In Utero

by Allegra

Forum friend:  How old were you in your earliest memories of abuse/trauma?

Based on emotional flashbacks, we would say prenatal.  Our mother, an undiagnosed multiple, was verbally and emotionally abused by her mother.

Our mother married our father when she was 21 and he was 22.  While they loved each other, no doubt that our mother insisted the wedding be as soon as possible so that she could leave her parents' house for good. 

We were born about a week and a half after our parents' first anniversary.  Because of the timing of all of this, and our mother's well-documented history of somatizing trauma, we have no doubt that her somatized trauma affected us in utero.  And with her unwittingly modeling dysfunctional behavior throughout our childhood, she brought out in us the tendency to dissociate that we no doubt inherited from her.