Others who's core trauma was in first year or two of life? (Trigger warning?)

[Heart]

  Thank you all for sharing so bravely of your inner pain on this awful matter. My heart aches for all of us being born into a family/parent who wasn't prepared for a child.  A child is supposed to be the most beautiful gift a person can have... So it is not possible to make sense of our experiences. I read all your posts and it took me some time to do. Needed time to process. Many times I tried to make sense of this "childhood " we had.  And I came to think of my cat. She had kittens on many occasions.  But as soon as she could she dumped the kittens and went out to have some fun. So just like her my m was able to get children. Her body functioned in this aspect. But just like that cat my m was no mother.
To be a mother is a verb. It's not a title.

So bcz of her I have lived with cptsd my whole life. Having thoughts and feelings that were symptoms of the abuse. The only reason why I function at all is bcz I had older siblings that were curious about me. So they touched, they spoke and they acknowledged that I was born. Or even alive.   

But you here have given me so much healing by sharing. I can not enough tell you please  - Thank you so very much for articulating your own experience. I have now for the first time in my life been sleeping without nightmares. Consisting of dreams were I am being murdered in one awful way or another. My inner infant screaming for food  - has been heard through you - and I now am able to eat in a normal way. There are many things still to heal. But I am so thankful for you.

[sanmagic7]

   back atcha, heart!  i'm just glad some of those issues have been put to rest.

[Blueberry]

  Good progress, Heart

[Upwardbound]

I understand and identify. You are not alone. 

[Chart]

I wish there were a way to ensure that only people who really wanted to be good (enough) parents reproduced. So much damage and pain could be averted

Thank you for this observation Saylor! A few years ago I had a similar reflection that went like this:
In order to legally get behind the wheel of a car you have to spend months practicing driving accompanied by an instructor, then accompanied by your parents for at least several months more. You have to read all the rules, study the road regulations and at the end take a written test as well as a test driving a vehicle with an examiner. And there aint nothing MORE complicated than a baby! Why in almost all societies is there zero preparation for future parents? Not that that would necessarily change deep-seated mentally unbalanced people... Certainly it'd be a political minefield topic, but wouldn't some kind of screening during preparation to have a baby be a way to let folks know... "Hey, um there're two or three things we noticed about your behavior that will probably be really destructive to any child you have... Are you really certain you wanna have kids?!?!"

[Chart]

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread. Took awhile to read through it and much of it wasn't easy, but hearing all this really makes me feel less alone. Thank you thank you thank you.

[Marcine]

With a fluke of fortune, today this thread showed up on my unread list for the forum, even though the last reply is from Chart almost 2 years ago.

I agree with you, Chart, it took time and a steady stomach to read through the heart-wrenching experiences shared on this thread. I feel profound connections with the others who posted. And who may never know how they touched my soul these years later.

**Trigger warning for SA and birth violence**

Woodsgnome's post is the first time I have encountered anyone else who knows about, and names, "crib molestation." I barely know how to react to the complex feelings I'm having right now— the rage and sadness at anyone else experiencing sexual abuse in the crib... and at the same time I feel split open with my own previously sealed memories magnetically drawn out into the light. That's all I wanna say on this at this time.

My mother told me she was given Twilight Sleep (doses of morphine and scopolamine) during my birth. It was an archaic, potent chemical combination intended to reduce pain and induce amnesia during labor, with oftentimes intense side effects for mother and infant.

(I won't go into a rant about the politics of childbirth.)

My parents were told I was supposed to be a boy, according to the statistics of the 1960's.

I was born a girl and they would not have known to expect a birth defect (club foot) that required surgery right after birth.

Suffice to say, my parents were utterly ill-equipped and unmotivated for the job. They had disdain, unwillingness to learn basic necessary caretaking skills, rage, denial, zero bonding, and disconnection from reality, themselves, and me. A recipe for abuse.

They thought it made sense to take me at 6 months old and in a full leg cast and metal-pinned ankle to live for several months in Calcutta, India.

As many have noted on this thread, it may seem illogical that an infant could remember such early memories of pain, abandonment, disdain, and wrongness. But I add my voice to the other truth-speakers and attest that I do remember. I know.

I am so sorry that too many of us know.