Reopening a Broken Heart

Trigger warning: grief and loss, neonatal loss, twin loss

I wondered, in the beginning, what happens to the grief.

I had started having a lot of vivid dreams about William earlier this year, and I knew it was time to revisit the cove where we let his ashes go almost 10 years ago.

Elliott!

William, my son who passed away at 6 days old (10 years ago Bastille Day), seemed to be calling me. I had dreams where I was surrounded by him, his light. He was a blue light, and the dreams were comforting because I needed to sense him. They brought this stark reminder of his absence, and this time, they also reminded me I had something I needed to do.

His twin, Elliott, hit double digits this year and continues to baffle me frequently with his intelligence, resilience, and heart. He is brave, and strong enough to climb boulders and mountains, has ideas about games and programs to design, reads books and writes stories. He loves his little sister and sleeps amongst all of the household pets, whom are drawn to his gentle nature and sense his kindness (the beasts actually battle over the spots closest to him in bed, cats vs. dogs being the most common matchup). He is curious and information-seeking; for example, this year he informed me that owls have long legs and (I couldn’t believe it without a google search) they do.

He is incredible. He saved my life.

When William died, I was flooded with grief. It felt impossible to imagine even an idea of the steps I could take to grasp onto something, anything, that would remediate the feeling that my heart was an open, bleeding, vulnerable wound that could never heal, not ever. In fact, the only thing that helped me to get out of bed at that time was the knowledge that I had to keep it together in some form in order to help Elliott through his battle for his life, as he faced the NICU and all of its pain. If I wasn’t there, if his father wasn’t there, he would have been alone, after spending months squished next to his brother through their gestation, their every gesture and heartbeat registering with each other even before I could feel their tiny movements.

Grief is strange. There are moments, sometimes even for more prolonged time now, where it seems ephemeral. When it surges up again more powerfully, I feel a sense of guilt for its prior absence. It tends to visit in visions of what it would be like if he was here: What would it be like if he was having his first day of 4th grade, how would he dress for Halloween, what would his temperament have been or what talents would he have had, what kind of song would he have performed in the piano recital, what sports would he have wanted to play. How would he and I have related, or he and his dad. How would he and Elliott have gotten along, what would he have thought of his little sister. Sometimes it comes at certain times of the year, unconsciously, and it only registers in my body like a heavy weight on my chest. When the grief visits, it inspires a deep ache in my heart and guts, at times memories of the torture it was to have to let him go, and holding him as he died, howling the deepest cry I’ve ever uttered as I felt it happen, then the doctors and nurses taking his body away down the hall, and finally, letting his ashes go into the ocean. When the grief visits, more often than not you sit with it alone.

Elliott and his dad.

And then it fades. And then I have to do things, and be functional and tend to the myriad responsibilities in my life. It seems to go in waves, in sets. But it seems as time passes, more frequently I find myself looking away and feeling terrible for it, the sets get further apart and smaller, but then another high tide will hit and there’s no choice but to sit and surrender as it swallows you again.

Greta!

The mythology we have around “closure”, “coming to terms”, “making meaning”, “finding peace” is so powerful, and one who is grieving often wonders if they will ever get that gift: the gift of feeling at peace with the loss of their child. That maybe one day they will be able to remember what it was like before time stopped and everything went sideways, when everything fell beneath a dark, haunting and uncertain shadow and we all at once forgot who we were before, because we couldn’t be that person any more. That person was gone, dead along with our child, and in her place was a person walking with an absence that nags and pulls us unpredictably back beneath the surface of the water, never free of the knowledge that a piece of our soul has been taken away, and unable at times to be present with joy. If it was linear, at least it could be predictable.

In July, we made the trek to William’s cove in Big Sur.

