Undetected pain after birth + missing attention from parents

[renegade1]

Hello all,
I wonder if others here have gone through a similar trauma and can share what has/hasn't worked for them.

Through a lot of research, I found out that I was born with a neck injury, likely because I had to be brought out quickly since there were complications at birth. This issue went undetected by my parents when I was born but caused me a lot of pain.

I apparently cried a lot more than a usual baby would and leaned my head back to relieve the pain, which my parents interpreted as 'he does not want to be with us'. So they gave me space when I needed comfort and I had no agency as a baby to do anything about my pain.

Now, fast forward 40 years later - anxiety was first triggered during covid. Over the last few years I have worked with therapists to get to the bottom of what happened to me and what triggers my anxiety: The fear of being sick or in pain, and having seemingly no one that is there for me. The last part is critical: I am not really afraid of getting sick, it's the 'left alone' part that I struggle with. I live abroad currently so that doesn't make it easier.

Over the last 12 months, this also manifested in physical symptoms: From neck pain, to abdominal pain. On and off, sometimes I would have a sore neck, then later sore abdominal muscles.

To my question: I am currently on a path to find a way to help myself. Integrative therapy options like IFS, somatic therapy or even EMDR have come up in my research. I feel like talk therapy alone has not yielded any more progress for me. I am also looking into body work options. That field of options is large so I wanted to reach out and see if anyone else has had a similar story maybe and can offer advice?

Thank you in advance,

[Blueberry]

My impression is that a lot of us on the forum were left alone too much/ignored for one reason or another in infancy and early childhood, myself included. Tho I don't suppose all of us were in undetected physical pain on top of it. Sending compassion for little baby you and for you as an adult who's still carrying that pain.

I don't have the impression that a particular type of trauma therapy heals particular emotional wounds. Traumatisation is traumatisation whatever the cause imho. There's a difference between mono-trauma (PTSD) and complex (CPTSD).

There's a lot of knowledge and experience on the forum. If you check here: https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?board=106.0 and/or do a search on that particular board you'll find posts on different types of therapy. If you do a search on the whole forum, you'll also find posts especially about EMDR. Some people find EFT (emotional freedom tapping) good for anxiety. I found it useful for self-acceptance, which probably reduced other problems too such as anxiety. Body work of some sort is probably useful for traumatisation from infancy, but it depends also on what a therapist can do and what suits you as well, which may not be what you think you want to do, as I found out. Brain-spotting, which is EMDR further developed in some way or other, had no effect on me whatsoever. At that time. Might work now.

Good luck, I mean this seriously not facetiously.

[Aino]

Like you, my body carries the burden too. I have experienced neck pain and other pain that comes and goes with emotional flashbacks. Stretching helps. Also, I am more routinely doing body scans. More recently, I notice my shoulders rising and back muscles tightening, and then consciously relax them. EMDR has helped, especially with dealing with old and repressed memories. Being alone in my thoughts and memories is not good for me, so I write poems and make art that express the pain of childhood neglect and abuse that I endured. I share the poems and artwork on social media with friends and others and that helps as I break free from the myth of my family's narrative of us being an ideal family. We weren't. I was the all bad child of my borderline mother and being hypervigilant was necessary for my survival.