Note: This piece talks about sexual abuse. Please use your discretion.
I never felt fully safe in my body. I never trusted my brain either which meant I wasn’t capable of acknowledging that my body was harboring years of abuse and pain. None of it ready to be felt or brought to the surface—but always in the background lingering.
Due to the young age that I first experienced sexual abuse, I was unable to fully comprehend what was happening. My brain hid the details of these memories, as it wasn’t safe to feel these in my body or be consciously aware of what it all meant. I knew what happened wasn’t right, however, as I didn’t verbally say “no,” I convinced myself that this meant I was okay with what happened, that it was somehow normal. This all was repressed for 20 years. 20 years where I was “blissfully” unaware of the detailed trauma stored in my body.
It’s still challenging for me to acknowledge what happened 20 years later—something so violent and emotionally charged that mirrored repressed experiences from my childhood. At first, there was a lot of confusion and helplessness as to why I now had daily panic attacks and anxiety as a result. But I had been forced to relive the horrible feeling of being pinned under the weight of a man’s body I did not want against me. In order to get through the awful experience again, I was triggered into a dissociative state. Just as it had as a child, my brain once again used dissociation to protect me. It was a way to block the pain and disconnect from the hurt as I didn’t know any other way to “deal with it” at the time.
It wasn’t until I began somatic therapy and focused on my body as a source of truth that I was opened up to a new avenue of healing. According to Harvard Health, somatic therapy “explores how the body expresses deeply painful experiences, applying mind-body healing to aid with trauma recovery.”
I used to hold such shame, blame, and hate for my body for putting me through this. I now have an appreciation that it was doing all it could, with what it knew at the time. Learning to trust my body’s sensations has not been easy. Often when trying to listen to my body and understand its cues, my brain struggles to identify the difference between safely accessing these sensations in therapy and physically being in those situations again. While waiting for the safety necessary for my brain to be ready to process them, my body has held these secrets, memories, and pain.
I’ve had to relearn to trust my body and to trust myself. To learn a new approach to rediscovering my body with as much curiosity as possible, rather than fear of the unknown and what might be remembered, and possibly, triggered. To trust that therapy is a safe space to feel and no one is able to harm me there, including myself. To have compassion for myself when my brain still thinks it’s too dangerous and shuts off by practicing patience and curiosity.
I’ve also learned that whilst gently applying pressure to areas of tightness in the body works to ground some people, I couldn’t touch my collarbones, throat, or calf muscle as these places held specific, painful details that would transport me back.
At the time, having these feelings come to the surface was downright scary. However, knowing the reason behind these cues eventually gifted me with the power of understanding. I had previously felt unsafe in my body. But all along, my body was trying to communicate with me, I just wasn’t ready to feel safe enough to listen. For the first time in my life the sensations made sense, and with that sense came clarity.
Understanding the “why” behind the feelings made them less scary and uncomfortable. I replaced fear with compassion and empathy. I had the safe space and tools to now dive deeper and listen.
I often wonder if I had just never gone to therapy, had just been “strong enough” to keep the feelings pushed down, could I have forgone the painful process of discovering everything? But maybe the process would have just been delayed. I have so much compassion for my body in how it protected me until I was ready. I am not broken, I am not weak, I am now ready. To be present, to learn about myself, and to grieve the person I thought I was. The closed-off scared human, who constantly had to prove herself and help others because she could not give herself permission to feel and to heal.
I’m not going to lie to you by saying that every day is easier than the last. I’m not here for the false narrative of a highlight reel. But I will say that it does get better. You adapt, you learn, and you find grace for the parts of yourself that were once scared, yet are now boldly accepting that this journey is worth showing up and sticking around for. While there is darkness and the intimidation of the unknown, there is also hope and healing. You can learn to trust yourself again. To find safety in yourself. To know when it is speaking to you and how to listen.
You’re more than your pain, more than what happened. You are strong enough to heal from the heavy you carry. We encourage you to use TWLOHA’s FIND HELP Tool to locate professional help and to read more stories like this one here. If you reside outside of the US, please browse our growing International Resources database. You can also text TWLOHA to 741741 to be connected for free, 24/7 to a trained Crisis Text Line counselor. If it’s encouragement or a listening ear that you need, email our team at [email protected].