For those that have never been, Big Sur is along the northern California coast: a place that wasn’t particularly accessible to humans until 1937, when a precarious highway was constructed along its cliffs, spidering down its mystical coastline and hugging the mountains beside it, enabling humans to explore its magnificent surroundings and state parks. There is a lighthouse there whose primary purpose was (and still is) to ward off ships due to the treacherous nature of the coast’s tides, bluffs and rocks. There is no uncertainty when observing the ocean there, that it is powerful. I’ve heard that the big fish like to hang out in its waters. Big Sur is as spellbinding as it is dangerous. “Ethereal” is an understatement when considering Big Sur: it is holy.

It had been 10 years, and my brain had suppressed the memory of this sacred space, perhaps in an effort to keep the grief at bay. Immediately upon being there I recognized my need to have been there, a familiar need, just one I hadn’t been able to be conscious of for some time; and I felt gratitude for recognizing it again. Staring at the trees and cliffs and the ocean, hiking down to William’s cove, it was like I was in my own body again, it was like I was whole with who I was. It was like I was present again, because I was embracing my grief again, the very grief I had made some concerted efforts to ignore in an effort to be “functional”.

Once again I was human, humbled by the gravity of nature’s force, and in acknowledgement of my powerlessness in the face of it.

Home

When we arrived in the cove, I climbed onto a stone where a creek flows into the ocean, and suddenly sank into my body, recognizing a feeling I hadn’t had in ten years. A feeling that was both familiar and terrifying, comforting and unsettling, a story that I lived and live that took me back into its arms. I knew in that moment that I’d found myself atop the exact same stone I had crouched on that day a lifetime ago, as a huge piece of my heart went out into the sea and I had to observe, in complete surrender to it all, as William once again slipped away, and nature wrought her powerful force, and I in turn transformed into a person that I no longer recognized nor understood.

Witnessing my children, now, in this present moment, as they explored this space while I sobbed, letting out the air I had held in for a decade, I could recognize again that this is all it is: this very moment. And all one can do is sit in surrender and gratitude for it all, as painful (and beautiful and loving and vibrant and thick) and fleeting as it all is, in recognition that one is always in the water, surrounded by it all even if we sometimes don’t notice.

So grateful for this sacred place and to share it with my surviving children, and that she welcomed us home via heart memory and grief and that painful familiarity that is only ever a heartbeat away.

Well, that bandaid got ripped off (also known as trauma in the age of COVID-19)

Do you feel right now as if your heart is as vulnerable as it’s ever been?

Are you feeling unsettled? Are you experiencing intrusive thoughts, nightmares, hypervigilance, or rumination? How many of you, like me, are up at night wondering what life might look like next: physically (with regard to the virus), mentally (with regard to feeling scared, sad, anxious and isolated), or professionally (with regard to losing your job and/or financial stability)? How many of us are having fights with our loved ones and struggling on a daily basis? Achingly missing our parents or other friends and relatives on quarantine away from us? Our communities have been given information wherein the average family is sometimes treated dismissively, and the answers, if we are given any, are dim. We don’t know when this will end: the virus is terrifying, safety measures feel weak, and living with scant idea of how you’ll pay the next bill cycle is haunting. Literally nothing is predictable.

Correction: I suppose the only predictable thing is that nobody wants to get this virus, nobody wants to go bankrupt, and nobody wants to have a nervous breakdown— but the kicker is— nobody knows specifically how to go about absolutely preventing these things.

It is trauma, plain and simple, and the word we use: “trauma”, literally means to describe the things that make us feel the way we do right now: living in the shadows of our ideal selves. We find ourselves agitated, irritable. Sometimes sad, tearful, sleeping. We find ourselves checking whether we or our kids are clean enough, safe enough. We are using substances too much. We are physically isolated from the people we love. We wonder whether something or someone will hurt us. We are fearful, anxious. We find ourselves fighting with our partners, or kids.

We go into survival mode when we are experiencing trauma. We unconsciously predict what will next jump out of the woods to take us down (or read the news to find it out: murder hornets, anyone?). It is tough. It feels defeating. It feels like there’s no solution. It feels like we are bad people that attract danger. It feels like another shoe will drop at any time. It feels unsafe, it feels unresolvable. This is trauma. And these symptoms/reactions are what our brains do to survive inordinate circumstances.

