Tina's Terrible Visions and How She Stopped Seeing Dangers Everywhere

Moms worry about their babies. We all know that. Sometimes our past

trauma can reappear in the shape of fear that something bad might happen to our

child. Here is Tina’s story and how she found her peace dealing with day visions

that bothered her. 

It could happen anywhere, anytime. Perhaps noticing a vehicle on the top of a hill she was climbing with the stroller. Or seeing a guy in a car waiting at the stop while

she was walking with her first son. Suddenly, she would start thinking about the worst

possible scenario. In her mind, the vehicle would start rolling down the hill, towards her and

her baby, eventually killing them. The person in the car would jump out, take her few-month-old son and run away. 

Old traumas

“I did not know why I was having these horrible visions until I went to a therapist. She

brought me back to the roots of the problem”. Namely an event that happened before

her baby was born. An accident she had with a friend while climbing. While her friend

was left with terrible physical injuries, for Tina the scars were rather of an invisible

kind. Tina’s therapist made her realize that she was transferring the worry about her

friend into worries about her son. The trauma from the accident and the thought that even when she does everything to avoid bad things they still can happen was haunting her as a new mom. And how could they not? In what looked like safe situations that could theoretically turn into nightmares, Tina’s mind had started whispering stories of unpredictable dangers. The vehicle’s brake that could suddenly stop functioning from the top of the hill. The stranger who could jump out and kidnap her son... “I was still able to stop and think that it was just a bad vision, a nightmare, and continue doing what I was doing, but it had to stop”.

She told me to overlay the horrific film that was being projected in my mind with another one, made by objects that were actually there

Luckily, her therapist gave her useful tools to cope with her day-nightmares.

“She told me to overlay the horror movie that was being projected in my mind with

another one, made by objects that were actually there”. Looking up at the dangerous

vehicle on the top of the hill, Tina forced herself to see the green grass next to her,

the tall trees behind the vehicle, and the red gloves she was wearing at that moment.

Feeling anxiety arise while staring at the guy in the car, Tina focused on the

blue bus going by, the leather handbag of the lady on the other side of the street, the

street signals hanging from above. “I must have looked like a crazy woman. Because

this trick works best if you describe the new things you focus on out loud. So basically I was talking to myself. But it helped so much. Today, when my son - now a six years old little man - has a nightmare, we used the same technique. It really works”.

The game of threes 

Tina’s hack reminds somehow of a tip from Kimberly Ann Johnson’s “The Fourth Trimester” called the game of threes. Here is what Johnson - the founder of Magamama.com and an international holistic women’s health care resource for expectant and new mothers - writes: “Stress and trauma make it difficult to stay in the present moment. When we experience stress, our body and mind replay memories or project future scenarios. A simple and important tool to help you attune to the present moment is the game of threes. You can do this anywhere, anytime: 1. From wherever you are (...) look around you. Notice three things in the environment: for example, a family picture, a water glass, and a shirt. 2. From this same place, notice three things about yourself: for example, the skin on my face feels warm, I’m excited about this book, my belly is tight. 3. Pause between each object, sensation, or feeling (...). Go back and forth between what you see outside

yourself and what you perceive inside yourself three times. 4. Then notice how you

feel overall. What happened as a result of this noticing?” This exercise is meant to

help you stay in the present moment. As Johnson states, while doing the exercise

you “may need to actively work on your mind. When it starts making associations

such as “family picture”... “my mom is driving me crazy” (...) come back to the object

itself. (...) If that’s impossible, then find another object that has less difficult

associations”.