From Mad in the Netherlands: The title ‘Prenatal Origin of Love and Shame’ raises many questions. Apart from the assertion that our state of mind may stem from our prenatal experiences, the question perhaps arises whether love and shame may really be mentioned in the same breath. Regarding the claim about prenatal origins, I wonder how our current way of feeling, perceiving, behaving, and interacting with others could not have been influenced by our first experiences before birth. Our first relationship *is* the one with our mother, possibly beginning as an energetic, pre-physical interaction.
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I know I bathed in that amniotic shame. I had slowly become more shameful of myself as a child. I can recall many times when upset with myself or when being punished for one thing or another, would wish that I was never born. I would angrily stomp and yell this very statement.
When I was 33yo, my mother, in one of her manic episodes, told me, her first born, that I was the “product of a pity fuck and she wished I was never born and her life isn’t what she wanted because she had me.”
Even though those words are incredibly hurtful, it was in that flash of the moment, an instantaneous heaviness had been lifted off of me and so much of how I felt about myself made sense and I released so much in that single moment. I didn’t talk to my mother again for 17yrs. We are back to now not speaking after I had reached out during the pandemic.
I have been considering the Inherited maternal trauma we carry and it gives me an explanation for why I don’t have close relationships with my younger sister and brother born by our mother. And even my sister’s daughter and her daughters do not try to maintain a relationship that I work hard at cultivating. Yet, I easily can with my brother’s kids.
I am very grateful to the dogs I had in my life and the aunts and paternal grandmother I had. It was thru them that I felt love and was able to express love.
And all the somatic bodywork that I have had over these last 20yrs has been life saving in helping release the shame body in the most impactful ways.
Thank you for writing this article.
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