I know all former NICU parents are already painfully aware of this, I also know that current NICU parents are unimaginably and enormously impacted by this (and it breaks my heart to no end and I wish I could help more). I also know that throughout this, my sister is taking her 8 year old son for chemo treatments— her family doesn’t get the gift of boredom or apathy throughout this, they don’t even get the gift to slow down and think about how shitty it is— unfortunately, too many people are in similar circumstances.

The pandemic, the political situation in the United States and elsewhere, and the interfamilial conflicts that we are all experiencing right now as a result of being locked down connect us in a certain way, even in this devastating situation wherein we feel so separated and paralyzed.

Sometimes, in times of uncertainty, the only thing we have left to hold onto is the knowledge that through our suffering we are deeply connected to others and their experience of it, too.

Remember this when you see others’ photos of seedlings or their food/dinner on social media and feel irked. Remember this when your toddler won’t go to sleep at bedtime, or starts to tantrum more and more often. Or when your tween or teen is in tears over the fact that they can’t go to a party with their friends or don’t want to finish their homework/attend a Zoom meeting. Remember this when you or your partner’s agitation gets to the point that you feel like you are OVER it and about ready to wave the white flag. Remember this when you continuously wake up feeling under the weather, and debate whether it’s COVID-19 or seasonal allergies, or when you are desperately trying to protect your high risk family members and the fear remains chillingly present throughout the day and night. Remember this when you’re trying to cope with everything simply not feeling right.

Right now, it’s ok to grasp onto whatever grounding you can and to accept others who do as well. Everyone is trying to get through this, everyone is uncomfortable, everyone is sad and everyone is scared. It’s not only ok to be gentle with our friends and family, but also towards ourselves. It is so tempting to think that someone else is doing something wrong in situations like these, but when you truly take in the nature of it all, it becomes apparent that the main thing is just to take care. Breathe in when it feels overwhelming. Imagine that we are all the same, because we are (mother earth and her methods have a way of mirroring this back to us now and again). Then breathe out, because it’s ok to express that energy and to release it (and yourself). I think the most important thing right now is to remember that we are all human, that we have no choice but to sit with each other, and hopefully, to connect.

So, 2020 is happening. From what I can tell, our worlds are being ripped wide open and shaken up, and many of us NICU parents are struggling not only with the stresses and anxiety brought with the global pandemic we are facing, but also with past traumas, past quarantines, past depression, and the memories that all of those experiences reopen. It’s because those parts of our mind have been ripped back open and are back in business. The feeling is mutual for anyone who has experienced or is experiencing trauma.

I had been embracing and loving the gift of “normalcy” after my daughter was born. She’s a beast and was born 4x the size of each of her brothers (8 pounds) and has a personality that reminds you of why people that are intense are fun. She has fury and passion. She likes wearing sunnies and playing basketball and following birds and examining artworks. She likes color and she likes interest. She likes wrestling. She shrieks intermittently at the various small animals in our household, and I think she enjoys that kind of language better than words. She’s, so very thankfully, healthy (side note: she loves quarantines.) She loves people. She’s like her brother.

The world decided to dole out another reminder, though, that there are no promises: that “normalcy” is a story we construct that makes us feel better— not a reality— and we should never take our gifts for granted.

On Jumping Off A Cliff With The Hopes That A Tiny Branch Might Save You [Pregnancy After Preemie].

My full term daughter was born on December 23, 2018 on a full moon. A cold moon. The cold full moon, and the first day of capricorn: the goat. She burst out with her robust cry weighing 8 pounds, and they put her on my chest so she could feel me and smell me. We laid there together for almost 30 minutes before I cut her umbilical cord.

Her name is Greta. She is very strong.

Her brother Elliott, a surviving twin who was born at 26 weeks, is now seven years old.

