The somatic wound of being unwanted

woman in white and black shirt standing during daytime

Some people grow up with a bone-deep knowing that their existence was never welcomed. Not planned. Not hoped for. A presence marked by burden rather than celebration. This knowing is felt in the nervous system, informing how someone perceives themselves, navigates relationships, and finds meaning in life. Clinicians might refer to this experience as the somatic imprint of being unwanted.

I recently made a TikTok video about this topic and it has amassed hundreds of comments. One commenter put it plainly: "My mom literally told me I was unwanted as a child... Nothing implicit about it."Another shared: "I was told if abortions were legal at the time I would not be here. I've always felt like I'm not supposed to be here."

These stories reflect a pattern of trauma that often begins in utero and reverberates throughout a person's day to day life, well into adulthood.

Some people grow up with a bone-deep knowing that their existence was never welcomed.

A somatic imprint refers to the way emotional experiences, especially trauma, get encoded in the body. When you are unwanted as a fetus, your developing nervous system registers that lack of welcome. Muscles tighten. Breath shallows. The internal narrative becomes: "It’s not safe to be here."

As one of my viewers wrote, “I feel like I’m not supposed to be here and I don’t belong.”

These experiences are reflective of pre-verbal trauma, communicated through hormonal signals and nonverbal attachment dynamics that occur before the development of language or conscious memory. They can become the foundation of a person’s emotional architecture.

The emotional messages such as “You’re too much,” “You shouldn’t exist,” “I didn’t want you” settle into the body and shape how a person experiences themselves. One commenter described it as, "I need permission to breathe most days." These early experiences shape core beliefs and attachment styles that persist into adulthood. A person may live with chronic shame, dissociation and a gnawing sense that they have to earn their right to exist.

The internal narrative becomes: "It’s not safe to be here."

The imprint of unwantedness doesn’t stop with one generation. It ripples.

In their attachment-based perspective on intergenerational trauma, Meulewaeter and De Pauw (2019) highlight how unresolved trauma in parents, especially mothers, can lead to insecure attachment, emotional dysregulation, and even substance use in the next generation (Meulewaeter & De Pauw, 2019). This experience can shape the emotional landscape of future generations.

Another commenter shared: “My mother had a miscarriage prior to me. Then my abusive father abused my mother and that resulted in me... My mother due to her own trauma let me know I was an unwanted pregnancy.”

This is how trauma begets trauma. When emotional injuries remain unacknowledged or unresolved, they often show up in how we relate to others, sometimes in ways we don’t even notice.

How I work with this in therapy

Clients who carry this wound often arrive in my office carrying more shame than language. They say things like:

“I feel like a mistake.”

“I don’t know why I can’t relax around people.”

“I always feel like a burden.”

The work begins not with fixing but with reflecting back and mirroring what the client’s body and story are already expressing. I might say: “What if the way your body braces is related to feeling like it's not safe to exist?” We begin with the body. Grounding. Breath. Exploring the edges of their embodied experience. Then we work with the core need: “It is safe for me to exist.”

This can be agonizing at first. Many clients have no internalized model of that safety. For example, I might notice how a client's shoulders rise slightly when we talk about belonging and reflect it back by saying, "I notice your body hunching over as we talk about this—does it feel like there's a part of you that wants to disappear?" We build a new sense of safety slowly, relationally. This is where attachment-focused therapy intersects with somatic work. The body needs new experiences of connection and presence in order to shift.

I often use parts work to engage the protective parts that formed early in response to feeling unsafe or unwanted. For instance, if a client begins to cry and then quickly stifles it or apologizes, I might gently reflect, "I notice you're holding back your tears...does it feel like there's a part of you that's learned it's not safe to be seen in your pain?" These parts were never bad. They were brilliant survivors. But now they may be keeping the person from feeling fully alive.

The work begins not with fixing but with reflecting back and mirroring what the client’s body and story are already expressing.

Healing this wound means facing the unbearable. Naming what was never said. Validating what was never acknowledged: You are not a burden. You never were. Your body is not wrong for how it adapted. This is something I hold in the therapeutic space, guiding clients gently toward it, but the insight carries more power when they arrive at it themselves.

We build new neural patterns through safe relationships. That means slowing down. Co-regulating. Learning that it's possible to take up space without being punished. As trust grows, the body gradually lets go of its guarded stance. Breathing becomes easier. The sense of being allowed to exist begins to move from an abstract idea into something the client can feel in their body.

You are not a burden. You never were. Your body is not wrong for how it adapted.

If you’ve lived with the sense that you don’t belong, that your existence is conditional or accidental, know this: Your feelings make sense. Your body remembers things your mind can’t. And that doesn’t make you broken. As clinicians, our job is to eradicate the platitudes and to hold space for the unspeakable. We must help the nervous system learn safety, often for the first time.

