Here is a photo of me and my mom, December 1956. I am four and she is forty-four. Notice where my right arm is. My hand rests on my mother’s back. Had I felt the need to reach out to her?  Maybe the picture taker prompted me.  I know my mother didn’t. She is unto herself and  prided herself on her independence. Her hands, out of view, seem to clasp one another. She leans a bit forward  and I lean back. Our bodies are close but not touching, save for my hand on her back.

My mother has PTSD and so do I, but neither of us know it. It wasn’t even a diagnosis back then. The tree, with all its ornamentation, seems to grow up out of us. Of course, the tree is still green because the base of the chopped trunk sits in a pan of water. Perhaps the dying tree is an apt symbol for PTS, for it interrupts growth. Certainly, my mother and I had a complex and often difficult relationship.

I come from a long line of PTS parents.  My mother was beaten or “stropped,” as she called it, by her father as a child. She told and retold the story that her brother, Harold, shared with her when she was older, as he was witness. When my mother was two years old, her mother was holding her and her father whacked my mother’s face so hard that her nose bled all over the new white Easter gown she wore. The family had been on their way out the door to go to church. Tears emerge as I remember this story. Poor Mom. And so I reached out to her as a little girl, for she had already told me this story and many other such grim tales. Of course, she shouldn’t have but she, in fact, couldn’t stop telling them. She had PTSD.

Believe it or not, according to my mother, her father had been hung from his thumbs as a child by his father, a Methodist minister. Apparently, there was a trap door in the kitchen that opened into the root cellar and when little William Henry was “bad,” he was hung in the dark. When his first born son died at age three from a high fever, my mother told me that her mother claimed he had changed. First he plunged into depression and isolated himself. When he re-emerged, he was angry, cruel, and controlling. One could say that my mother’s father’s PTS parented her and then her PTS, me.

Does any of of this stress, transmitted over the course of a century, have to do with creating a restriction (pyloric stenosis) in my  gut?  The cause of pyloric stenosis (ps) is unknown.  Might stress have been a factor?  Large amounts of stress hormones in the blood of pregnant women can negatively impact their fetuses (Sapolsky, R.). In any case, Post Traumatic Stress is a serious challenge to healthy parenting and the more we are hip to our own symptoms and behaviors that result from PTS, the more likely it is that we won’t pass it on.

I was 26 years old when I realized that I had been holding back crying since the operation. As crazy as it sounded, I told the therapist who happened to be answering the phones at the Women’s Center the day I showed up seeking help that I’d had a surgery 26 years ago but was afraid to cry and break my stitches. She put on the message machine, took me into a nearby room, closed the door, and said some magic words: Don’t worry, you can cry now. It’s ok. You won’t burst your stitches. Tears broke free. It wasn’t as if I had never cried since the surgery, but I had withheld my tears, fought them back if I could, felt frightened when I did cry, and steeled myself to my emotions, afraid that feelings were dangerous. The surgeon had told my mother before I was discharged that if I cried, my stitches would break and and I would die. At 26 years old, I finally started to live.

When I was a child, 8 was my favorite number (2 + 6). At age 8, I felt that life was full of wonderful possibilities and that my future held something exciting. I’d wake up eager to go to school and go to bed restless, excited about what the day would bring. My teacher loved me and I loved my teacher. I carried a little brown briefcase to school with my initials WPW on the latch. Homework was fun. Gym class was awesome. I liked the clothes I wore to school and the friends I had made. There were problems that upset me but overall, 2 + 6 was a time of hope and happiness.

The 26th day of July is when I was saved. My mother considered it my “second birthday.” It was also a day of anxiety, pain, terror, and anger as I was operated on in the early morning.  The previous afternoon, my mother had brought me to the hospital. I was down to 4 pounds. Once admitted, no more breast feeding, no more holding. Was I anesthetized for my surgery?  Many were not in the year 1952.  Was I intubated?  Given a paralytic drug instead of anesthesia?  Was I given a local?  Records gone, I will never know. I was rescued on the 26th and given new life. Life was also taken away, for my emotions were locked up, packed into a suitcase, and thrown into the sea. Still, the number 26 held magic.

26 has been a signpost for me. Years ago, when a friend suggested that I move into her friend’s studio, I wasn’t sure. I was also considering a small cabin. But when I heard that her friend’s phone number had a 26 in it, I immediately decided to take the studio, which I’ve rented happily ever since. 26 was good luck, survival. Though 26 was also restriction and pain, I saw it as a charm.

It’s time for a new number. I appreciate 26 and all it has been and meant, but my future demands new digits. In May, I’ll be retiring from full-time community college teaching and embarking on a career in public speaking and education, teaching courses in medical humanities, including writing as healing. I’m thinking about 7 and 27.  5 + 2 (’52, the year I was born) = 7.  26 + 1 (the day of my birth) = 27. July 27, 1952 was the first day of my new life without pyloric stenosis. I’m no numerologist, but I enjoy doing the numbers!