The surreal nature of my daughter’s birth was stunning— I laid there with this gigantic sweet baby whom I could touch and who was in the same room with me, and I couldn’t believe the sheer grace of the entire thing. That I could protect her eyes from the lights with my hands, that she could sense me, that she wasn’t immediately swifted away in an avalanche of terror, that there was no loss. I couldn’t stop crying. All emotions came overwhelmingly to the surface, and as someone who’s been called “stoic”, it was like being in a whirlpool.

Everything about her strength brought me back to the precariousness of her brothers’, William and Elliott’s, birth.

From the minute of the positive pregnancy test my body awakened to the dread of what could happen-- what could finally come again— what would probably do me in for once and for all— the loss of another baby. And each moment of the pregnancy felt like a conscious decision that I could be putting another baby into a dangerous situation for the fact that they were living inside of my body.

My body: the one that I still, deep down, blame/d for the death of my son William and for the prolonged hospitalization of Elliott. My angry and disorganized body. The body that could go haywire at 26 weeks and people could die from— that body. My friend Erika said she would make birth announcements that mentioned that nobody died; she got it. I just hoped I got that far.

So that’s the background.

There was this other half of me that had always longed for more babies despite my massive fears.

I found a doctor I trusted. We talked about the medical history. I pulled from my ancient knowledges to describe each medical intervention they used with my boys and tried to keep myself from describing my sons’ suffering as a result of the preterm labor. She said the Makena shot was a miracle. She said she’s seen a lot of success.

At 18 weeks, as we approached the danger zone, my high risk doctor joked that due to my advanced maternal age, previous preterm labor, and my (new and fun thing [kidding]) low-lying placenta, that we had our work cut out for us. I bit my lip trying not to worry, but spent the rest of the afternoon that day googling each condition, the likelihood of preterm labor associated with it, and crying.

I realized throughout the pregnancy that there was power in my body’s memory, and that I had pushed that part out of me— out of my conscious thought. I realized that my body remembered everything despite my desperate and elaborate attempts to eradicate it over the course of 7 years. And with the help of my partner and my doula, I tried to walk through the steps of acceptance that this was not the same, that it would not be the same, even if the darkest of fears felt as if it was omnipresent. When the labor hit and it was real, the emotions rushed to the surface again, even despite my knowing we were in the “safe zone” of being past 37 weeks. And by some grace, I was lucky enough to be able to experience giving birth to a healthy daughter. Through the entire pregnancy and the birth, I was able to start forgiving myself (maybe for the first time) for the things that were not my fault, possibly for the fact that historically I had only experienced trauma associated with childbirth and motherhood.

The night before she was born I saw two falling stars.

Greta and Elliott <3

There is something to be said for getting the chance to sleep in the same room with your baby the night they were born and to KNOW exactly what it feels like to not have that for 88 days, or ever. For being able to put her in a carseat and take her away from the hospital a couple of days after her birth, and remembering the carseat tests that kept your son from leaving for days. For feeling her suckle within the first hour of her birth—something I had never experienced. To put her in clothes you picked out (the nurses had dressed Elliott the first time, when I wasn’t there). To listen to her breathe unassisted, no wires or tubes: to hear her full cry even in those very first moments, a LOUD cry. Even in staying up all night with her for months on end— just you and your family— and no one to tell you some dire reason that she couldn’t sleep. For being able to make the first decisions for her, and not having to weigh what medical intervention would be the least likely to have long term consequences.

Pregnancy after preemies, for me, was like being repatriated with the things I never thought I’d experience having, and to have every moment of it be a godsend, but a godsend of which I was hyperaware. I sometimes think that only the parents who’ve experienced trauma have this “gift”: the gift of being able to recognize and feel gratitude for the very precious thing you have in front of you, to have your hopes realized in the form of a baby, to not have the capability of taking the fragility of that for granted. To be reminded of the strength of your babies that were forced to fight. To realize the absolute gift that babies are. I am filled with a gratitude that is just as wordless and powerful as the grief (and gratitude) that came with loss almost 8 years ago, and once again, I am speechless.