References

Meulewaeter, F., & De Pauw, S. S. W. (2019). Mothering, substance use disorders and intergenerational trauma transmission: An attachment-based perspective. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10, 728. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00728

Ghosts in the Nursery: how trauma haunts parent-child relationships

Picture this: A mother soothes her crying infant in the middle of the night. She rocks her baby gently, but as the minutes lengthen she feels a sting of something uncomfortable. The baby’s cries are grating — not because they are loud — but because they stir a horrific tension within her. She withdraws as her arms stiffen in frustration. As her child continues to cry, memories from her own childhood surface. Her mother frequently withdrew and expressed irritation when she needed soothing as a little girl.

This is a glimpse into how unhealed traumas from a parent’s past can haunt their relationship with their own child. If unaddressed, these relational wounds can quietly shape the attachment dynamics between parent and child, leaving a lasting impact on the younger generation.

In 1975, pioneering child psychoanalysts published a groundbreaking paper titled Ghosts in the Nursery (Fraiberg, Adelson, & Shapiro, 1975). This work illuminated how intergenerational trauma can transmit from one generation to the next. The authors wrote, “The parent who has not consciously remembered the pain of her own childhood, but lives it, re-enacts it, and acts upon it, is in the grip of ghosts" (Fraiberg, Adelson, & Shapiro, 1975, p. 388).

Their findings have since become a cornerstone for understanding attachment trauma and the broader implications of trauma on family systems.

The Cursed Legacy of Trauma

Intergenerational trauma is the family heirloom that nobody wants to inherit. The metaphor of "ghosts in the nursery" illustrates how unhealed childhood wounds, whether related to neglect, abuse, or emotional deprivation, can haunt an individual’s parenting journey. These ghosts "represent the legacies of pain, fear, and unresolved emotions that parents may unwittingly project onto their infants” (Fraiberg, Adelson, & Shapiro, 1975, p. 388).

But how does trauma pass from one generation to the next?

According to the authors, parents suffering from unresolved trauma can engage in defensive coping strategies like repression, denial, and projection. These strategies shield these parents from facing their own unresolved conflicts, undermining their ability to connect emotionally with their child. In the original paper, Fraiberg and her colleagues documented several cases where a parent's trauma impeded their ability to respond sensitively to their infant’s needs.

One example involved a mother who had been severely neglected in childhood. As a new parent, she unconsciously replicated the emotional distance she experienced growing up. Her baby’s cries triggered feelings of abandonment and frustration, leading her to withdraw emotionally just as her own mother had. Unconscious repetition of the past is a key mechanism through which trauma persists across generations.

Intergenerational trauma is the family heirloom that nobody wants to inherit.

Projection is another response observed in caregiver-infant relationships that are haunted by “ghosts in the nursery.” For example, a parent with unprocessed anger from childhood might project that anger onto their child, interpreting normal infant behavior—like crying or needing comfort—as act of aggression. Distorted perceptions can then lead to distorted reactions, like harsh punishment or emotional withdrawal from the child.

Breaking the Cycle

The good news is that ghosts are not invincible. Fraiberg’s paper offers the possibility that parents can break the cycle of trauma: “When the parent can face these ghosts, can tolerate knowing about the pain and terror in her own past, she can begin to separate the past from the present. In doing so, she frees herself and her child from the chains of repetition” (Fraiberg, Adelson, & Shapiro, 1975, p. 419).

An important therapeutic goal is to help parents separate their past experiences from their current reality. A mother may need to learn, for example, that her child’s demands for attention are not reenactments of her own childhood deprivation, but are normal expressions of infantile need.

Three Strategies for Breaking Intergenerational Trauma

If you're a therapist or a parent wondering how to address the transmission of trauma across generations, here are three strategies related to Fraiberg’s work which are supported by contemporary research:

Reparenting: One of the most effective ways to heal from intergenerational trauma is through what therapists call “reparenting.” This involves engaging in a process where the parent learns to care for their inner child. By providing the emotional nurturance that was absent in their own upbringing, parents can develop greater empathy and attunement in their parenting role.
Reflective Functioning: A key component to breaking the trauma cycle is enhancing a parent’s ability to engage in reflective functioning. This is the capacity to think about their own thoughts and feelings, as well as their child’s. Parents who can reflect on their emotional responses are better equipped to avoid reactive parenting and engage in mindful, attuned interactions with their child.
Attachment-Focused Therapy: Attachment-based interventions are designed to repair disrupted attachment bonds by fostering healthy communication and emotional attunement between parent and child. These therapies emphasize the importance of nurturing a secure base from which the child can explore their world.

In Ghosts in the Nursery, Fraiberg and her colleagues show us that unresolved trauma doesn’t disappear; it lingers, haunting the present unless it is addressed. The good news is that these ghosts can be confronted:

"Through the work of psychotherapy, these ghosts can be recognized, brought into consciousness, and banished, allowing a new relationship to be built with the child—one unburdened by the parent’s unresolved past" (Fraiberg, Adelson, & Shapiro, 1975, p. 421).

Through awareness and therapeutic support, parents can break the cycle and foster the secure attachments that are essential to a child’s emotional development.

Reference:

Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E., & Shapiro, V. (1975). Ghosts in the Nursery: A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Problems of Impaired Infant-Mother Relationships. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 14(3), 387-421.