I am not sure why I want to share my pastel “Bell Pepper with Scar” on my first post of 2012. I wanted something visual for sure as I have not posted an image for months. But it also has to do with the oddness of the picture–a scar on a bell pepper!  A strange harmony draws me to this piece, what with the pepper slanting one way and the scar the opposite.

I completed the pastel years ago at a time when I was writing the final chapters of my memoir manuscript about my infant surgery. One day, while harvesting peppers from my garden, the image came to me. At the time, I thought the pastel  communicated that as a baby, my body was a perfect vegetable made imperfect by the scar. But the picture won’t let me settle for this interpretation.

Be whimsical about the scar, it seems to suggest. Maybe even dance with it. Realize it’s part of the perfection. The scar creates the balance with the pepper, for how can a scar that represents my life being saved be imperfect or wrong?   A body with such a scar can only be right. Perhaps “Bell Pepper and Scar” would better name the composition or “Scar with Bell Pepper.”  How about “The Beauty of What Is.”

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,900 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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When you have surgery as a baby, you are given a special, tiny box. In this box is the real experience of the surgery that was carried out on your body, on your soul, on your emotions, and on your intellect. In other words, the whole of you was there experiencing it. In the box is what happened from your perspective, but you have no words to describe it, for  the surgery occurred before you knew verbal language. Breath knows, emotions know, soul knows, intellect is aware but not in words.

You were told, however, that you couldn’t possibly remember the surgery because you were too young. You were told that you didn’t feel a thing. You learn that everyone else’s reportage about what happened is more important than your own. You were told not to dwell on it, not to deal with it.

But you were given this little box. You know something very important is in there. You are, of course, curious about what’s in it. You want to know, you want to focus on it, you want to explore the contents of this little box because it’s what you went through as a human being. Deep down, you know you did experience something. This story of your early beginnings, in whatever way you can shape it or tell it, is one of the most important stories of your life.  Open the little box. It’s ok. See what’s inside. Dare to claim your life as best you can.

Recently, he shared research that he’d done on the treatment of pyloric stenosis (PS). He took it decade by decade, beginning with the early 1900s, and reported his findings to the best of his knowledge, given the available literature on this subject. As a result of reading his posts, my understanding has expanded greatly. While I had thought that in the US, anesthesia for infant PS surgery was not the norm and that the use of paralytics and restraint was, I see that the picture likely varies from hospital to hospital across America, or maybe from region to region, and is greatly dependent on time period. SIS has also made me aware that in parts of the world besides the US, following a more medical protocol, where medication was tried rather than surgery, was just as much an option as surgery.

One thing that I am very grateful for is SIS’s focus on helping others. Before SIS’s history of the treatment of PS, Fred  reported on adhesions that can result in later life from PS surgery. He surveyed the medical literature and helped the layperson understand the likelihood of his or her suffering from this condition and what one might do to find relief. SIS also offered solace and advice to parents who had PS babies and, before the surgery, had gotten the run around, i.e. told by medical professionals that their babies were just fussy or being nursed incorrectly or that they were just overreacting to their babies’ difficulties eating and digesting food.

I personally can’t wait to see what 2012 will bring to the SIS platform. It’s my favorite blog and one that I hope will gain readership as more and more folks and families hear about the support they can get from Fred’s work. Do click in and see if SIS speaks to you or anyone you know.

This coming May, I am leaving my community college teaching position in order to pursue a public speaking career, which will include promoting PTSD awareness. Lots of people can get help but not if they don’t know they have it. How many of those people at the psyche ward at Pennsylvania Hospital when I was 22 had undiagnosed PTSD?  How many of my students at the community college where I’ve taught for almost 20 years had it?  Certainly the young man who was shot as a child in a drive-by shooting and struggled to be able to concentrate when reading. The woman repeatedly molested by her father during her childhood years told me she had it; she would often go into freeze mode. The student who literally jumped up from his seat if I called his name likely had it; he had written of his parent physically abusing him as a child.

Recently, in doing an informal survey, asking English 1A composition students what their favorite part of class was, they invariably said medical humanities. For several weeks, we read stories by Alice Walker, Rachel Naomi Remen, Jill Bolte Taylor, and Eckhart Tolle and excerpts from my blog in order to gain an understanding of the art of the personal narrative as it relates to the field of medical humanities. Students seemed to find relief and clarity from writing about an act of self-harming, an encounter with an uncaring doctor, the death of a loved one, or a relative who is critically ill. I think they find this type of self-exploration and writing healing. It eases stress and encourages self-awareness.

Many of us don’t know that we have PTSD. Once we are aware that  our hypervigilance or startle response or avoidance of certain situations or stimuli or nightmares or panic attacks stems from PTSD, we can change and grow in ways that we didn’t think possible. We are more able to activate the seed of beauty within when we know what’s blocking the flow of nutrients and water. Just acknowledging that we have PTSD is powerful. Simply knowing is healing.

