My physical beginnings....

 

I was born in Boston, three months after Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland, initiating WW2 on Sept.1st 1939. A week after my second birthday, Pearl Harbor was attacked and the US entered the war. Sirens sounded when blackouts occured. I remember Mummy telling me she had to crawl on the floor at night with a flashlight because we didn’t have blackout curtains on the windows. However, one night a policeman hollered up to our second floor apartment saying, “Douse that light.” 

I'm certain Mummy suffered a good deal of stress during the war, caring for me plus becoming pregnant with my brother while a world war was in progress. I no doubt began to experience my mother's worry, anxiety and stress in utero. Plus after being born I was not fed when I screamed in hunger because there were strict rules back then from doctors. Mothers were to feed their babies on a strict time schedule, which Mum told me about later. I can imagine I probably cried or screamed in hunger, but wasn't fed until the next scheduled feeding time. I subconsciously learned that my feelings didn't matter. 

My brother was born when I was eighteen months. I then had to watch him every day receive what I no doubt still wanted, but couldn't have anymore. My mother, being a practical woman, probably said things like, "You're a big girl now, you don't need to nurse anymore, you can eat grownup food. But I had no mind developed to be able to understand that rationale.

It must have felt to me like he took my special place at Mummy's breast nursing, feeling bonded, safe, comforted and loved. I am sure I felt "thrown out of my nest," so to speak, where I'd been my whole life until then.  I'm certain I felt angry and scared. I couldn't fight nor flee my painful situation, so I had to keep the pain inside me growing up. I'm certain I felt resentful and believed my feelings didn't matter to her. However my body remembered that pain for almost a lifetime. 

My earliest memory was no doubt quite traumatic because I remember it so distinctly and it felt shocking for me to watch. It was probably around the time of Pearl Harbor because my brother was sitting propped up to my left, so he must have been around six months and I had just turned two the week before Pearl Harbor was attacked. I can still see Mummy in my mind's eye, sitting  in a chair a few feet to the right of us and I in full view. She  was just sitting and crying, seemingly uncontrollably. I didn't understand why and I felt confused and scared.

I'm sure the unknown future of this country frightened her quite a lot and she just had to cry from anxiety about it. I'd never before or since seen Mummy cry, let alone as hard as she did sitting in that chair, in full view of her babies. It was probably the only way she could cry extensively and keep an eye of us at the same time. Daddy had an ice and oil business and was working.

Comments Mummy made to me growing up served to confirm my feelings. She told me that I never let her pick me up or cuddle me ,"like my brother did." So, in my mind, it felt like my fault for feeling rejected, abandoned, not wanted and unloved. Being picked up and cuddled was not for me ever again, because something inside was convinced I'd be rejected and abandoned again.

In retrospect, with what I've learned about how our brain develops, it seemed like my left hemisphere protected me by not allowing my emotional right hemisphere to develop naturally, as it would have, had I not suffered such painful rejection. This seeming lack of right hemisphere development left me incapable of experiencing what love and bonding felt like. Even though I'm certain my parents loved me I didn't feel loved.

When I was three or four I remember Mummy putting "hot stuff" on my fingernails at night to keep me from biting them. As I stood by her knee she said to me, "Run and get the hot stuff," which I did and then watched as she put the clear bitter tasting liquid on my nails before bed. It didn't work. I got used to the bitter and continued compulsively biting them throughout childhood and into my eighties. I did not discover the reason why a three year was so nervous and anxious, she would compulsively bite her fingernails, until I was seventy.

I entered kindergarten during the latter part of the war and began first grade in September 1945 just as the war came to an end.

I became unable to feel or give love and wasn't able to become emotionally close to another human convinced I'd  be hurt again. Not only that, but I was terrified of showing, let alone sharing an emotion, so I kept my feelings buried deep inside for most of my life. As a young teenager, I just knew I couldn't ever share my deep love of Nature with my mother, because I was afraid she would poo poo or belittle it and me somehow. My internal body memory of my babyhood experiences was still alive for me.

During many scoldings growing up I was told by Mummy to, "Take myself out of myself and look at myself," "You should be ashamed of yourself." Daddy often said, "Children should be seen and not heard." Not receiving positive mentoring from anyone, I continued to feel unloved, sad,  scared and angry for the first forty years of my life, at least.

I was seen as "shy," which in actuality means, "very frightened." It wasn't until the turn of the 21st century, that I began to realize the negative effects from suffering emotional trauma as a baby and toddler.

I grew up believing the worst about myself; that I was flawed and defective and my feelings didn't matter to anyone. I kept them all inside and lived a life of "quiet desperation." All I could feel was anger, sadness, depression and loneliness, which I began to realize after I became an adult.

 

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In retrospect:

 

Trauma is carried as a very strong body memory and is the hardest of any trauma to heal and of course it leads to all kinds of destructive behavior, both for the individual and others, life long, if not addressed...I know that from my own experience and I think I'm finding more healing in 2024, plus still strengthening my life long neglected right hemisphere, thanks to neuroplasticity.

