My 10 Year Old's Traumatic Memory of When He Was One DAY Old!

My 10 year old had been experiencing some big feelings, instead of releasing them, he was doing everything he could to keep them in.

This week he became upset because the speakers on his computer weren't working, this was what is referred to in Aware Parenting as a "Broken Cookie" moment - it wasn't just about the speakers, there were accumulated feelings that needed to come out and the speakers were a pretext.

My son took off his jumper and started to chew it to distract himself from his feelings. He put it over his head, as a way to block out the compassion my husband and I were giving him in that moment. Every time we said "we're here" or "we're listening" or "we love you" he would cover his ears and yell "no, no, I don't want you to listen to me, I'm not going to cry!" We found it difficult to create a balance of attention (another Aware Parenting term).

I waited patiently, lovingly, in silence and after a few moments he removed his jumper from his head and looked at me with watery eyes.

I said to him "I would like to ask you a question, which you can answer only if you are willing."

He nodded his head.

I asked, "I'm wondering if you feel willing to share what's happening for you in these moments, where you are trying so hard to keep everything in? I can see how hard that is for you."

He replied, "it reminds me of the time I was in the hospital and a strange lady took me away from you while I was crying."

I stood there, completely speechless.

What my son had told me, had actually happened....when he was one DAY old!

I had experienced a third degree tear while birthing him, and I had to get surgery and a spinal tap. For the first 24 hours, I could not feel my legs, I could not move and I was in a lot of pain.

My husband also wasn't allowed to stay with me overnight.

I was all alone.

Every time my son cried, I had to push the button for nurse assistance, wait for a nurse to arrive and then ask them to pass me my son. During the early hours of the morning, a nurse came in and said she had paperwork to do, so she would take my son and hold him while she worked. After being awake for over 2 days, I did not have the strength to say 'no.'

This is a story I remember very vividly, and apparently my son does too, over a decade after it happened.

Babies experience feelings, stress and trauma while in the womb. Once a baby is born, they are so highly sensitive, helpless, powerless and experience a lot of overwhelm and overstimulation. They have the same need to express their feelings, stresses and traumas as adults.

Throughout the first year of my son's life, he released so many feelings. Feelings I knew were related to parts of my pregnancy where I experienced stress, his birth (which even though it was a natural water birth was very traumatising for both of us) and all the new things he was being exposed to in the world.

My husband and I listened lovingly to his stresses and traumas for hundreds of hours in the first year of his life. We have continued providing our loving, compassionate presence to his feelings, accepting all of him.

So when he told me this memory of him as a newborn, I knew that even after all the listening over the past 10 years, there is still trauma for him with what we both went through in the first few days of his life at the hospital - a place that was not respectful, nurturing or compassionate.

In those moments after he shared his memory with me, he cried and released some of the stress hormones from his body surrounding this experience.

I listened.

I listened as he shared how he didn’t feel safe with this stranger, how he didn’t accept his crying and tried to silence him, how all he wanted was to be in my arms.

I also intuitively know that there is more there, ready to rise to the surface at the right moments for him. I know that there are feelings that have been reactivated in me about this experience, especially after my son shared his memory.

Afterwards, I reflected on some occurrences that had been happening for him this last week. As I mentioned, he has been doing his very best to hold all his feelings inside himself.

I’m not shocked that he remembers being a newborn baby, especially because this memory he shared was traumatic for him. What I was honestly surprised at was that this memory had resurfaced over a decade later, and also after all the feelings that we have listened to in that time, I would have thought the trauma would have been released then.

Our bodies are so wise at knowing when to release stress and trauma from our past, it never gives us too much at anyone time, even though those times can feel very overwhelming and painful.

With babies and children, there are many times where we do not even know the reasons for their tears, and that’s okay. Many times they are releasing accumulated feelings from their past.

Afterwards, I reflected on some occurrences that had been happening for him this last week. As I mentioned, he has been doing his very best to hold all his feelings inside himself.

It's really hard to hold it all together, it has to spill out somewhere.

And it did.

Several times this past week, he has spilled liquids all over the floor:

• he was making porridge and spilt the milk all over the floor;

• he knocked his drink bottle off his bedside table, the lid broke and the contents flooded the floor next to his bed;

• after we cleaned up the big water puddle, he then went to get a drink from a cup in the kitchen, and dropped it. Spilling water everywhere once again;

• he made himself a hot chocolate and knocked it all over the kitchen bench; and

• he made himself lemonade and dropped the cup just before he placed it on the table, it went all over the table and floor.

Marion Rose would call these Messages from Life (I highly recommend the course she co-created with Mary Walker; Conversations with Life), and he was getting many of the same messages . He couldn't hold in all the tears (symbolised by the liquid in the cups).

His feelings were longing to be released, they could no longer be contained in his body, they were spilling out in other areas of his life in a perfect metaphor.

Since he shared this memory with me, and has released some of his accumulated feelings and stresses, he hasn't spilled anything.

One may call all of this a coincidence, however, I don't believe in coincidences.

Sometimes we need messages that come to us externally, symbolic of what is going on for us internally.

Once we hear those messages, and bring awareness and presence to ourselves, to heal, it is remarkable how our internal world re-balances, which is then reflected in our outer world.

For me, the message I received was that sometimes, no matter how many feelings we lovingly listen to, there will be times where past traumas won’t arise until much later. Maybe that’s because until this point in time, this memory was too painful for my son, maybe it was because those feelings have only reactivated recently, or maybe I need to trust in the natural healing process and the timing.

I wonder if this resonates? Are there messages you are receiving from Life that are needing some awareness?