[WikidPissah]

I was just wondering, for those of you who have traumatic histories, have you ever talked about infancy stuff in T? Some T's will talk about pre-verbal and repressed things. I have a few memories in the crib, vivid ones, and I have never been able to bring them up in any sort of therapy. I mean, is there anything that can help with these infant memories?

[boredporcupine]

If you have an explicit memory of the traumatic event, no matter how early, then what's stopping you from bringing it up and talking about it? It seems like if you can remember it, then you would be able to talk it through.

For some people they have preverbal stuff that they have no memory of except for body/emotional memory. In that case, it might be easier to work through with someone who is trained in a body-focused therapy such as Somatic Experiencing, because you can work through trauma in that modality without ever having to remember the precipitating event. In my therapy I have worked through a few things that I had no memory about or explanation for, so I suspect they may have been preverbal, but really it's impossible to know. The main thing is to be able to feel the feelings, soothe/regulate them, contextualize them ("these feelings are a memory"), and separate them from whatever is triggering them in the present.

I don't know if that helped...

[archipelago]

This is a great issue for people to know about. A lot happens so early that has a serious impact, but may not be accessible totally.

I am absolutely certain that I was neglected as an infant and that is the basic trauma. I do have very early memories, but the emotions come more diffusely. Once I did regress to that crib like state and sobbed, very uncharacteristic of me so my therapist was even confused for a little bit.

One way to access some of this is through somatic experiencing as mentioned. Another way is through non-verbal means, so my therapist suggested drawing not necessarily pictures but just colors and shapes. I brought this pad into sessions and we discussed what was there. It was interesting. Can't say how much progress I made but it was certainly expressive of non-verbal states.

There are group of us who have pre-verbal wounding and that makes us a bit different, but as far as I know, there is not a developed approach to this particular problem. That's why I say that it is good to raise and have people consider.

[WikidPissah]

Thanks porcupine. I am not currently in T, but I was before. I just always figured that no one would believe I could remember things in my crib. THanks for the suggestion, that does help.

[WikidPissah]

iota... yes, it needs to be known about. I have a lot of older trauma too...so it's not just the infant stuff...but I know I was neglected badly. My older siblings would leave for High School when I was an infant, and I'd be screaming. They'd come home from school and I'd be in the same diaper, still screaming. My mom got pregnant again when I was a month old and stayed in bed the whole time.

[WikidPissah]

(((granite))) Your mother and mine are twins I think.

I can remember the picture of a lamb on my crib, and I was screaming. I remember a girl yelling at me to STFU and throwing things at me (I think that was my older sister, she was 12 when I was born) and I remember seeing a man in the hallway just staring and walking away. It's a quite clear image. I was taken out of the crib at 10 mos old because my brother was born and he needed it. So, I had to be young.

[boredporcupine]

Wikid, that doesn't sound like an especially implausible memory to me. And even if that memory isn't "real" in the sense that the exact event might not have happened quite that way (just like we often times misremember even recent memories), I still think it's "real" in the sense that it captures something of your reality at a young age or how you experienced it. It is part of the picture of your inner world (just like dreams are often discussed in therapy because they can reveal something about how we view ourselves and life) and as such is as valid for discussion in therapy as anything else.

[Asiablue]

My T seems to think i have pre-verbal trauma. We are doing Emdr right now, and often when i have feelings but can't express what they are she says it's because at the age the trauma occurred i didn't have speech or know words yet, so all i have is the body memory.
I have memories of being in my cot, and of being in my pram. Not sure how old i'd be.. less than 2 years old tho.

I have some very very young alters who act out and try to talk with T about their trauma although they have very limited vocabularies. They sometimes try to draw pictures, althou the pictures are hard to make out. Maybe drawing would help?
I believe you can remember things from that young. I have clear memories back to two weeks of age, which my mom was able to help me figure out how old i was based on how much my nursery was decorated at the time and what i was able to tell her about.
I hope you can talk about this stuff with your t.

[stopdog]

The therapists have talked to me about it but it has never made much sense to me. I don't have a lot of memories of being young in general.

Wikid, my T and I have discussed that sometimes I cannot talk and go almost complaetely inarticulate. He says that is normal when abuse happens before we have any words to put to the experience.

I also have a memory of being in the crib. My leg was stuck through the bars in a weird position and I remember the pain and the sense of being all alone and no one coming no matter how much I cried or screamed so I just gave up and laid there.

[growlithing]

I remember screaming and crying in my crib and eventually falling out after no one came. I never bothered to bring it up because it doesn't seem terribly significant

[ultramar]

I think according to neurobiological research children are not able to form autobiographical memories at that age. But I can definitely see how it could be expressed emotionally or physically. I'd think that any visual/autobiographical memories from infancy would be more metaphorical than anything (images imposed from an adult mind, but expressing feeling from infancy). I think it would be useful to talk about those images that come to mind and what they mean for you. They may also reflect how you feel about your childhood, infancy or not.

I had an experience in therapy where I reacted very bizarrely to something out of nowhere, hard to explain, and frankly I don't remember it very well. In any case, my therapist mentioned it might be a pre-verbal memory. Have never wanted to revisit it, though. Awful experience, and I feel like since I can't actually *know* what happened as an infant, I don't want to go there with suppositions. For me, there being a possibility I was mistreated in one way or another as an infant doesn't help me, it's impossible to know how, why, by whom, or even if something ever happened at all. Don't like that limbo.

