My Journey Through Dissociation and Repressed Memories

For decades, my mind protected me from the unimaginable. Through severe dissociation, it locked away the full scope of childhood trauma, leaving me completely unaware of my own history. But while my mind chose to forget, my body kept a meticulous ledger of everything that happened.

It took years, a career path that led me to the halls of the U.S. Senate, and the eventual passing of my abuser for those walls to finally come down. This is the story of how my trauma hid in plain sight, how my body tried to speak when I couldn’t, and how I am finally understanding the language of my survival.

The Invisible Fortress of Mind and Body

Looking back, the signs of deep dissociation were woven into the fabric of my earliest years. I just didn’t have the words for it then.

A Teacher’s Hidden Concern

In elementary school, one of my teachers sensed that something was deeply wrong. I vividly remember being called into a small room with her and a few other adults. They began asking me direct questions about being abused. I sat there feeling completely confused. Because my mind had locked the trauma behind an iron door, I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Though I couldn’t answer them then, today I want to deeply thank that teacher who noticed, cared, and tried to help me.

Disconnected from Physical Pain

That same survival mechanism completely severed my connection to physical pain. My mind didn’t just mute emotions; it muted my nervous system:

• The Junior High Hockey Game: An opposing player threatened to hit me if I took the ball. I took it anyway, and she struck my ankle with her stick as hard as she could. No one saw it, so I simply kept playing. It wasn’t until the game ended and I pulled off my shoe that I discovered a severely swollen, sprained ankle.
• The Pencil Incident: In high school, I was standing in the kitchen chatting on the phone. My mother looked down in horror—there was a pencil sticking straight out of my foot. I felt absolutely nothing and had to be taken to the hospital for removal.
• Severe Kitchen Injuries: On separate occasions, I cut my fingers so deeply while cooking that I required stitches. Yet, I never felt an ounce of pain.
  Today, I understand that severe physical analgesia is a classic, profound sign of trauma-induced dissociation.

When Sanctuary Becomes a Trigger

I have always loved God and loved going to church, but traditional environments hold a strange, involuntary trigger for my nervous system.

Throughout my entire life, I would often begin to weep uncontrollably during church services. Later, when I worked as a photographer for the U.S. Senate, I eagerly joined the staff Bible studies. But the pattern followed me. Every single time, I would start to cry. It was incredibly embarrassing. I would frequently flee the room in tears, eventually forcing me to stop attending the Senate studies altogether.

Now, at 56 years old, I still struggle in traditional church settings. I know now that many of my memories are still repressed, and the environment itself acts as a somatic trigger. To protect my peace while feeding my faith, I do my Bible studies every single day in the comfort of my home. Every once in a while, I test the waters and try going back to a service, honoring my spiritual needs at a pace my body can handle.

The Phantom Illnesses: Stored Trauma in the Body

For all of my adult life, I have been plagued by sudden, severe stomach pain and overwhelming sickness. Time and again, I have rushed to emergency rooms and doctors’ offices. Every time, the results come back identical: my blood work is perfect, and doctors find absolutely nothing physically wrong with me.

My body was crying out, staging protests when my boundaries were crossed:

• The Senate Office: While standing for a long assignment taking photos in a Senator’s office, I suddenly became hot, sweaty, and weak. A coworker noted I looked deathly pale and walked me to the nurse. Physically, I was fine.
• The Patio Conversation: I love my neighbors. One evening, I was enjoying the view of a pond from my patio when a neighbor stopped to chat. We had a wonderful, long conversation. But mid-chat, a wave of sickness hit me, and I had to cut it short.
• The Museum Collapse: I volunteered for nearly three years at the Corning Museum of Glass. Working quietly on a solo project in the library was wonderful. But when I transitioned to the museum floor—answering guest questions and interacting heavily—my body hit a wall. I couldn’t handle more than an hour of a two-hour shift. The interaction exhausted and stressed my system. One day, my body simply shut down, and I collapsed to the ground. My mother had to rescue me and drive me to the hospital. Again, medically, nothing was wrong.

The Slow Road to Cohesion

My memories only began to resurface as fragmented, strange childhood recollections and isolated, frozen images during my time working at the Senate. It wasn’t until my retirement, followed by the passing of my abuser, that the timeline finally became fully cohesive. The threat was finally gone, and my brain finally deemed it safe to remember.
Just today, I went back to the Corning Museum of Glass to take a public tour as a guest. It was a fantastic tour, and I learned so much. But true to form, 30 minutes in, the heat, dizziness, and nausea crept back.

This time, something was different: I understood why.

I knew it wasn’t a medical emergency; it was stored trauma waking up under social and sensory stimulation. I chose to stay on the tour. I pushed through, and I am so glad I did. It took a couple of hours afterward for my body to settle down and feel good again, but I survived it consciously.

Healing from severe dissociation isn’t about suddenly becoming “fixed.” It is about learning to listen to your body without fear, recognizing your limits, and thanking your mind for the radical, quiet ways it kept you alive until you were strong enough to face the truth.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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