@neri47

Hi Dottie.
I certainly can understand why this event cause so much anxiety. At 5 years old, coping with something like this is difficult. What you needed at that time was a lot of comfort. When you are a child, you don't have choices in your medical care or even understand that things will get better. These images get burned in our brains so we don't forget them. We remember these stressful events much more than the positive events in our lives. That goes back to the fight or flight response that is part of a survival instinct. Just knowing that may help deflate a bit of the hold it has on you. Practicing gratitude for the good experiences can kind of counteract the hold that negativity and fear has. You can choose what you want to think about and that has a big effect on your health.

Perhaps you could not see the glass and didn't know glass could hurt you because at 5 years old you may not have enough life experience to judge these things to avoid injury. Perhaps you needed eyeglasses and didn't know that your vision was not perfect because that is all you knew. Did you feel like you were blamed, and perhaps the cost of the broken glass was given priority over your feelings?

If you could be a parent to yourself now for that event in the past, how would you comfort that small child? I know this is highly personal, and you do not have to answer this on the forum, but thinking about it and journaling about it may be able to help. I speak to you as someone who had a traumatic event at the same age as a 5 year old who was nearsighted and didn't know she could not see well enough to avoid danger.

It is possible to heal from this.

Jennifer