Finding out what was wrong with me had been my only focus in life, since I was ten. When six counselors couldn't help me I applied for and was accepted into a graduate program of clinical psychology in Thousand Oaks, California.

After I looked in the DSM manual, I discovered that no appropriate label existed for my symptoms, (only 2 came close.) It dawned on me that I must fix myself instead of fixing others by counseling. I realized or sensed I couldn't really help others just from textbook "prescriptions." I was correct... looking back.

 Eventually most of the psychological labels now in existence, will eventually fade away, (as did the homosexuality label, last century,) with new knowledge about trauma from scientists even. You would be shocked to learn how psychiatrists sit around a table, come up with and decide what behaviors to label what, then take a vote. The majority wins and those who did not agree didn't count. ADD and Asperger's were merely labels for me, hiding the real cause, but made me eligible for a drug, which I took only a couple of  briefly. 

I graduated in the late eighties, but at that time, society still hadn't realized parents did not deliberately abuse their kids; they loved them. Also, society could not yet understand that parents themselves had been abused early in life and they did the best they knew how, with the tools they had, to raise their kids. 

My mother's doctor said, "feed your baby on a strict schedule." When I cried in hunger, I did not get fed if it wasn't time, so I learned my needs and feelings didn't matter. Dr. Spock, in his book in the sixties said to "let your baby cry themself to sleep." I did and severely traumatized my daughters as a result. They learned their feelings and needs did not matter. Now society is beginning to STOP blaming parents, with the new understanding of how trauma actually happens and how the brain changes as a result. 

The only reason I studied psychology was to find out what was wrong with me.  It was only at the end of my graduate program while doing my thesis, (Anger Management for Juvenile Delinquents,) that I realized most people studying psychology, were themselves screwed up, but probably in denial. I wasn't as completely aware of that then, as I am now. A long, overview helps see a clearer picture. 

That is when Gabor Maté's books and his talks would have helped me big time, instead of plugging along without guidance. But hey, compared to the 18th century we are way, way ahead. Females especially, had to suffer emotional torment in their lives.

Now I know I can help other traumatized victims because of my experiences having had at least two significant traumas. Experientially been there , done that and healed greatly, but I can still feel the body memory of trauma. I know what feeling rejected, abandoned, ignored, stepped on, crushed and discarded feels like. I think that makes all the difference. (knowing the experience vs. only textbook knowledge) However, I'm sure a few therapists have recognized their own traumas. 

I had studied for a clinical degree because I wanted to go for a Ph.d. But I'm so glad I listened to my inner guide called Life/Grace and made myself the CEO of my life spending the next thirty years fixing me. As a result I'm way ahead of my time, but haven't developed close friends.......yet. 

That phase is coming to an abrupt end now at the end of 2024. I know I am making friends in my new place for sure.....I feel so different and seen here, as well as at Unity. It is amazing how Spirit works wonders in us when we let IT.

Guess what, I was never really broken and defective, but folks around me growing up convinced me I was, by their words and actions towards me. I ACTUALLY BELIEVED THEM for years... that I was a worthless piece of something.....why else would kids make fun of me until I was sixteen? (bullied as it is now called,) and seen as shy, which means terrified. If Mom and Dad didn't see or hear me, my baby experience said to inner me that I must not be worthy of being seen or heard. Something must be wrong with me!

I never felt loved growing up, but it wasn't because my parents didn't love me, and it wasn't because I was defective and flawed either. Duh....

I finally realized my parents did love me the best they knew how, but my brain and nervous system was so damaged by the unintentional emotional pain I experienced, I could not let them touch me or let in whatever love they showed, to my scared, lonely, angry, sad little "girl," with forbidden boy desires within; to run, climb play with electric trains, etc.

My brother hatred me openly and I always wanted to know why. He said in a phone call just before he died, that he resented that he had to do all the chores on the farm and I didn't have to. I wasn't allowed to do chores, except a very few, but brother didn't know that at the time. Even if he did, he would still hate that he had to do them and I could stay in the house.

My mother believed, only boys should do farm chores and girls had to learn to be mothers and a housewife to be able to grow up and take care of babies and a husband. She evidently hadn't explained that in a loving manner to my brother.

So now I know why I felt disliked by my brother since I was ten. He was 1 1/2 years younger than I. When he was born he seemed to have taken my safe place at Mom's breast nursing, bonding, wanted, feeling loved, safe etc. I had to watch him receiving what I as a one year old, used to have and desperately wanted again. I was surely an angry, frustrated and frightened little toddler, without a solution. 

Love heals, if one can let it in, but if the autonomic and sympathetic nervous system are damaged, no amount of love can get in. You cannot live in a war torn house until it is refurbished. Love could not come in to my torn up house, until I was refurbished/healed and I found myself to be a valuable and lovable human after all and most of all worthy....but it took about 70 years. 

 

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