Childhood Memories Can Lead to Deeper Healing
Roots and Truth
I heard the whistle blow, “PHEEEEEP!! TIME TO GET OUT!”, yelled the teenager in an authoritative tone. I was playing near the sidewalk outside of my childhood home. This was a recited statement that I had heard a hundred times before, but this time my heart sunk. That sensation seemed to fall so hard that it hit the base of my gut. The tingle reached to the back of my shoulders, almost touching the base of my throat.
The life guard that had blown the whistle was sitting at the city pool located less than 100 yards to the south of my home. It was a classic Americana pool, similar to the one featured on the movie, The Sandlot. This pool was the backdrop of many positive childhood memories. But one of these memories has been stored in my body as an emotional letdown that I am still finding words to exactly describe it.
Excitement and Summertime
I was raised in a small town, where everyone knew their neighbor next door. In the summertime we enjoyed riding our bikes down the wide paved roads and jumping off the diving board at the local pool. This pool is where my mom taught all her daughters to swim. When I was really young we would swim four to five times a week.
One specific day, when I was around 10, I had planned to go swimming with my neighbor. I told her, “I’ll meet you there when I can.” I don’t recall why I wasn’t home that specific evening, maybe our errand took longer than my mom had planned. But as soon as we got home, I threw my suit on, grabbed a towel, and I ran across the street by myself for “night swim”. Night swim was scheduled to go until 8:00 p.m. I had a season pass, so I just yelled “PASS” in a low tone at the front desk as I entered inside the pool gate. All the neighborhood kids entered this way.
I kicked off my flip flops and walked to the center of the rectangular shaped pool right below the lifeguard tower. As I jumped in the cold water surround and refresh my warm skin. And then I heard it–
the screech of the whistle. The teenager yelled, “TIME TO GET OUT!” It was 8:00 pm. This command was an indicator to all, to get out of the pool for the night.
For me, this meant I had officially run out of time to swim.
I don’t remember seeing my neighbor friend as I exited the pool. My towel hung loosely around my shoulders, and I held my head low as tears rolled down my already wet face. I looked at my flip flops that touched the small rocks on the road as I crossed the street to walk home. I was disappointed, let down and I felt numb inside.
This memory has impacted me for quite some time. The girl playing on the sidewalk in the first paragraph of this story was impacted for years to come.
The opening experience happened weeks later, when I was by the sidewalk of my childhood home. It was in the evening when I heard the familiar tone of the whistle blow and the command, “IT’S TIME TO GET OUT OF THE POOL”. I noticed it. The heart sinking—the sensation of the gut dropping.
The event impacted my body the first day, weeks later, and it continued to replay essential parts of my story, as I heard a “Pheep” from a whistle for years to come! That feeling from the memory of, “I was let down”, or “my heart sunk” replayed itself in the body over and over again.
The Impact That Trauma Has On Our Bodies
Often we think of trauma as really awful stuff that has happened. Big stuff that we can never erase the date out of our brain, or erase a bloody image out of our head.
In many cases a “traumatic” event is stored in the body and mind when the emotion was never fully processed and witnessed.
The event share in this story had a specific impact that I held and felt in my body for years–actually decades.
Although in the story I share an innocent mistake, I am sincerely calling it “traumatic” because of these stored emotions, sensations and feelings that have been replicated in different ways.
This was something I recognized as I wrote each part of this story–
I never spoke about it with a friend, my mom, or my dad. This is an event that I continued to hold inside and never told to anyone about.
If you are reading this story, what are some of the insights that you are having about my story? Or a story of your own? Please leave a comment below!
I may have felt shame around the experience. I may have been trained to handle things on my own because of the way adults had responded to me during past experiences. Or it may just be a part of my personality to not seek help. I don’t fully know. For me it is helpful to get curious about why I continue to handle things on my own as an adult, and not invite others in.
Why Are Experience Recalls Like This One, Helpful While Healing?
Many of us have been in therapy for years, continuously talking about what had happened last week, but never questioning why the events of last week impacted us the way that we do!!
