For my entire life I've carried a heavy burden, known only to my mother and me: I'm a Womb Survivor. I've spent that entire life hiding from the obligation and responsibility to share my experience with others, as I personally have insights which could settle the medical and religious debates regarding what one feels in the womb. But I've been a coward. I haven't told anyone. Despite still feeling a tremendous amount of trepidation (my fingers are shaking as I type this), I must share my story lest something happen and I never again have the opportunity. Please read on, and please don't judge me as this is very personal.
I guess to claim "I've not told anyone" isn't exactly honest as I do have to disclose my condition on medical background forms prior to seeing a doctor for something, but no one in my close circle of friends and family knows. Doctors tend to have one of two responses upon reading my "priors" chart: they either grow quiet and glance at me skeptically, or they get visibly excited but play it cool, like they've just been dealt three aces. Then I know what's coming: "Mr. smile, can we talk a little bit about what your experience was like?" Did you
ever, um, feel anything?"
That's when that sinking feeling of shame strikes me hard. My veins pulse, my face turns flush, and I just want to hide because I should be able to help but I can't, I just can't, because I don't remember anything! That's my secret. That's my shame. I don't remember anything.
I'm told by my mother that I was a Womb Dweller for nine months. Nine months! She even showed me a grainy picture of me she keeps in a box under her bed as proof. And I look and listen and want to believe her, but honestly it doesn't look like me. It doesn't look like anything, but I would never tell her that. If she sees fingers and toes I won't take that memory from her, as she's getting old. But since I can't remember anything I grow more skeptical as the years pass.
Not only that, but apparently once I left the womb they sliced my penis up and that had to hurt like hell but I don't remember that either. And my feet were aimed inward toe-to-toe, and I had to wear a corrective brace for several months as an infant. I'm still pretty pidgeon-toed but I don't remember the brace either. WTF is wrong with me?
I've spent many hours through the years trying to reach back, trying to find some memory from my womb-days but I simply can't zero in on anything. Kennedy was assassinated when I was womb-bound, but I don't even remember that. Everyone alive both then and now remembers where they were when he was shot. Not me.
The best I can do with early memories is a recurring nightmare I remember as being my first dream, and I swear this is true. The weird thing is I remember having the dream every night for several days in a row, to the point where I remember not wanting to go to bed or fall asleep. I would find myself in a rocky canyon, and this dinosaur-type thing would circle over my head and swoop down to get me so I had to hide behind the rocks, then it would see me and swoop again. I hated that dream, but my mom attests she remembers me having it too, and I wasn't in her womb at the time. According to her, my older brothers liked to watch Lost in Space or Star Trek or something when they got home from school and I must have seen a scene on one of those shows that made me scared. She said I was probably four years old or so.
To me, however, it remains suspicious. I don't remember my time in the womb, yet my first memory is of a terrifying bird swooping down to get me? Something's just not right but I can't put my finger on it. And I'm sorry for not remembering anything else. I let you all down.
Terrifying bird photo courtesy of the internet.