Posted by Dinah on December 10, 2004, at 22:02:22
In reply to No great insights, I think (long), posted by Dinah on December 10, 2004, at 21:04:18
It shed some light on the various stressors on my mother when I was an infant. I'd be very surprised if she wasn't at least suffering from some postpartum depression. And I wonder, knowing her, how well she coped with the stress and what affect it might have had on my attachment processes.
Also I remembered that I had been in the hospital for several days. I have specific memories from the hospital. I was just barely three, and I was in for five days of testing after being knocked unconscious in a car accident, and later having "problems" (unspecified) relating to that. Of course in those days my mom wasn't allowed to stay with me. But I insisted on keeping the new stuffed monkey I had gotten a few days before for Christmas, and I made friends with an older girl in the ward.
But what I really hadn't fully processed, and I guess I'm still fully processing, was that it was just six months before that that my mother picked me up and moved me to her parents a couple thousand miles away. Then she left me with my grandparents for a while (I'm guessing at least two weeks) while she went back and packed up and moved the stuff. Which means that at age 2 1/2, I lost my home, my daddy, and for a couple of weeks at least, I must have been sure I lost my mama too.
Then two years later, the process in reverse. Although my father did come up and live with us after a year.
It's not major trauma. But it might shed some light on at least some of my problems with trust and attachment and fears of abandonment that I thought had their roots in later events, or were perhaps totally unjustified.
poster:Dinah
thread:426080
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041210/msgs/427485.html