There are therapies like EMDR that are designed to help invite stories like this one, into a therapeutic setting. Recalling and telling stories in therapy is often insightful and helps with awareness of developed patterns.
There are other ways of recalling past experiences. Dreams are a way stories from our past present themselves.
My story was recalled because of a trigger. It was an even that again brought up sensations and physical responses that I had been written in my body system repeatedly before.
My trigger happened on a summer night when I was in Salt Lake City with my husband and kids. I had planned a fun activity, but when we got to the shop to participate in it, it had been shut down. and activity wasn’t there anymore. Similarly to the experience that I had had as a kid, I had been excited, and I was let down!
Everyone else handled the let-down, just fine. They pivoted plans, and thought of an activity to do.
I did not handle it in the same way. My head started whirling and spinning. My brain felt like it was spiraling out of control. My husband was driving at the time. After about 15 minutes, he decided to stop at the thrift store. After he stopped the car, I tried to get out. But I couldn’t move. I was completely numb–my mind felt dark and I wanted to hide.
An hour went by. I sat in the car while my family went shopping at the store. During this time, I allowed this question to enter and asked curiously,
When have I felt this sensation before?
And then, almost instantly, I had the pool story come into my mind.
Through this experience and many others,
I believe that recall happens because our stored memories are calling for resolution. Possibly a different ending to the story that never happened before the recall.
Emotional Healing
Many times these stories need to be heard by a conscious-present adult to be resolved. While reviewing this story, I ponder about what would have happened if an adult would have gotten involved during the different events in my story? What if one of my parents would have asked me to stay home that night, and then explained why?
What if someone would have welcomed me home at the door, and held my body as I had a good cry?
What if one of my parents would have been on the front lawn, (first paragraph of my story) the time that I felt my heart drop to my gut? I could have told them why the sound of the whistle impacted my body in that way. With such a physical impact, I’m sure there was a change expression on my face.
As an adult I have told this story to my husband. He took the time to validate the emotion that I may have felt as a child. That was so helpful for me to have him stop and listen. With this kind act, that took a few minutes from him, he was giving the trauma a voice and an experience that I didn’t have to carry this story alone anymore.
As he paused, listened and then validated my disappointment, he was stepping into a role of an empathic witness. An empathetic witness is an attuned, non-judgmental presence who provides the emotional safety and social connection necessary for a traumatized person’s nervous system to safely process and release trapped survival energy. 1
After I shared the pool story with him, the numbness inside of my body, made sense to me.
Finding Resolution
Healing the impact of seemingly small trauma from childhood is not about letting time heal all wounds. Frankly that is not what happens for a body that has experienced trauma. Feelings have the potential to only get bigger as they are left unwitnessed and unspoken.
Recalling childhood stories is about coming home to yourself. It is a way of recognizing the patterns you innocently developed early on, and then giving those patterns a name. When therapeutic interventions or an unexpected trigger sends the nervous system spiraling back to an old memory, I would like to remind you of a few things that have been incredibly helpful for me:
- Your Body is Seeking Resolution: A flashback is a signal that your stored survival energy is finally ready to be processed, safely released, and integrated.
- You Do Not Have to Carry It Alone: Healing deepens when you share your story with an empathetic witness—whether that is a trusted partner, a supportive friend, or a trauma-informed practitioner.
- Tools Are Available: Utilizing practical steps, like Pete Walker’s flashback management protocol, gives you actionable ways to anchor yourself back into the safety of the present moment.
I share pieces of my story on this blog because I believe with an awareness of my own past stories it can help heal patterns and past wounds. My invitation to you is to continue your own healing journey by picking up a pen and writing a story that has come to your mind recently. This story doesn’t have to be filled with detail. If you can’t recall anything, maybe you can just write a feeling that you are having in your body and follow that feeling with a question: “When have I felt this sensation before?”
I would love to hear about some of your experiences!
Sincerely,
Resources
Two directories where the training of “Empathetic Witnesses” are trained and aware of the affects that trauma has on the body.