In my studio, there’s a pillow with a joyful, multi-colored fabric covering, which splits open at the back so the pillow can be easily removed and washed. (I’ve posted about this pillow before.) Each time I toss it on my bed and chance to see the split at the back and the white of the pillow beneath, I have a PTSD moment. I feel anxious and my heart races; I hold my breath. Panic–a result of the surgery for pyloric stenosis, a stomach problem, that I underwent at three weeks old. Something about the split-openness of the pillow alarms me. Something about my incision. But since I know that this pillow catalyzes this response, I say to myself–oh, it’s that pillow again. I calm down, feel relief. I turn the pillow over and hide the split.

At home in my bedroom, I have another such pillow. This one, a recent arrival, has a deep blue covering. When I toss it onto my bed and it lands split-side up, I panic and stop breathing. But because I know that I have PTSD, I say to myself, oh, it’s that pillow again. It’s my PTSD.  So I take a breath and go about plumping up the pillow, turning the split side out of view. I should be able to get over this, I reason. But each time I see the split in the pillow, I freak.

Why do I keep putting myself through this ritual?  I had an amazing revelation the other day–amazing because I hadn’t had it sooner. How about I get rid of these pillows?  Oh, but the studio pillow belongs to my landlady and I wouldn’t know where to store it, the place is so small. It never even occurred to me to take off the pillow case and replace it with one without a split. And the pillow in my bedroom?  My sweetie put the blue case on and she wouldn’t want me to take it off. She might be hurt if I ask her to put the pillow in her room and substitute it with another. Can you believe this?

Why would I want reminders of trauma around?  Then it hit me: learned helplessness. Infants, like myself, who underwent surgery before general anesthesia was standard and who may have felt extreme pain and  fear before and after surgery, cried out in every way they could for help. If they were not able to scream because of a tube down their throat or thrash about because of paralysis with the drug Curare given to prevent movement during surgery, their eyes scream.  If no one assisted them and soothed the pain or fear, they learned that no matter what they did to alert their caretakers, the outcome would not change. They learned that those entrusted with their care did not relieve their suffering. They learned to tolerate and accept suffering. They learned to not assert themselves. Learned helplessness.

It’s embarrassing to write of such inability to take such a small step–a baby step, if you will–in order to feel better.  Removing the pillow covers or putting the pillows in a different location will help me deal with my PTSD in the most positive way. I never realized how deeply this learned helplessness thing has affected me. I can, however, take action to change my situation.I don’t have to overcome or conquer my PTSD. I can let it teach me how to invite peace into my life. Good-bye pillows!

Who might we be without our PTSD?  Is it an inextricable part of our personalities because it has shaped who we are and how we have behaved? Is it a condition that has skewed (or skewered) our development, stunting or mis-shaping our personalities? If I were a tree and PTSD was the fence that was built offensively close, did I grow through the barrier that was blocking my way so that the fence is now inextricably part of me, or should the fence be extricated from my branch in order for me to thrive and be the tree I was meant to be?

The truth is, as we cope with PTSD symptoms, we become more fully ourselves. As we relax hypervigilance or calm ourselves in the midst of a panic attack and allow ourselves to understand the catalyst for the uncomfortable feelings, we become whole. As we risk leaving old patterns behind, we are more of the tree we were meant to be. In coping with PTSD consciously, an enormous opportunity presents itself. With our new awareness, we can say to ourselves, oh I’m in one of my PTSD moments. Understanding floods in. Compassion for self follows. Often, one hears oneself say,  I make sense!  I  fit in with the universe!

We can make our way to a place of power, relief, and joy. For while no one would have wanted the event that caused the PTSD to happen in the first place, it did. Someone built a fence too close. But in claiming ownership of it, its power over us diminishes. A few times in the midst of a panic attack, I’ve even heard myself say Oh, it’s that again and breathed my way through it with relative ease. Self-awareness is the “axe that breaks free the frozen sea within.”  *

*from a quote of Franz Kafka’s

Some people traumatized early in life need to know that it’s safe to inhabit their bodies now, to really be in them. They need support, maybe even touch in a place that’s frozen or wounded in time past. A touch that tells them that it is safe to return home, that they can trust the process, and that their body is beautiful and strong. We need reminding of the fact that our bodies healed and that our bodies are powerful. A ritual of return.

I’ve often wanted one for myself. Each morning as I settle in to meditate, I face a feeling of great fear that I am not safe in my body. I am afraid that if I fill myself with air and breathe fully that I will die. I’m not sure when I learned this, but I do know that my survival hinged on my not bursting my stitches. I am grateful that I was saved, but the cost has been great; I am still frozen and must thaw daily. Daily, I self-talk and breathe my way into a feeling of trust, allowing myself to know that all is well.

Many survivors of invasive medical procedures still quietly suffer. Physically we are healed or are able to cope with our physical problems, but inside we are still on lockdown, unable to extend our emotional wings. We want so badly to fly but are restrained by old trauma. A ceremony is needed, in which a lost sense of wholeness is restored, and we are re-integrated into our community, our struggle honored, leaving us to live at peace in our bodies.