The Pond beyond the Forest

Reflections on childhood trauma and Motherhood

The Pond Beyond the Forest explores the long-term effects of attachment trauma on an adult survivor of childhood emotional neglect. From a Japanese and American cross-cultural perspective, it illustrates how hidden attachment wounds can lead to a host of issues, including parenting struggles, marital strife, and mental health challenges.

When Shigeko was twenty-two, she immigrated to America to escape Japan’s rigid society and a neglectful family situation that had landed her in a mental hospital at seventeen. She thrived in the new, healthier environment, believing her traumatic past was behind her.

Later in life, however, motherhood didn’t come easily as she often felt burned out from overcompensating to provide her son with the love and attention she wished she’d received as a child.

And when her son enters high school and she tries to deal with his emotional outbursts and rebellious behavior, she sees mirrored in him aspects of her childhood anxiety and depression. The past she thought she’d left behind reemerges with intense flashbacks. When overwhelmed by daily stresses, she regresses into defensive, childlike behaviors and mood swings that threaten family stability she worked so hard to build.

After trips home to Japan to attend her father’s funeral and the first anniversary of his death, she begins to find a path forward. She reimmerses herself in her family’s dysfunctional dynamics and revisits the source of her trauma, gaining new insight into her situation. The friction at home in Seattle suddenly seems to pale in comparison; her family still has a chance—or so she thinks. She returns to Seattle determined to heal herself and mend the fractured relationships with both her husband and son. But soon, what seemed like a straightforward reconciliation becomes unexpectedly complicated.

Told with blunt honesty but softened with humor, The Pond Beyond the Forest offers a voice-driven narrative that delves into motherhood, marriage, menopause, and mental health. The story alternates between her present life as a mother and wife in Seattle and her troubled upbringing by emotionally distant parents in Japan. As she bravely confronts and uncovers the root causes of her lifelong struggles, she transforms her experiences into both a cautionary tale and a message of hope, demonstrating that healing from childhood attachment trauma is truly possible.