One topic I don’t see discussed a lot is preverbal abuse. Preverbal abuse is any abuse that a child experiences before he or she has developed language. Because the child has not developed language, he has to store the memories in ways that do not attach language. This can present quite a challenge to the adult who is experiencing body memories with no “explanation” behind them.
I read about this phenomenon in great detail in the book When You’re Ready by Kathy Evert. While this is a book about mother-daughter sexual abuse, it covers healing from preverbal abuse in powerful ways.
From what I understand from reading multiple books on the subject, our brains are like filing systems. When you experience something today, your brain looks for a similar experience in your memory bank for a place to “file” away the memory. When a baby is the one being harmed, the baby does not have enough experiences yet to file away something as mind-blowing as abuse, so the memory gets stored in a different away.
On top of this, a baby does not have the ability to describe what has happened without language, so what is stored is the reaction to the abuse. So, someone who suffered from preverbal abuse might experience flashbacks by reenacting the abuse as it occurred. If you don’t know the history, it might not make any sense. However, the flashback, experienced physically, makes perfect sense when you understand the cause.
The closest experience I have had was recovering a memory of my mother sexually abusing me while changing a diaper when I was a toddler. As I had the flashback, I had an overwhelming urge to suck my thumb even though I was in my mid-thirties when I experienced the flashback. I guess because I was crossing over to being verbal, I recovered enough in the memory to understand it. However, if I had been nine months old when this happened, this urge would not have made sense.
In the book When You’re Ready, the author talks about needing to be held and comforted in the ways that she wasn’t as a baby. An online friend told me about her strong need to be rocked, even though she was now an adult. This woman had the great idea of buying herself a hammock so she could meet this need in herself.
If you are struggling with flashbacks that are mostly bodily and don’t seem to make much sense, consider the possibility that you are dealing with a preverbal memory. If you are, then you will need to comfort yourself in ways similar to how you would have comforted that traumatized baby.
The myth that babies do not remember trauma is a bunch of hogwash. Too many people have reported similar experiences with releasing preverbal body memories to debunk that myth.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Faith…
There you go again…(smile — you are always so timely with issues I am facing)..I am currently working on completely recovering a memory that happened when I was a toddler.
This was probably before I could communicate verbally. These are newer memories that I have uncovered after starting therapy again. I had other memories since I was 18, but it wasn’t until I went back to therapy for the second time and was ready to really talk about the sexual abuse, that I was able to uncover a horrific image of abuse. (there have been other incidents that were validated by my brother that I didn’t have (and still don’t) any memory of) I have been doing free writing exercises (suggested her on your blog) to help me bring more of the memory to the surface so I can talk about them.
I do get physical sensations along with the images and I recall in therapy sessions more than20 years ago, in trying to talk about the abuse, I could not find the words. I would just sit and cry with one hand covering my eyes, my other hand between my legs that I would shake nervously. I would do this for most of the session and this went on for months.
I should probably take a look at the book When You’re Ready. Thanks for the post and book recommendation.
Fat Girl Oreo
Faith,
This is a great topic. I have experienced pre-verbal abuse which was quite difficult for me to accept that it was real, but I was able to have some of them verified. Sometimes, in therapy I will be unable to come up with words, but my crying in session expresses rage, pain and terror.
cc
This is probably more common than anyone knows… because how hard is this to study? Especially in our “scientific method” society. sigh.
I have realized that a lot of my thinking is not verbal. (especially if I am stressed out) It feels like I think in a Pre-language style, but I could be wrong. Sometimes I “know” things, but cannot verbalize or explain the logic. I just feel it or there are connections going on that have segues that are not linked by language or thought, but by feelings. Not sure this makes sense.
GREAT post~ And I’m sorry your insane mother violated your babyhood. I really really am.
Safe hugs, mia
Also I want to say that I am sorry that EVERYONE who had their babyhoods traumatized in this way has my (safe) love, sympathy and respect. You are so strong to have made it into adult hood, no matter how troubled you are.
