months. I think it's not something necessarily natural. But for me, time has strengthened the images, perceptions and feelings and I'm more and more comfortable. This morning during my "secure Center" meditation I invited my two inner children to join me. They had no problem with that and we cuddled together under my maple tree for a nice long time.
:)