Hi, all...I'm a person who was born two months premature in 1959; I spent the first three months of my life in an incubator and an Isolette. I have been reading a great deal about the effects of pre- and postnatal trauma on brain development (Robert Scaer's book, The Trauma Spectrum, and Thomas Lewis, et. al, A General Theory of Love, are excellent resources) and I wish to connect with others who had a similar infancy.

It seems that I was born traumatized -- to a mother who was becoming addicted to alcohol and who had severe depression. Medical interventions, necessary as they are to sustain life, are extremely alarming to a baby's raw nervous system...and I wonder if there's any hope of reducing their impact. I'm 48 now and have always felt like I'm "in a box" and hopelessly cut off from some vital ability to bond with others, and to feel anything other than a constant underlying state of panic. I've come a long way in my journey from trauma...and after all these years on this good earth, I wonder if I just have to accept that my brain and nervous system are permanently altered.

Has anyone else here experienced trauma through medical intervention in infancy?

Roo

I'm sorry I don't have any advice on this because mine didn't happen that way. But we all have PTSD here and that is something in common we can talk about.

Tammy

Roo,

I know this is an old post and I don't know about my infancy, but I wanted to make a comment about neuro-development. There is a mountain of peer reviewed research in support of the permanent negative impact of neglect, deficient bonding and the lack of physical affection on early childhood development in the literature. I have severe C-PTSD and many other dx resulting from neglect and abuse and I have no doubt that our brains did not form in a "normal" fashion. I believe that these problems are permanent and that we have been given a life sentence of fear, inability to feel close and safe and altered neurophysiology.

PTSD- the gift that keeps on giving

Void

WoW void this has got me thinking

When I was around 2 years old, my grandad was dyiing of cancer and wouldnt take his medication .. he would throw it on the floor

One day I ate all the pills on the floor .. a whole bunch of them thinking it was candy i guess

I was rushed to hospitl and had all sorts of stuff done to me.

im wondering if this has had any impact on me today as an adult?

I was born 10 weeks premature and stayed in hospital for 5 months. During this time I was not allowed to come out of my incubator so physical contact was limited. I am sure that this has an impact on our developing brain. I spent from 4-10 being shared among a pedophile ring run by my father. My mother knew about this without helping me. I since have developed C PTSD. My main triggers are being locked in a cupboard.As a child I craved for the attention from my mother but as an adult I crave the solitude of being alone. I have trust issues and my T said I have developed a distorted view of life (understandably)
I struggle to interpret emotions, I have never been able to get angry. My T pushed me for 3 hours to help me to feel it but it has never happened. My life revolves around dissociation and trying to act as normal as the rest of the world.
This does sound hard but it is all I know so what you don't have you don't miss.
I have mastered being able to let a massage therapist give me a massage .This has taken me 12 months but I am learning to allow myself something pleasant.( and touch really is pleasant i am beginning to find out)
This makes me sound like a freak but I am all I have and it will have to be good enough.
Anyway be kind to yourself.
Robbed

Void, vapor, Robbed -- thanks for writing :-)

I'm looking more deeply into my first few months of life, as I'm going through a major relapse of symptoms and am examining them (partly) in this context ... I see the medical interventions as "necessary invasions" --> paradoxically, they kept me alive. I know I was born "blue" and was resuscitated three times in my first three days ... I have these weird sensitive spots on my body that send out creepy sensations whenever I think on my infancy. One is just above my right clavicle, in the muscle ... I've long wondered if there was some kind of IV or tube that was in there ...

And the brain injury/damage part --> I'm grappling with this more consciously. All in all...trying to live with it all as best I can ...

With you in spirit,

Roo

I have a sibling that was born early, and our parents were told that the baby would die because it was underweight, so just take it home to let it die. Our parents left the baby alone and detached themselves emotionally, but the baby did not die.

That baby was miserably abused by both parents because they did not want it, then it's birth was expensive, it refused to die, and so they had to keep it.

That baby grew up to have no morals, mentally slow, criminal minded, and abusive. The child was never loved, never held, never wanted. I have no idea where my sibling is today.

I am certain that had this innocent baby been wanted, loved, born into a different family, the resulting adult would have been a different person.

This is not an direct answer to your question, but inspired by your post.

My story from an Non-abusive childhood that I belive made me vulnerable for some situations.

I find my self with an very strong tendency to not "take up space" or "making any marks" unless it is explicitly handed to me, and that haven't changed over my 50 years of life. Going through school, beeing a teen, military training, university, working, competing in my profession, a few not so long intimate relationships and its basically the same. It's like being "a leaf in the wind". This together with strong mechanisms of avoidens of "uncertain" personal human interactions.

For example, visiting good friends, and just trying to break my habbit of doing everything on my own, asking them if it was possible that for practical reasons stay an extra night, brings me to the brink of "unconsiousness" and hulking and crying, although I could without problems solved the practicalities otherwise.

My situation in early life was that my mother was really sick and weak with an at that point untreatable heartcondition, when i was concieved. Everyone exept her, wanted her to have an abortion, including treating doctors, and she was immidiatly sterilized after recovering. She was the light in my fathers life, he was as I understand it both ashamed and regretful for making her pregnant because of her condition.

There was no "directed mistreatment" of me as far as I know, but my mother was slowly detoriating and in big need of care until she died when I was ten. She was blue, tired and fingers and toes stiff and i the end close to gangrene(?). My father was never emotionally present for me and when mother died he went deep into himself for some years. We lived on a farm pretty isolated and I had two much older brothers that wasn't home regulary

I could never talk to my father about our lifes, once I really insisted and he shrunk like I was beating him and he didn't volonteer anything,everything had to be pulled out of him.

This somehow has made me vulnerabel in a way that makes it possible to relate to many experiences that are shared here, although my story is very different.

Today Im working halftime and going theraphy, learning to accept who I am, and to feel who I am, to learn to respect my specific needs, and to somehow find ways to relate from there is my hope and longing now. It's like most of my resources doesn't come to use because I still can't accept and handle my needs. I can't really accept that i have needs, the way what i've been doing is to try to do what others do, expect me to do or to hide away.

/Freddy