My hope is that each of you give yourselves all the credit, love, comfort, patience and compassion that you deserve. You have made it too adulthood under the most extreme and dangerous circumstances, and you not only survived it, but you are finding your way and healing. You strength gives me strength. You are my heroes, not because you were victimized, but because you endure, and keep getting up over and over. Much safe love and healing to all of you.
mia
I have done much work on the preverbal. It is different than the other work for me. I lose my understanding of numbers and language. I see distances as midpoints. I see in gray scale. I lose motor control and I will reach for something with my left hand and I think I am reaching with my right and visa versa. Images are reversed. My sense of direction is different as in heightened.
I walk on the outside of my feet and do not have the same balance.
I have discacula and dyslexia. I do not want to prepare food I want to just eat. I wake up at midnight and 4:30 as that was my feeding schedule.
I like to take nocturnal drives as that is how my parents used to get me to sleep.
Smell was all important to me as a infant. I did not want my diapers changes as I was wet as an adult thinks. It was the smell that I wanted to get away from.
I have pseudo seizures. I just plain fall down. I can not speak and can not understand words. Sounds are way different and voices are a murmur with no meaning other than the tone.
I do not worry anymore about the results of the trauma I process the trauma and the symptoms/injuries/results go away.
It is way way hard work. The memories are remembered as a infant.
Faith,
This makes complete sense.
We have this part shes a baby. She has body memories and she always is huddled on the floor, in a fetal position,crying. She desperately feels she needs to be held afterwards.
The weird thing is alot of therapists tell us that theres NO way we can have memories that young. They are wrong, because I have memories and someone inside remembers.
Thanks for blogging about this, as it needs to be talked about.
Hope
i am skeptical about pre-verbal memories. i would like to make the following points [no offence intended to anyone]:
1.
how do you differentiate between body memories from the verbal age and those from the pre-verbal age?
2.
would a baby necessarily be traumatised by someone putting a finger in her vagina? would a baby be traumatised by this any more than a baby would be traumatised by a bad nappy rash?
3.
back in the 60s/70s it was very unusual for a baby to be in diapers at toddler age – it has only been with the advent of the dispoasable nappy era that mothers have been lured into continuing to spend on nappies past the age of one year.
4.
i was told once by a woman that she recalled in utero abuse.
that is – in my opinion – absolutely unbelievable. if someone said that to me i would be very questioning of any further abuse claims she or he might present.
ps :
i have no doubt that if a person is able to abuse a child than they would also be able to abuse an infant. it is very obvious that babies get abused – i do not doubt that. what i am doubting is the ability to claim memories of the abuse. yes – there might be infant alter states but to interpret their distress as anything other than distress – ie to attribute cause – in the absence of certain corroboration, is confabulation.
Gracie
No offense taken.
I have memories of being in the womb. No trauma. I remember my mothers feeling both of distress and happiness. I remember the caffeine and my nicotine withdraw until my father came home. My mother did not smoke and my father did.
It is not empirically provable that I am aware.
I remember a traumatic event right after birth. The only evidence I have is a scar on my leg that the Dr. explained was me scratching myself during birth. (That I doubt) I was told that this scar was from when I was being born so I had that information before hand.
I remember a different space when I was very small and it seems that is the apartment that I moved from when I was 11 months. Could be it was talked about as I was growing up and I remembered being told.
The trauma I remember was not sexual. It was violence.
It is in a sense confabulation in that I am verbalizing a memory that is not remembered verbally.
I have met other people who like me do not confabulated in emergency situations. We have total accurate recall which is rare.
I do not experience infant alter states nor and states at all. I expect that some may.
My memory as an infant is not just of trauma. It is my memory as an infant.
I can no more prove the memories with empirical evidence than I can prove I am a multiple. I work with people who heal people and they do not need therapy anymore so that I can not prove my memories are accurate or that I am multiple is not integral to my work of healing or my life in general.
It is very important to my healing that I work with my experiences and not worry about others can or can not experience.
I am OK with people that can not understand I work with people that understand they can not understand.
Gracie,
My therapist says that if it is possible to be abused in utero I was. My mother didn’t want me…actually no one did and there was arguing and physical abuse at the time. There is evidence that fetus react to the sound, just like they use music now days. I provides a stressful environment both in sound, physically and hormonally.
