Dear Replacement Child Forum,
I would like to share my personal experience with colleagues and replacement children. I have worked as an analyst and as a therapist for many decades and it is only now, in my retirement, that I examine this aspect of my life, in depth. When I held the book “Individuation for Adult Replacement Children” in my hands, I experienced like a shockwave of recognition, it was like a magnet; my reading was drawing pieces of information and memories together.
My mother lost a child with whom she had been pregnant for 12 – 16 weeks in summer 1947. I was born in May 1949.
I don’t remember when I learned about this first – it feels as if I had always known – or rather sensed it – but probably I learned about it in my late adolescence.
Thinking of it, the first feeling that arises is that I’m grateful to this tiny baby who left my mother’s womb and endowed the space to me. I feel a little bit like a happy bird in the hemp seed, very much wished and loved. The youngest, treasured child. At other times, I had a strange feeling of being apart, of being outside of the circle, like in this drawing. I was startled when I realized that I could either be inside the inner family or outside, and what was worse was that I felt as if I could be exchangeable or replaceable. This realization made me sad and encouraged me to look seriously at the replacement child condition.
My mother had always wished to have 4 children – and I’m the fourth – after her fifth pregnancy. I wouldn’t be here if this child would have survived. I’m very glad that I live!
But is it that easy? Am I just happy with my place in the world? I still wonder which shadows were thrown on my soul – being a child that followed a loss – a replacement child. Do I owe something to this little one – or perhaps to myself?
I do have hunches but, honestly, I don’t know yet.
Not the least, because a voice within me tells me that it happens to so many people! Nothing special. Shrug your shoulders and put it aside! So why should just I feel special!?! And yet, I do! Perhaps not special, but when I was a child and younger adult (and still even now sometimes) I felt somehow outside, foreign, not belonging to the sibling or other collectives. Could this be a link to my inner riddle?
Thinking for a long time that it was just a trivial issue might be one of the reasons why I did not yet look carefully at my status as a replacement child? One part in my soul which still lies in the hidden dark. It feels so subtle, seemed not big or important enough to be taken for serious.
When I held Kristina’s book in my hands I felt a jolt of electricity running through my body – and now sitting and writing I again feel an inner excitement and the urge to dig deeper.
Something was set into motion. I realize that this topic has very much to do with me and I need to understand more of my inside world. And in the outside world, this also resonates. My father is a replacement child – his little sister died one month old in summer 1911 – he was born in fall 1912.
My former husband replaced a baby brother who died 3 weeks old. He was born one year later – Matthieu was transferred to Mattis.
Do replacement children seek each other, albeit unconsciously?
Since 24 years, my love is a woman who was adopted.
There are many more touching stories in my family and I have always been especially sensitive and aware of spontaneous abortion and dead siblings in my practice as a Jungian child analyst.
I had even considered to write my diploma thesis in 1998 on this topic but pushed it aside.
These incidents illustrate that this matter has a greater impact on me than what I had felt in beforehand. A number of new questions pop up and I feel strongly that now the time has come for me to follow this trace.
Hedi