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Saturday, November 13, 2010

Body Memories

Although things have drastically improved since my move, the one thing that will not leave me alone is the body memories. The physical pain when I know there's nothing physically wrong. It makes me feel a little crazy, but mostly, I can deal with them now. At least they don't come with the flashbacks and the completely losing my mind that used to come...

I spend a lot of time on the After the Silence boards. I first went there, because I wanted to find someone, ANYONE who had been through what I was going through and survived (at the least, and really I wanted to find people that were happy.) I realized while on those boards that most of the people there are there looking for support, but when you don't need support anymore, you stop going to those boards. I want to be there to give encouragement to people who are just starting their individual journeys.

Today, I found something that could help me.
"In order to heal from a body memory, you must do the opposite of what you want to do - you need to let your body release the memory. Just like with visual flashbacks, you will only be haunted by them while you fight them. After you release them, your body no longer feels the need to experience them.

Releasing a body memory is not fun. You must surrender to the awful feelings and allow your body to feel really bad for a little while. However, if you talk yourself through them, then they will no longer plague you. Tell yourself that you already survived the abuse, so you can survive the memory. Be loving to your body and tell it that you are sorry that it endured so much abuse.

It helps if you can connect back the source of the memory to the traumatizing event. This gives the body memory a context and helps you move past the need to continue experiencing the body memory." 
I have understood this concept, but putting in the context of body memories... it just makes sense. Stop resisting. Accept the pain. Move with it. Listen to it. When it has said its piece it will leave me alone.

Here's to the next step in the journey.

2 comments:

  1. Great post, with some useful advice (about things I'm not brave enough to share online)

    Thanks for sharing, and thanks for stopping by my blog!

    -Lady Fromage

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  2. That doesn't sound fun. Hopefully you can get through that part of the process sooner rather than later.

    ReplyDelete