[Note: I’ve debated for months whether or not to write this blog with the understanding that this isn’t what always happens with a pregnancy after preemie. The intention of this is not to say that this is what typically happens nor that this was simple. I chose not to discuss the various issues that came up over the course of my pregnancy that were scary (in this particular blog). This is not intended to imply that only healthy babies are worthy. My hope was to convey the wonder and love that came back to me with my daughter, and existed wholly with my sons, albeit under different circumstances.]

Simple Things NICU Moms (and Dads!) Can do to Take Care of Themselves

Being in the NICU and for months afterward, as a therapist I *knew* I needed to practice self-care in order to keep standing and survive the numerous stressors we had to juggle on a daily basis. Unfortunately, as I learned, the practice of self-care was easier said than done, and the things that people suggested (getting more sleep, taking a day off, etc) were oftentimes impossible given the circumstances.

Photo by metinkiyak/iStock / Getty Images

During the NICU we had to cope with making medical decisions, sleep deprivation, and having chronic anxiety. For me: pumping all night and day. For my husband: having to go to work and continue functioning on a professional level while at the same time his heart was in an incubator 10 miles away. For both of us: dealing with an array of personalities providing care for our sons, aching to be able to take our boy home, grief, depression, isolation, chronic stress, the feeling that our basic existence was moving forward without two very important people being close to us. In a nutshell, the experience was a recipe to create PTSD.

After the NICU and for the following year, stressors included things like: isolation for months during quarantine, debt, the continuance of medical issues, coordinating medical care and appointments, anxiety, stress, grief, the "typical" stresses associated with having a newborn like prolonged sleep deprivation, learning how to parent, coping with getting along with a new human being. As NICU parents: the feeling that friends and family who in the past had been our primary supports no longer truly "understood" what we were going through. The stunning, debasing feeling of hearing your baby cough the first time they get sick after the NICU, and the fear it inspires deep inside. Sometimes, NICU parents also have to cope with diagnoses, medical and otherwise. 

One of the things I found useful was to surrender to the fact that I might need to trust others to find guidance in learning how to take care of myself. Here are a few tips in self-care that I've gathered in my family's quest to make things easier for others who may be struggling:

During the NICU:

1. Take at least one "time out" from bedside per day.

At around 60/88 days into our total stay, I realized that Lucile Packard Children's Hospital had some beautiful grounds to walk around.

Often, in our quest to advocate for our little ones, we become accustomed to the practice of staying bedside throughout the day and night, even when we are hungry, exhausted, or haven't seen the sun for days on end. Going to a support meeting, getting a coffee, or even taking a short walk outside can provide a huge reprieve and actually improve your capability to weather decision-making, disappointment, or manage anxiety.

2. Drink a lot of water.

This sounds really basic, but in reality it can provide a huge amount of healing when you are coping with the NICU. With the chronic stress of being in a hospital environment, lack of sleep, and exposure to numerous germs etc., being in the NICU can put you at a higher risk of catching a cold, which then keeps you from being able to visit your baby (it's a terrible negative feedback loop). Drinking water not only keeps you hydrated enough to hopefully produce breast milk, but also clears your system and helps your body cope with chronic stress.

3. Fire Dr. Google, join an online support group instead.

At first it's extremely tempting to google all of the myriad procedures, diagnostics, and issues that you're presented with when your baby is in the NICU (believe me, I know this personally!). After all, predictability is a HUGE source of help when you're dealing with chronic stress. However, due to the impersonal/inaccurate nature of utilizing a search engine, you can accidentally find yourself in a space wherein you feel the worst case scenario is inevitable, and hopelessness becomes your daily go-to. Finding an online support group on Facebook or BabyCenter can put you in contact with families that are going through or who have been through very similar circumstances, and whose human responses of support may provide far more comfort than the cold diagnostics spit forth by a search engine that doesn't know the intricacies of your family's story.

