Smiles in A Childhood Lost

I like listening to the call-ins because delving into childhood is so fascinating.
Analyze your first dreams. You cannot think about them too much. They are the distilled philosophy of life being imprinted upon your virgin mind. Nothing is more fundamental to your world, your existence, your personality, your perception, than this.
The questions posed, I cannot help but reflect on in my own experience. And try to puzzle out how it affected me.
“How did your mother experience your newborn stage?”
“What does she say about you as a baby?”
“Did she breastfeed, bond with you, find joy in your presence and existence?”

J told me over and over again, throughout my childhood and adulthood, that she thought I didn’t like her as a newborn. She said “You didn’t like to be held. You never smiled. You didn’t like me. So I just left you alone.”
My mom says that I was a perfect baby. “You slept through the night right from the start.” And “I worried about your belly button- I didn’t want you to have an ‘outtie’.” “You were a beautiful baby!” She told me wistfully.
“I breastfed you for…” She pauses at this point as if unsure. “..a few months.” When I asked for more specifics, she admits to going back to work when I was 6 weeks old, and sending me to grandma’s. I asked how she was able to breastfeed while at work, and she said she didn’t. She tells me the ‘amusing’ story of how she forgot me. “I was a new mom- grandma invited me over and I just forgot that I had a baby! I drive over and never realized I left you until grandma asked, ‘where’s the baby?’” she chuckles at this point. “I raced home and you were still sleeping! So everything was fine.” She also tells me about how anxious and worried she was. Obsessing over child abduction, “I would wake up in a panic, screaming and running through the house that the baby is gone! And your dad would just laugh at me saying ‘you should see yourself!’“.

It occurs to me that J is preoccupied with status and what she perceives other people want.
The fact that the quality about her baby she most identified with was physical beauty- which is not a quality off character or even individual value, but the value of how other people perceive the child.
She wants to at once distance herself from having any responsibility or accountability for her baby and claim any credit; evidence by forgetting the baby and realizing that I was just fine even if she forgot me. And also the evasion of accepting her choice to go back to work and what consequence that might’ve had on her baby. Her anxiety likely being the product of a self made situation in which she depends on the dopamine from baby attention and helplessness or powerlessness in her decision to take no accountability or responsibility as a parent of that baby.
J is also incredibly narcissistic in her descriptions. She always relates how the baby is, and the baby’s behavior, to herself. ‘she doesn’t like me’ and ‘a perfect baby’.

One aspect that makes me feel impossibly sad is the repeated reminder “you never smiled.”
I believe it. I don’t remember smiling. I don’t remember ever feeling like smiling. I remember the annoyance and perturbation of my mom and others when they told me to smile. I remember the disgust in her voice as she said “why do you make that face?!”, and I only felt confused and inadequate.
I think of all the pictures of as a kid, and I can’t recall any in which I was smiling.
I think of how much our son smiles and laughs, and I feel a broken heart to imagine him never smiling. Both my babies smiled at me just moments after birth. My now 4week old daughter smiles at me every day! It is the most beautiful thing, that smile. I feel the tragedy of a baby in such a state of fear or stress or unmet need that that baby cannot express the natural joy of being alive and in connection with her mother. To never feel secure enough or have a bond with anyone who cared enough to.. to what? To see me. To know me.

Our son smiles and laughs so much every single day. He is naturally funny and full of laughter. He makes himself laughed. He makes us laugh. He laughs with us even if he doesn’t understand. We make him laugh. It’s the background of his and our environment.

The natural temptation is to self blame. ‘im just melancholy.’ or ‘I’m not a happy person’ and even, when someone did try to make a light hearted attempt to make me smile, my excuse was ‘I must not have a sense of humor.’
Uhg. It’s just so tragic. I feel like shaking my child self and telling her it’s not you! YOU aren’t depressed. YOU aren’t humorless. There’s nothing wrong with YOU. You were raised by narcissists, and that has nothing to do with YOU. YOU are not broken. You are in a lion’s den. And it’s understandable that you might not feel happy or want to laugh in that situation.