"Calm down, it's nothing to cry about."

[toomuchplor]

I broke my wrist – just a little greenstick fracture, the kind that barely needs a cast – when I was 2 or 3 years old.  I don't particularly remember the accident itself, though I have a clear memory of the minutes leading up to it, and of the hospital plastering room afterwards, but my body remembers it.  I'm almost thirty years past that little minor fracture and to this day, when I'm upset, I feel it in the base of my throat as everyone else describes, but also as a painful random pulse of pain spiking up into my right thumb and down the side of my radius. 

I even associate the feeling with a sort of shameful self-pity, probably because I cried and whined a lot (too much, my parents say) as a little girl and was usually told that I was making a fuss over nothing.

[As an interesting aside, the same thing happened, I'm told, when I broke my wrist initially.  I fell off a piece of playground equipment, landed on my wrist, and wailed and carried on for minutes afterwards.  My older brother and I were in a summer play group, and even when he told the leaders with all sincerity that even his whiny baby sister didn't usually cry this much, the leaders in their wisdom told us both that I was fine and I should stop crying.  Eventually, I guess I did.  It wasn't until hours later, playing out in the back yard, that I took a second tumble – whiny and clumsy, I guess – and hit the same place on my wrist and screamed an unholy scream.  My mom came to take a look and found that my wrist was purple-black around the place it had been fractured.  Vindication!]

I don't think I've ever told anyone that before, but that's where I feel pain physically when I'm hurting emotionally.  Isn't it weird, the places our bodies choose to carry trauma?

Anyone have a weird thing they've never told to anyone before?  Anonymous comments turned on and IP logging off, if anyone wants to share without sharing their identity too.

Comments

[gozer]

When I was very little, pre-school/kindergarten/1st grade age, I saw a multitude of sparkling, swirling dots as I lay in the dark in my room -- they were so vivid, aggressive, and bright that I used to hide under my blankets in terror! When I was a little older, say about the second grade through the fourth, I suffered from what I believe are called "myclonic jerks" -- I'd be lying in bed, almost asleep, and suddenly it would be as if the bed had been flipped over with me in it. Terrifying!

The dots finally stopped after I realized I could control them -- I used to form them into the shapes of roller coasters and Ferris wheels -- and the bed-flippies happened less and less often and eventually stopped when I grew up (I was kind of enjoying them by the time they stopped.) Apparently the sensation of flipping over was caused by my inner-ear growing as I got older, and I found out later that very near-sighted people like myself can have "visual migraines" when they are young, also probably caused by the eye growing, and the brain trying to make sense of what it's seeing.

I am really glad I never told anybody about the dots -- schizophrenia runs in my family (grandmother & uncle) and I think I might have been falsely diagnosed if I'd shared!

[toomuchplor]

I found out later that very near-sighted people like myself can have "visual migraines" when they are young, also probably caused by the eye growing, and the brain trying to make sense of what it's seeing.

Oh, weird! I was (up until my Lasik surgery a year ago) very nearsighted too, though not terribly so, but I guess I missed that particular experience. I so remember the falling/flipping feeling though.

My little niece was here for a sleepover a few days ago, and I was quite surprised to discover that (aged 2.5) she's suddenly entered the phase of childhood where she gets spooked at night. She's one tough little cookie most of the time but she called me into the room insisting that she was hearing noises and there was someone in the room. *shivers* Why does it sound more credible coming from such a little one? It's baffling.

[gozer]

I had glasses in Kindergarten, so I think my eyes were pretty badly off pretty much from birth.

I loved a talk given on the TED site by Oliver Sachs where he talked about perfectly normal, very vivid hallucinations that people who start losing their eyesight have... then he revealed that he, himself, suffered from them. Most people don't share because they're afraid they're going crazy, but apparently it happens to a ton of people.

So jealous of your LASIK! I went to see if I could get LASIK and was told I was a poor candidate.

I'll be someone told your niece, either teasing or in jest, that the monsters were coming, or she saw a cartoon that stuck in her head. Something definitely precipitated that reaction!

[toomuchplor]

I loved a talk given on the TED site by Oliver Sachs where he talked about perfectly normal, very vivid hallucinations that people who start losing their eyesight have... then he revealed that he, himself, suffered from them.

Huh, I've heard of that. A blind friend of mine who lost his eyesight gradually since childhood and has no vision now was telling me that he is constantly having "light shows" like flashes of colour and light even though his eyes aren't capable of seeing light anymore. Crazy!

[gozer]

How much crazier would it be if he saw 1/6-sized people dressed in old-fashioned clothing, like one of Sacks' patients. Sacks himself sees numbers and letters and checkerboards and funnels! He compares it to having a phantom limb.

http://blog.ted.com/2009/09/17/qa_with_oliver/

[toomuchplor]

Oh, and in answer to your other comment -- my mom is convinced she saw a kid being scared of the dark on a TV show, and that's where it came from. Who knows what goes on in their little heads, though?

[gozer]

Yep, that sounds right. If they identify with a character in a show, the character can influence them, for good or for ill. How do you get a kid to *stop* being scared in this instance? The question is, do you give her a nightlight or is it better to try to reason with her, or just let it lay and hope she gets over it eventually?