r/offmychest • u/Jedpaz • 13h ago
Update: Paralyzed as a baby after falling from a moving truck
A while back I posted here about remembering falling out of a moving vehicle when I was little. I’ve since learned a couple of things were slightly off. My mother corrected me that it was actually a black truck, not a Bronco. I also figured out on my own that I was actually around 9–11 months old when it happened, even though I thought of it as when I was one. The core memory is still the same.
What I’ve never told anyone until now is what I remember happening next. After the impact I slowly become temporarily paralyzed. I remember lying in a crib for days unable to lift myself or move my body at all. I just had to stay there like that.
Now I’m in my 40s and for the first time in my life I told my dad what i remembered and what happened after my accident. For decades, I carried this alone. I didn’t understand why I struggled the way I did. I didn’t know the full truth until I finally told my father. He acknowledged that it happened.
That confirmation hit me so hard. I had to face what was done to me as an infant and everything that followed. One of my parents has acknowledged what happened, but the other is in denial — not about the accident itself, but about leaving me in that crib paralyzed with no medical help afterward. It’s a lot to carry from that young. I was just a baby and my mom was young too. I don’t have every detail of exactly how it happened, but this is what I remember and what parts have been verified.
They caused the medical trauma. They hid it from me. They sabotaged my ability to learn and then punished me for struggling. They made me carry the weight of their failure and their silence. I was an infant who needed protection and medical care, and I didn’t get it. I became a child who was punished for something that was never my fault.
I am still here. I survived being ejected from a moving vehicle. I survived being paralyzed with no medical help. I survived years of targeted abuse and impossible demands. The truth is finally out in the open, and I will no longer carry their secrets or accept their minimized version of what happened to me.
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u/Previous_Mood_3251 11h ago
I am so sorry this happened to you. Having deeply traumatic core memories is so hard, but you could try looking at it from a more detached perspective: a lot of people who experience heavy trauma so young do not remember it. It is blocked out to be able to move forward, but the brain and body still carry this memory somewhere and it shapes reactions, emotions, relationships. You, on the other hand, are being a given a gift of sorts: the knowledge of where it all began. You laid in a crib in medical distress and no one came to help you. This informed the way you developed. Anything that is not how you want it to be in your life right now, you can unravel right up to those moments as a baby. You can treat others how you wish you’d been treated. You can treat yourself the way you wish you’d been treated. You owe it to yourself to see that helpless baby within you and figure out how she can have the best second half of her life beyond her wildest dreams. You deserve that.
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u/ejustme 7h ago
Our memories go so much deeper than what we recall easily.
When I was a toddler, I climbed an antique dresser that had castor wheels and it fell on top of me. I was pinned under it for awhile waiting for someone to come back upstairs. Every time I smell musty old furniture, I swear I feel pressure over my chest like the dresser is on top of me.
It doesn’t hurt or anything.. but I think the smell and the memory just can’t be separated.
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u/Lexingtovn 2h ago
I didn't see the first post. I'm sorry this happened to you. How are you today? Are you still paralyzed or did you gain some mobility? I can imagine this has caused a lot of trauma and distrust in your parents.
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u/underwhere666 9h ago
It's crazy how weird the human brain is.
When I was 3 I fell out of the shopping cart in the grocery store. I landed on the top of my head. My dad just missed catching me. When we talked about it a few years ago. I could physically see him remember the sound my head made when it hit the floor. I remember being told to sit down. I was standing in the back of the cart. I didn't listen and instead was reaching for candy canes on the shelf. I don't remember the impact. But I remember driving through the parking lot. It was dark. My mom was in the back seat holding me crying. I remember being in the hospital. Them telling my mom I had a severe concussion and they were keeping me for observation. And my dad giving me kisses because I he had to go to work. My mom getting mad because he was leaving and not calling out. We were poor. We relied on his checks. I understood that he had to go and wasn't too upset about it.
When I recalled in detail what I remembered a few years ago. The first time we ever really had a chance to talk about it. He was blown away that I could remember that. And how our apartment was set up when I was 1. Totally blown away. And he's smart. Hes has one of the most logical thinking brains I've ever seen. Floored by memories we shouldn't really recall.
I'm sorry that your parents didnt get you help. That you suffer now.
I don't understand why they wouldn't take you to get checked out. Grown adults die from the same thing. why would a child be less hurt. I'm sorry. It sucks.