4. Make a space for you and your partner to process your experiences.

The partnership of parents oftentimes becomes compromised when a family is put into a crisis. The roles each partner plays in the NICU are demanding, draining, stressful and isolating. Often, based on our own histories, partners have different ways of coping with stress that can also create a space/distance between us. Setting aside time, even 15 minutes, per day so that you and your partner can vent or process your experiences can create a safety net for your relationship that is stronger than you would imagine. Actively listening to one another and trying to get on the same page with each others' struggles will not only provide each of you with healing, but will build an incredible foundation wherein your trust for each other can flourish for years moving forward.

5. Set boundaries where you need to.

I shut down my Facebook account. Others delegate a close friend or family member to manage their pages or communicate news. Set aside a time of day (or the week) when you will check in with one person, who can then relay messages about what's happening in the NICU to the other individuals who care. I remember during our experience, talking about the various surgeries, transfusions or procedures triggered anxiety and emotional flooding in my mind. At the end of the day in the NICU, the last thing one needs is to feel triggered yet again. Strategize ways in which you can prevent feeling drained by taking care of others-- but at the same time communicate the news you want or need to share. Tune into yourself and choose what works for you. Some families find that direct communication and/or social media is helpful, and that's ok too. Developing a conscious approach to the boundaries that you need in order to best thrive can save you from feeling drained.

6. Find your "lighthouse".

Elliott & the sunset.

Oftentimes, when faced with the NICU, families are thrust into the most anxiety-provoking and painful experience they could have imagined. Finding your faith, spirituality, or other belief system and making a space for it each day is incredibly healing. For me, developing a sense of mindfulness and reading about how it worked made me feel a considerable amount of insight and safety in my day to day experience. Acknowledging just how much I loved my sons also created a guiding light that got me through each day. In our darkest moments, the things that feed our soul and survive the trauma oftentimes become more apparent, because they're the only things left. Recognizing that as a strength and deliberately creating a space for it can make one feel armed against the flurry of traumas one is expected to juggle each day in the NICU. I recommend examining yours. 

7. Maintain a space for self-expression.

Someday, your NICU experience will (thankfully) be a memory. But it's surprising in the future how much you might want to remember, how much you'll seek mementos of your extraordinary journey, how much you will treasure the things that mark that space in time. Taking photos on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, decorating the incubator(s), keeping a journal, creating a baby book, all of these are things that might prove to be extraordinarily helpful not only in processing the experience in the moment, but in finding the value in it in the future (possibly even in explaining the story to your little one as they get older). Other things include creating a soundtrack (I dedicated songs to William and Elliott throughout our experience that I'd play en route back and forth to the hospital each day), keeping a spoken-word journal, creating a blog, or knitting/crocheting blankets or clothing for your little one. In expressing yourself you can create your own, personal experience out of what can be a very disorienting process. In making your own mark, you re-empower yourself and your family as important, unique people facing extraordinary circumstances, and the individual ways in which you withstood them.

Being a NICU parent is stressful. And while many of us find the resilient parts of ourselves we never knew existed while going through the experience, the notion of figuring out a way to practice "self-care" during the experience can sound like tacking on the responsibility of learning a foreign language while going through the hardest time of your life. Nonetheless, practicing self-care can make a significant difference in setting the context for whether you are surviving the experience, or thriving within it.

Next up: self-care practices for after the NICU.

Please feel free to comment with ways you practiced self-care in the NICU that aren't mentioned here! The power of sharing resources is insurmountable.

NICU Now Podcast is Now Available!

Very excited to announce that my collaborative effort with the folks at Hand to Hold, the NICU Now podcast, is now available for listening. Hand to Hold founder Kelli Kelley and I discuss everything from postpartum depression, attachment, bereavement, bonding, self-care, to partnerships during and after the NICU. Please have a listen-- there are some wonderful resources in these episodes!!

When Memories and Trauma Collide.

