Little Girl Found: A German Woman’S Story of Tuberculosis, Trauma, and Healing

By Kerstin E. White

In 1963, at the age of three, Kerstin contracted tuberculosis and spent more than a year in a childrens hospital, or Kinderklinik, in southern Germany, separated from her family. For a long time, the impact of her early childhood trauma on her psyche and soul remained hidden in her subconscious until the psychological symptoms surfaced in adulthood.

In group therapy, Kerstin uncovers the power of writing. The creative voice inside her awakens as she opens her heart to powerful spiritual experiences. With the help of a trauma psychologist, she faces her early creation of a false self, proving her youthful resilience. She eventually returns to the Kinderklinik and finds her way back to her true self.

Integrating the present and past, author Kerstin White describes her healing techniques and therapeutic modalities, including energy work and sandplay therapy. Using writing that is intimate and evocative, Little Girl Found is an endearing, deeply moving memoir about the soul of a child, the healing power of art, and the grace of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Apr 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781982202484

Kerstin E. White

Kerstin E. White was trained as a psychotherapist with a specialty in sandplay therapy and poetry therapy. She has masters degrees in French literature and counseling psychology. She grew up in Germany and moved to the United States in her early twenties. Currently, she lives with her husband in New Jersey and New Hampshire.

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Copyright © 2018 Kerstin E. White.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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ISBN: 978-1-9822-0247-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-0249-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-0248-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018904670

Balboa Press rev. date: 04/24/2018

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Contents

Prologue — The Message

Section I: 1963–1965

Chapter 1 - Kinderklinik

Chapter 2 - Guardian Angel

Chapter 3 - Diagnosis

Chapter 4 - Farewell

Chapter 5 - Fall

Chapter 6 - Surprise

Chapter 7 - Christmas

Chapter 8 - Painting

Chapter 9 - Spring

Chapter 10 - Summer

Section II: 1997–2015

Chapter 11 - Childhood Trauma

Chapter 12 - Return

Chapter 13 - Ulrichskapelle

Chapter 14 - Displacement

Chapter 15 - The Artist

Chapter 16 - Winter Garden

Chapter 17 - Altarbild

Chapter 18 - Sandplay

Chapter 19 - Lake

Chapter 20 - Treasure

Epilogue — Providence

Acknowledgments

Appendix — Letters from the Prinzregent Luitpold Kinderklinik

In memory of

Erich Horndasch

Kirchenmaler

(Church Artist)

June 22, 1926–May 1, 2010

Everything we see is in reality without color! Only we produce the colors into this world.

I think the time has come to re-learn what we have forgotten. We should dare to listen and look inside. We should become conscious of our feelings—and who could argue that they are not real—and of the deeper knowledge of the soul.

—Erich Horndasch

For my children,

Janine, Lisa, and Windy (Eric)

Author’s note: This book is based on true incidents. However, some names, place descriptions, and details have been changed to protect the privacy and confidentiality of people and institutions.

Prologue

The Message

I didn’t know yet that a long road lay ahead of me

On a cool, gray morning in December 1996, I was driving south on the New Jersey Turnpike on my way to Brooklyn for my first poetry-therapy workshop. The group was being guided by Robin, a clinical social worker who specialized in this therapeutic approach. I had just turned thirty-seven, and the familiar stirrings in my subconscious had become too powerful to ignore. I was at a turning point in my life. What gave my life meaning? Now I was curious and wanted to find out what poetry therapy was all about.

To my left, I glimpsed the runways of Newark Liberty International Airport. A Lufthansa plane was circling and beginning its descent. I was thinking about the farewell to my parents a few weeks ago after their yearly visit with us. In late December 1980, I had come to the US from Germany on a work-study program, and like some others, I wound up staying. Since 1983, I had been happily married to an American. With my husband, Richard, and our children—Janine (ten), Lisa (nine), and Eric (three)—I had been living for nine years in Madison, New Jersey.

I had taken my parents to the airport. My father, dressed in a sport coat and holding a travel briefcase, had checked the tickets. My mother, dressed in a white blouse and jeans that accentuated her slender figure, was standing in front of me. Around her neck, she wore a light-blue scarf with flowers that complemented her short gray hair. Her eyes were moist. When we embraced to say goodbye, I was overcome with emotion and could not summon any words, just like her. With all my strength, I was fighting back tears without knowing exactly why I was so sad. Why this parting was reminding me of others long ago, I would only find out later.

I accelerated and followed the signs to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Don’t be so emotional, I told myself. Better to concentrate on the traffic. I was clutching the steering wheel with moist hands. The impressive steel girders of the bridge rose before me. In the center lane, away from the railing, I felt more secure and glimpsed leftward toward the imposing Manhattan skyline. Under the bridge, little eddies swirled in the water. Look ahead, I urged myself. It was my family’s motto as I was growing up. You are almost over the bridge.

At the Brooklyn exit, my grip finally relaxed. Since Janine’s birth, I had been afraid of heights. Maybe my old separation anxiety had resurfaced when I became a mother. In a few minutes, I was back on firm ground as I drove through a residential area with skyscrapers. Blocks of concrete were surrounded by patches of grass. A few children were frolicking around a playground, surrounded by a wire fence. An old woman in a black coat was walking her dog on a leash. As I stepped out of the car in front of Robin’s office, I avoided a small brown puddle from an overturned Styrofoam coffee cup. The difference to Madison, a quaint town on the train line to New York, could not have been more pronounced. But I was glad to be in Brooklyn.

