This post is part of my demystifying and de-shaming what Mental Health struggles might look like. As always, details that might reveal as yet untold stories of other living people are vague or vanished; this is only my story. There are a few posts here expounding on some of the trauma I’ve experienced, but none have yet gone back this far.
At some point in the 30 months between my older sister’s birth and my conception Mom experienced a miscarriage. I don’t know any more details than that, but my older siblings have confirmed that occurred.
Prenatal Trauma
I’ve since learned that the first child born to someone after they’ve experienced such a tragedy is known as a ‘rainbow baby‘. Used I think in the sense of a ‘sign of fortune from above’ rather than indicating the child’s likely sexual orientation.
This may explain the family story of the ‘hero doctor gyno’ who drove their family to the summer cottage before returning to the (record hot) city to await my arrival. There are other ‘hero’ stories around my youth that in retrospect disguise much more than they reveal. The good Doctor wasn’t likely hanging around because of my TEV (“clubfoot”) – if that was even clear in ultrasounds.
I’ve also learned (with no sense of surprise or doubt) that a child developing in a womb that has experienced a miscarriage is surrounded by the body’s memories of the event, the physical effects, and whatever emotional reactions Mom had. Prenatal trauma for me and Mom. Dad as well, I would guess.
And this was all on top of the fact that Mom and Dad had planned/ expected to have 2 kids. With their first having been a boy followed by a girl, a house in the Toronto suburbs, a dog named Toby, the family should’ve been complete.
Infancy Trauma
Now they had a third child- a defective child- a deformed child. Sure we can talk about how I’m so much more than that. Certainly neither of them ever said anything like that to my face. Nor to my siblings from what they recall (or will admit).
I was 2 weeks late- during a near-record hot summer back when central Air was not yet ubiquitous. Postpartum seems likely- along with Mom’s other issues– and mixed feelings over a child that’s bound up in a torture device (picture of a Denis-Brown Bar links to a larger version) that prevents, or at least restricts, cuddling.
And how was I to understand my entrance into this reality?
Very quickly I was (I presume) slapped on the butt, then I had the tip of my penis removed. At some point I woke up with incredible pain in one foot- both feet trapped in that torture device. I was being fixed and transformed into something better.
Something more acceptable.
For my life after that, check out:
# There’s No Place That’s Home;
# Unmoored;
# I Did A Thing (podcast guest);
# Coming Out ND.
Postscript
As an adult I can see how the use of that ‘torture device’ gave me a relatively normal life- no dragging a twisted clump behind me everywhere I went. And I can understand that nothing I describe here is attributable to malice or carelessness. But that is little comfort as I spend the balance of my years unlearning the masks I adopted to survive. Hoping to discover the real, full, beautiful me that I have yet to know.
