Childhood Behaviors that Cried for Help

There are some behaviors of my childhood that I never forgot, but I didn't realize they were odd until I was much older.  It was even longer before I would see them as my cries for help.  They were much too complicated and sophisticated to be from my conscious mind at my young age.  My behaviors were the unwitting result of the agony of my prison of incest.  I have wondered why no one "heard me"; why no one saw how bizarre some of my actions were and reached for outside help in understanding me.  I know that far less was known about incest when I was a child than now and that awareness levels are elevated due to increased levels of violence in our society.  Only in the last couple years have I come to believe that my behaviors...my cries for help...were heard, but those that detected them were unable or unwilling to help me.



One odd behavior of mine during childhood was sitting next to the toilet pushing my bottom against the floor to hold in bowel movements.  I never knew why I was doing it.  It was just something I did.  I know my mother came into the bathroom more than once and found me sitting on the floor instead of on the toilet.  I don't remember her asking me about it.  She may have consulted Dr. Spock's book on childrearing or mentioned it to my dad.  I don't know how she filed it in her mind or how much she may have worried about it.  She would just tell me to please get up  and stop doing that and sometimes she would talk in a low voice and shake her head.  I think it was something she may have tried to figure out, but with three children to attend to, she eventually gave up and just hoped it would go away.



I never repressed the memory of this behavior.  It came back during the early excavations of the memories of my childhood.  It wasn't until years later that I finally put two and two together and understood it for the first time.  Defecating was movement in the rectal area which reminded me of abusive movement in that area that I hated and couldn't control.  It was chilling to realize that I had engaged in this behavior regularly while growing up and that I had no idea why.  Even more shocking is thinking about how much rage and pain I must have been holding in while remaining so emotionally calm on the surface.  It's like I was two different people.  The "calm me" that sat on the floor next to the toilet was taking care of business for the "terrified me" trapped inside.