Listen now!

In his book, The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck writes:

Frequently… the essence of a patient’s childhood and hence the essence of a patient’s world view is captured in the “earliest memory.” It is probable these first memories… are remembered precisely because they accurately symbolize the nature of the person’s early childhood… The flavor of these earliest memories is so frequently the same as that of the patient’s deepest feelings about existence.

In my earliest memory, I was probably two years old. I am sitting in my highchair in the kitchen and what appears to be an enormous spoon (probably a tablespoon, but I was a baby) is coming at my face. I feel panic and desperation, my body is rigid with resistance, but I am buckled in and have no option but to let the spoon be forced into my mouth. Cod liver oil.

For years I thought it was amusing that I could see and feel my baby self’s perspective. I chuckled at the baby revulsion to the taste of fish oil. It wasn’t until I read Peck’s writing that I realized how the significance. It wasn’t just revulsion at the taste, it was the terror of being trapped and forcibly entered. Any health benefits that cod liver oil contained were far outweighed by the indelible experience of being overpowered and invaded.