[stopdog]

Sometimes it is hard for me to separate out what I actually do remember and the family stories of what did happen.

[granite1]

i totally get that. i have often wondered what motives the other family members had for telling me these things. sorry tmi i deleated it

[Mapleton]

Curious how early, in years, everyone can lucidly remember?

[ultramar]

Originally Posted by Mapleton

Curious how early, in years, everyone can lucidly remember?

It looks like around 3 years of age. Interesting article:

Studying the Secrets Of Childhood Memory - New York Times

[boredporcupine]

I'd think that any visual/autobiographical memories from infancy would be more metaphorical than anything (images imposed from an adult mind, but expressing feeling from infancy). I think it would be useful to talk about those images that come to mind and what they mean for you. They may also reflect how you feel about your childhood, infancy or not.

I don't know much about how early it's technically possible to have explicit memories, but this brings up an interesting point I learned from IFS (internal family systems). In IFS you might ask a part you are working with to share memories related to why it feels, believes, or acts a certain way. It's noted that the memories shared by parts don't have to be explicit, episodic memories of actual events. They could be body or emotional memories, generalized memories (like an image of a parent yelling at you, but not attached to a specific incident), or they could even be symbolic memories. For example, if a part shares an image of being attacked, but you know that's never literally happened, it may mean the part is expressing that it felt "attacked" at some time in the past in a metaphorical sense. You deal with the memory exactly the same regardless of whether it is literal, specific, general, or symbolic.

[healingme4me]

Sounds like something you'd like to approach in therapy? Shop around, ask different T's how they feel about taking this on with you, in therapy.

Hope you can resolve this in therapy

[healingme4me]

Originally Posted by Mapleton

Curious how early, in years, everyone can lucidly remember?

I can usually go back to 3/4 years old.

I don't know, if having surgery and being in a hospital at 3 months and then again at 13 months, qualifies as 'trauma', but it does exist in my history.

[murray]

I've always wondered about this. I have very few memories of childhood and no pre-verbal memories but I do know that the situation was not great when I was a baby and young child so there may very well be preverbal trauma. I just have no idea how that would even be addressed.
Very interesting question.

[Mapleton]

Originally Posted by murray

I've always wondered about this. I have very few memories of childhood and no pre-verbal memories but I do know that the situation was not great when I was a baby and young child so there may very well be preverbal trauma. I just have no idea how that would even be addressed.
Very interesting question.

Isn't there, like, hypnosis-type-regression stuff? IDK but that sounds familiar, and I can't imagine how you'd access that otherwise...

I have very clear memories of being two weeks old, my first christmas (3 months old)' four months old. I always wonder why others cannot remember this age, because after all, you were there-- why not remember it? I remember colors a lot- someone shaking a doll with bright red hair in my face at my first xmas. I remember being scared of an orange tddy bear at four months. I remember cryng when placed near the fire place-- two months. I remember being put in a carrier near a cold, dar doorway and looking towards the lighted kitchen where voices were coming from-- my mom says that was about three months old as well. Lots more memories like that as well.

[WikidPissah]

Thank you so much everyone, for listening and talking.

I have a ton of images that will sometimes come into my mind, but that one is pretty clear. I definitely can remember things before the age of 3. My son can too, he'll sometimes say something and I think how the heck can you remember that. His memories may be distorted a tad bit, but they are pretty accurate.

My T sometimes mentions pre-verbal events (he doesn't use the word "trauma") and how I may have been affected by them. I have memories - which have emerged since I started therapy - of being slapped when I said the wrong thing when I was a very young child, probably about three or four... that's obviously not pre-verbal since i did have words at that point, but it's something that may have contributed to my difficulties in finding the right words. I am not sure how often this happened, or what the exact contexts were, but I remember it happening.

Originally Posted by boredporcupine

If you have an explicit memory of the traumatic event, no matter how early, then what's stopping you from bringing it up and talking about it? It seems like if you can remember it, then you would be able to talk it through.

For me, that is not necessarily the case, for the reasons above. Words don't come very easily when I have to describe my memories or thoughts - T thought at first it was a neurological barrier, but we've been able to get around it on occasion, so it's psychological. But still there.

Originally Posted by boredporcupine

And even if that memory isn't "real" in the sense that the exact event might not have happened quite that way (just like we often times misremember even recent memories), I still think it's "real" in the sense that it captures something of your reality at a young age or how you experienced it. It is part of the picture of your inner world (just like dreams are often discussed in therapy because they can reveal something about how we view ourselves and life) and as such is as valid for discussion in therapy as anything else.

Yes. The important thing is not getting to the roots of exactly what happened, in reality, and how and how often or when or where. (I know that you, wikidpissah, have mentioned that it feels irrelevant to try to recall each incident of the abuse you went through.) The important thing is examining how the memory affects you. Which means telling the story and returning to the memory, but not laying it down as "real" in an objective sense, only in a subjective sense.

Or something like that. This is, again, paraphrasing my T.