Photo by alice-photo/iStock / Getty Images

A few things I know now about my memory of the NICU; the things that will never be the same again: I will never be able to smell the hospital-brand hand sanitizer-- stoically and silently perched in plastic holders like mute witnesses along the hallways (the same stuff that almost rubbed my hands raw after at least a dozen applications daily)-- I'll never smell it again without my guts lurching.

I will never be able to hear incessant beeping without remembering desperately looking to see whether it indicated a de-sat or bradycardia event descending upon one of my babies, a flood of information swarming my thoughts-- "is it real or did a wire come loose? Is he dusky? What are the levels?" all the while my stomach dropped and it felt like the world was closing in-- darkness creeping into my peripheral vision, my senses focusing in on the one important thing before my eyes-- my sons.

I'll never again listen to Chopin's Ballades without feeling the groundless, terrifying, heartbreaking yearn to feel my son William's skin against mine, his sweet head tucked safely into my clavicle: it was the only music we would have time listen to together before his death.

These things have new meanings now. Some of which didn't present themselves until I had the sensory experience of hearing, smelling or feeling them again: I had to re-experience them to remember.

The mind has a tricky way of working sometimes. When it comes to our memories, the events that challenge our very being most horrifically oftentimes become coded as the most important things to remember in our minds. What’s more, it’s being increasingly verified through research that we remember these events in the lower parts of our memory system, meaning that these memories often come to the surface as re-experiencing, sensory events, as opposed to stories that we have access to, stories we can use language to describe, stories with beginnings, middles and ends. 

The lower part of our brain systems work much like that of other mammals. While domesticated animals have the beginnings of a pre-frontal cortex (the pre-frontal cortex is where language, logic, and coherent communicable thoughts reside), animals' limbic and reptilian systems are fully developed and serve the same functions that those areas of our human brains serve-- basic survival functions like heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and muscle function in the reptilian brain (amongst other critical things!), and survival instincts based on the fight, flight or freeze instinct in the amygdala, part of the limbic system. These three parts of the mind-- prefrontal cortex, limbic, and reptilian systems-- make up what we refer to as the "triune brain".

Because it's the lower, unconscious part of our brains that take responsibility for our survival instinct, many times that instinct comes forward in moments we don't expect it to, sort of like the body's innate strategy to jump into action before you even know there's a lion behind you.

“Everyone has two memories. The one you can tell and the one that is stuck to the underside of that, the dark, tarry smear of what happened.”

— Amy Bloom

Since threatening memories are "coded" as sensory experiences, and remembered not only as what happened, but also the way it felt when we experienced it, trauma memories can come to structure our perspective. It can also make us feel like the trauma has never ended; as if at any time something bad could happen again. Many individuals who have experienced trauma report feeling as if “the other shoe will drop” weeks, months, even years after they’ve been through a crisis-- sometimes they actively look for the threat in an effort to have even earlier warning and thus, more time to respond.

This can have numerous effects on our ability to remain present, to be in the moment, and in our ability to experience things as spontaneous or enjoyable. If our brains are focused on survival, warning signs of threat, and the sensory memories of trauma, what focus is left to expend on being in the moment? How can we shift ourselves from living in response to the things that are happening to us, towards living freely.... liberated to being in the moment and being open to new things? Is there any way to extricate the trauma from our first memories of our relationships with our babies?

According to Bessel Van Der Kolk, leading researcher in trauma-related therapies, an important part of the healing is the physical component of rewriting the experience of certain sensory-related things. Hence, there is an answer in the idea that the more we hold our babies skin to skin, even after the NICU, that the memory of what it feels like to hold them in an unhindered environment will eventually supercede that of the NICU trauma memory. The more we smell hand sanitizers in a non-crisis-related environment, the less likely it will be that we will have a panic attack when smelling it. The more that we experience happiness in the context of our parenting experiences, the more likely the trauma will become a memory, and not a structural component of our relationships with our families.

Reference:

Van der Kolk, B.A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Viking.