Robin, an amiable woman a little older than me, gave me a friendly greeting in the hallway of her office and led me to a bright room. I took a seat on a leather couch. Next to me on comfortable chairs were several women with journals on their laps.

Please help yourself, said Robin, pointing to a table with bagels, cream cheese, coffee, and teas.

We introduced ourselves. Most of the participants already knew each other. At first I was a little nervous, but then the words flowed. I don’t have a lot of experience in creative writing, but in my studies of English and French literature, I have read and analyzed a lot of fiction and poetry. After the birth of my son three years ago, I gave up teaching French, and now I am open to a more personal connection to writing. I am looking for something deeper and more fulfilling in my life. But I don’t know exactly what I am seeking.

The women listened attentively to me, and one smiled and nodded. I felt immediately accepted into the circle.

You have come to the right place, said Robin with encouragement. Then she proceeded to explain the basics of poetry therapy. A poem can be a bridge to the inner world. I will pick a few poems, which we will read together. Through associations with symbols, metaphors, and images of poetic language, your own concerns can surface, and you can release emotions in a safe way.

She continued, I’m going to give you prompts based on the poems that we read. While doing your own writing, you can experience the therapeutic power of writing, express your feelings more easily, and process and integrate traumatic events.

All this sounded a little theoretical to me, but Robin had piqued my interest, and I was eager to find out what I would discover and experience in our monthly group sessions.

That afternoon, we started by drawing a life map of the stages of our lives on a large sheet of paper with colorful markers. I don’t remember the details, except that the stages of my life appeared in broad strokes along a winding river. Something must have caught Robin’s attention, because she told me to write a poem as we concluded the session.

I pondered Robin’s suggestion. I had never written a poem before and didn’t know where to start. That evening, I was sitting in my bed, exhausted after my eventful trip to Brooklyn. The house was quiet, and the children were already asleep. I took a pencil and a notebook in my hands and started writing a poem that wound up writing itself.

Homecoming

A smiling face and dancing feet

On a platform where joy and sorrow meet—

Like a little dancing clown

She avoids even the slightest frown.

Endless hours pass her by

While her sparkling eyes gaze at the sky.

Many mountains lie over there.

To reach her home she cannot dare.

The passing clouds on the firmament

Write their stories without lament—

There is hope in the fresh mountain air.

Tears and pain are part of life’s share.

Thousands of lights burn in the night.

Holding a strong hand with all her might,

She sits on a train that carries her home

Toward outstretched arms, never again alone.

She goes to bed early that night

With her clothes neatly folded by her side.

The rising morn will surely bring

A child living from the outside in.

I read the poem again and again, first to myself and then to Richard. Tears ran down my face. The door to my childhood trauma had opened.

In 1963–1964, when I was three and four years old, I spent fifteen months with little contact with my family in a children’s sanatorium in southern Germany. Like my mother, I was suffering from tuberculosis. A shorter stay of three months followed a year later in 1965. For a long time, my unconscious held on to my childhood trauma, but now I was slowly uncovering it. The wound was almost as old as I was. The pain was deep. Through writing, I was for the first time in my life establishing a connection to my inner child, the abandoned little girl from long ago. In the workshops that followed, my childhood trauma moved into the background again, but I was learning to express myself creatively and to blossom. A year later, I would find out that my poem had already kindled a spiritual movement in my soul.

In June 1997, Richard and I were attending the regular Sunday service at the United Methodist Church in Madison, where we were members. Richard, with his short brown hair and hazel eyes, was casually dressed in beige slacks and his favorite light-blue polo shirt. His arm rested gently on my shoulders. Rays of sun were falling softly through the high arches of the church windows. They looked like golden threads woven together into a blanket. I was drowsy and lost in my thoughts. Suddenly my daydreams were interrupted by Eric, our assistant minister.

My two years with your congregation are coming to an end, he began his final sermon. My wife and I will miss all of you very much.

Eric had finished his studies in theology at Drew University in Madison and would soon take a new position at a church in Pennsylvania. I had always liked Eric, not only because he carried my son’s name, but also because he reminded me of an old high school friend in Germany. He reached for his Bible and recited Matthew 9:20–22 NIV:

Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind [Jesus] and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed. Jesus turned and saw her. Take heart, daughter, he said, your faith has healed you. And the woman was healed at that moment.

The woman symbolized all those who felt lonely and at the margins of society. Pain and shame were embodied in her. Eric continued, She reminds me of the people here in the US who were afflicted by tuberculosis at the turn of the century. The illness turned them into outsiders, who were sent to remote sanatoriums in Pennsylvania and New York State to heal. They were cast out because their disease was highly contagious.

At the word tuberculosis, I was startled to the core. Being an outsider was a feeling with which I was very familiar. Since my early years, I had often felt an invisible wall that separated me from other children. Somehow I was different and didn’t know exactly why. I could have only guessed that it had something to do with my long stay in the Kinderklinik (children’s clinic). Despite appearing happy on the outside, I suffered from a deep sense of inner turmoil that I didn’t understand. I felt like a cut-down Tannenbaum, brightly adorned but separated from the earth. Maybe I had never stopped looking at the world with the eyes of