Dr. Dragonfly and I started the session like we do every week, by discussing any problems with last week’s session or anything new that had come up and they we put them in the dumpster. We continued with the you’ve just been born scenario and are being whisked away from the white curtain. You can hear your mother screaming and sobbing in the background and other voices that you may or may not recognize. What’s going through your imagination? How does your body feel. [From what I’m able to understand at this early point, much of this is creating a baseline to allow your body to figure out how to let go of the pent up memories and energy it has stored up over the years.]
I told her that I was confused and afraid. That I felt disconnected. I wanted to go back to the curtain to what was on the other side but I was being carried away. I was spreading my little arms and hands in order to get back, but I never saw the curtain or what was behind it again. I never heard the only voice I knew again. All of a sudden I found myself in a box with glove holes in it and bright, warm lights with white blobs poking at me and putting tubes in me that I kept trying to get out with my little arms, hands and feet, but I couldn’t. I suppose somewhere, I drifted off to sleep to the strange beeps around me. [I know I was in the hospital for anywhere from 3-6 months before my parents could take me home, but they won’t discuss the circumstances, why or what happened.]
For awhile, I was poked and prodded by everything through the strange holes that held the people’s hands away from me. I never felt the touch of anything but latex and cold, metal things, sharp things, dull things, always cold. They were right there, but were still disconnected from me. They didn’t even talk to me or really look at me. They talked about me, sometimes as if I wasn’t even there.
Finally, one day, they opened the box and took all of the tubes out and electrodes off and everything. One of the white blobs actually picked me up with her bare hands. They were warm. I may have smiled as I looked into her face. It was probably my first real human interaction. It was short lived. She carried me down the hall and plopped me face down into another cage, only this time, luckily, there were no tubes or doctors or anything. There were just a bunch of other little crying things like me.
I would watch the nurses come and go. They would feed me, change me hold me, whatever, when I cried, but they didn’t really interact. There were too many of us in the cribs. I would also watch the people go by and stare into different cribs. A nurse would go over and walk that baby to people and they would smile and look happy. A couple of days later, that baby wasn’t in its crib anymore, another one was. No one came for me. No one wanted to see me through the glass, so they just picked me up and gave me attention when I needed it. I wasn’t special. I wasn’t going home with anyone anytime soon. The emptiness and disconnection were again reinforced. I obviously can’t know for sure, but maybe my primitive self though, maybe I shouldn’t be here. No one cares. No one is showing me any sort of attention good or bad. Anytime anyone comes up to me, I fear them and what’s going to happen when they pick me up or do something to me. All of these other babies have gone home, been replaced, gone home and been replaced, yet I’m still here. Clearly, I’m not wanted, needed, loved or meant to be here. I’m quite sure that was very difficult for a newborn’s psyche, even if I didn’t really understand emotionally. My body did.
Then the conversation shifted. Dr. Dragonfly asked me to imagine an important mother figure who was not related to me and put her in that spot, in the place of the overworked maternity nurse(s). What would that be like? I chose immediately. I had trouble seeing her in that role at first. Dr. Dragonfly prodded for emotion, description while I tried to adjust my senses to the time differential. She would’ve been kind. She would’ve come over and looked at me in the crib with her smiling face and her big, happy brown eyes that hid all the pain in the world from you. She would talk to me and held me and played with my fingers and toes. She’d take care of the other babies too, but in her spare time, she’d be with me. She’d tell me I was special, loved, adored and wanted.
“But, that’s not what happened is it?” Dr. Dragonfly asked.
Probably not. I probably had the regular maternity nurse who spent the time she needed to with every baby and did her job.
“What would’ve happened if your nurse came in one day, wrapped you in her coat at the end of the day and took you home to be hers?” Dr. Dragonfly continued.
That’s when I started losing it. You see, this woman actually did this when I was 22 and had really no one to turn to. I had just been outed to my parents and that was a huge mess. I told her that Carmen would’ve taken me into a beautiful home. My body would’ve completely relaxed and no more trauma would’ve registered. I would’ve been unconditionally loved from the moment I was carried into the door. If Carmen didn’t have me, Mamá Flor or one of my sisters would. I would have a completely supportive environment. Carmen would take me to bed with her and dad every night until we all fell asleep. She would always tell me, either saying it or with her big brown eyes, you’re loved, wanted and adored. You’re special. You’re home. [At this point, I’m an oozing puddle of KY on the recliner.] My upbringing with her would’ve been totally different from what actually happened. Like I said, Carmen, and her family, did find me when I was in a really bad place at 22. They took me into their home and into their family as one of their own, a place I still proudly occupy today. I use the word Boricua with pride because of them and try to visit Puerto Rico often. They gave me roots and grounded me. Too bad it had to come 22 years late.
“What happened?”
I had my first human contact with Carmen in the hospital. She told me that I was loved, adored and wanted. Something was still wrong though. More babies came and went. Carmen still paid most of her attention to me. I didn’t like the days she was off. The other nurses didn’t pay attention to any of us like she did. I was always happy to hear her voice and see her big brown eyes when she picked me up and started talking to me. I knew that at least while she had me, I was relatively safe. But my guard was still up. I knew that something wasn’t quite right. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Then, I saw Carmen, one of the humans dressed in white and two other people following her. She picked me up out of my little cage and held me up to her face like she always did. She told me that I was loved, wanted, adored and special, but that it was time for me to go with my new parents into a new life. I only knew Carmen. I didn’t know anyone else. I was afraid. I was in danger. I didn’t want to go. I clung to Carmen. It was probably difficult for her too, but it was her job. I’m sure I sounded like a banshee and woke up every baby in maternity. Again, arms, hands, legs flailing, I desperately tried to hold onto the only little bit of stability I knew, to no avail. Carmen went back into Maternity and to the nurse’s station and I was in a new cage headed again to the unknown, disconnected, detached, alone and afraid of what was to come. [and with good reason]
cazandoconejos 