In terms of body memories, verbal and preverbal. Once I was able to verbally express myself the verbal was simple words and the preverbal was in the form of crying, screaming and moaning. As an infant my mother tried to suffocate me as a way to stop me from crying. I remember seeing a pink pillow and then darkness and an inability to breath. This was later verified by a family member.
I think I know how the mechanism works for me with the memories from when I was a baby.
The event is stored as I experienced it I then figure out what it was. I have come up with an example that is not traumatic.
I was not walking yet and in one of those walker things and not able to move it yet. I had alphabets in my tray and strewed them on the floor. My mother was not impressed. I remember not understanding my arms could not get to there and being frustrated wanting my mother to get me the alphabets. I remember being upright, the taste of the alphabets, that it was warm and the grate in the floor where the heater was. (I drew that and asked my parents if it was where I though it was in relation to the living room and hall way and was correct.)
I remembered what happened and was able to understand what I was seeing in my memory. I know I was an baby as I was in the baby walker. I can figure out it was warm, I do not know the time of year. Might just be the heater came on. That I can not know. It was winter as I wanted to get over that heater for warmth. That just came to me and that is how it works. Actually I do not know it was winter what I know is I wanted to be warm. Might have just been a cool part of a day in the summer. I know it was morning as the sun was behind me. No that is not right I only know the sun was to my back. I just know that as the house was basically east west and I know where the sun was at that house. I do not know where the sun was at that time. I have a sense it was morning that could be all wrong and might just be that I was having cereal.
I do not need to go over everything. For me I kinds jump start those pathways and then it happens over time and in my sleep.
For me it was much about knowing that smell was more important then than it is now, at least as far as I know.
Writing it makes it sound very complicated, it is to an adult. This happens in seconds.
There comes a point where I intuitively know it is time to stop and I have what is needed. How that works I have no clue nor do I seem to care.
Good post. Thank you!
faith this is wonderful, i find that i too, still suck my thumb whenever i am feeling overwhelmed due to my own abuse.
the book as well, i have read. i found it helped me loads and i hope you find it as comforting as much as i have.
i have been in therapy for one year now. I started having memories of being a baby, I still doubt that these things are real. I also have realized that I too have a baby alter. When the baby comes out, it happens really quick. I get confused as to why this comes out. How am I suppose to know if these memories are infact real and not just my mind making them up because I want answers?
I found this interesting. “Babies ‘cry in mother’s tongue”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8346058.stm
hey MFF.. thanks for sharing that link.. very interesting!
My too long discovery of DID began with invalidation and shming of pre-verbal memories as aberreactions. It presented as a very high funcitoning clincal specialist entering tehrapy for depression and shortly thereafter having preivously unkown “parts” come to in T office. Extreme terror and attempted crawling and freezing in trauma response.
Unfortunatley I had little context and the T chalked it up to “pre verbal memories” but left tht hanging as in Well that is so-o-o long ago lets move on to something with words…I now know use of art therapist skills can provide context and assist in processing.
Forward 25 years still raw from the “invalidation” of T experience move on inlife.
I am adopting a baby and in the process, in a foreign country,
have extreme terror of holding”my baby” that eventually necessitated T attempt again. Psuedo seizures signs and symptoms began.
would a baby necessarily be traumatised by someone putting a finger in her vagina? A baby still FEELS the anger and the rageful intent to harm finger or objects inorifices -yes they do.
back in the 60s/70s it was very unusual for a baby to be in diapers at toddler age – it has only been with the advent of the dispoasable nappy era that mothers have been lured into continuing to spend on nappies past the age of one year…In the 50″s when I was in diapers they were kept on full of crap to shame, especially as 2,3 & 4 years old. Perpetuated by siblings and parents to degrade, to shame, to disgrace, it intesified the dissociation as the need to be away from body smells and sensations were so clearly “not me”. Also who wants to love a smelly SH%%% toddler child?
No offense taken-obviously it has taken me a life time to “know” my truth-just thougt I’d share to help all uncover the invalidation that can still occur from Therapists “rationalizing”
body memories and pre-verbal experiences.
take care.
i am sorry about what happened to you. please do not takw offence at my earlier comment. how did the rest of your memories come back all those years later ?