A Change of Scenery to Heal the Body and the Mind

***TRIGGER ALERT***

The content in the article describes child abuse and may be triggering for some readers. 

Child abuse and trauma survivors often feel misunderstood and marginalized in society. After having survived life-changing traumatic events by the people who should have protected us, the world doesn’t quite make sense to us. Our abuser’s betrayal is too deeply ingrained, which results in not trusting anyone as adults. The physical pain from abuse goes away with time but the emotional scars come back as vivid flashbacks whenever life throws us a curveball from a trigger. Triggers can happen anytime and anywhere, and no matter how hard a survivor tries to escape them, they are literally everywhere. Triggers often happen with our senses. It can be a smell that takes us back to a painful memory, a song on the radio triggering an event that happened, or a word that triggers us to tense and want to fight or escape. There are a lot of articles and other literature out there on how to deal with triggers. Sometimes for a survivor, life can become suddenly overwhelming. One small trigger can turn into a massive flashback, which runs in a 3D loop around your head and will not stop. Most of the time we can shrug those flashbacks away with tools and techniques that we have learned. Sometimes a small trigger can turn into an emotional shutdown where the trigger is so overwhelming that all you feel is terror and darkness. I have been in this state a few times in my life.

Living in a state of full alert due to horrific flashbacks is exhausting. Eventually, the body follows the mind by breaking down. Trauma memories are not just in the brain but all over the body. If you have read Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps the Score you will know that trauma is not just kept in the brain. Memories exist in the whole body, in every cell, follicle, organ, and muscle. This is why a survivor might suffer longer from sickness than others. When the mind is experiencing an emotional shutdown, the body will also sometimes shut down to protect itself.  Have you ever had a flashback and then gotten a migraine afterward? Or maybe you suffer from stomach pains? Maybe you have this unexplainable pain somewhere in your body that comes and goes for no reason. As a survivor of sexual abuse, I can give you an example: I have these phantom pains in my wrists and I know they are from when I was handcuffed and gang raped. I have to tell myself that the pain I’m feeling was real a long time ago. It is my body remembering and my way of acknowledging that the trauma of being restrained is not yet a healed memory. I know this will take time and acknowledging that I know and understand the pain is a small step. These random pains are your body reminding you that you are not fixed… yet. Healing from years of child abuse takes time and cannot be rushed. One memory can take years to heal fully, especially if that trauma occurred at a very young age. For someone who has never been traumatized, I can compare this state with how the body deals with stress. Most adults understand what it feels like to be stressed or in a stressful situation. Coming “back” after a flashback is a bit like the aftermath of a highly stressful situation. It can feel like you have run a marathon inside your head. It is exhausting!

When life gets on top of me and I struggle for “air,” I reach out to like-minded people. Other CSA survivors are giving me so much more from snippets of brief conversations, using the right words than my friends who know me as “Lizzy.” Most of my friends only know the adult me and have no idea what I have been through in my past. Having been abused and sharing that with someone takes a lot of trust. It certainly isn’t dinner conversation! I have often thought about myself as living with different masks depending on who I am with and where I am.  I have my “mom” mask, my “wife” mask, my “friend” mask, my “work” mask, and I can go on. You get the idea. Depending on which mask I’m wearing, I act differently. There is, however, not one mask that fits me when I am dealing with an emotional shutdown. I don’t think there is for anyone. Talking is often impossible because trauma memories are so full of terror that we can only sense them. Most of these memories are from a time when a survivor was non-verbal or selectively mute. We had no words because our brains couldn’t make sense of what we were experiencing. This is why a trigger causing a trauma memory is so frightening because a survivor is reliving the past as if it was happening right there and then.

Complete emotional shutdowns

A few weeks ago I had an epic flashback, which caught me completely unprepared. Over a few days, it evolved into complete emotional and physical chaos and I felt awful. My body was telling me to slow down and “face the music” or else I would suffer more. I did the worst I could do, thinking I could just ignore it by doing some breathing and grounding exercises. I was busy and I chose to ignore my body and just “wing it” through the day. The trauma memory kept on getting stronger and stronger. I carried on with work and being “mom” at my usual hectic pace of being everywhere for everyone else but me. Of course, it did not work! Not only did my mood change during the days but my nightmares were terrorizing me every night. I became physically sick and lost my voice completely. Every cell in my body was telling me to STOP! I had to listen to myself and face the inevitable. Counseling was impossible because I couldn’t speak and I was too sick to process anything. Life had become overwhelming and I was stuck in an emotional and physical shutdown. 

I stopped and I listened to my body. I let the memories play out and opened the floodgates of pain. I cried like the Sahara desert was depending on my tears to cover it in green pastures instead of sand. All the guilt and fear poured out of me from my most painful memories. As I was cooking dinner, one of my kids even said, “Mom, you have water leaking from your eyes. Are you sick?” I didn’t even know I was crying. I must have cried gallons because I had to drink a lot of water and my head was exploding in pain. After a few days of rest, my voice came back, and I stopped being physically sick. My pounding headache became more of a gentle throb as my temperature subsided and I could breathe a little easier. The huge weight in my throat was easing. I went back to my therapist for professional help, but even the sessions were not enough. I was still not feeling like myself.

My husband booked a spa getaway for a few nights and it was just what I needed to get my equilibrium back. I had never been to a spa before, and I did not know what to expect. I also have a very complicated relationship with water due to trauma. The very trauma which got me into this emotional shutdown to begin with. Dark flowing river water terrifies me, but clean pool water has become my sanctuary. I have learned to relax in a swimming pool. The solitude and mechanism that swimming brings has helped me relax and overcome flashbacks in the past. My husband took a gamble that I would enjoy a spa getaway and it paid off. Without having to take care of everyone around me and just focus on myself, I could rest, recover and recharge. I managed to work on all the “R’s” and I started feeling much better. The restoring effect of the water jets on my body in the spa went a long way to heal my aching muscles. The eucalyptus steam room helped my breathing and eased my throat, nursing my voice back with its gentle and healing aroma. I was starting to get my equilibrium back. As my body healed, my mind was also feeling better. We used the sports amenities and went for long hikes on the trails offered by the resort. It was bliss and just the mini vacation I needed. By taking a break from everything, my body and mind were able to rest and recover from the emotional shutdown. I was able to think clearly again and get perspective on my feelings. I understand why my body and mind reacted the way it did. All of the above forced me to stop and take notice of my needs. The body and mind have a close relationship.

Take a break when life becomes “too much”

Most people get completely absorbed in their normal busy schedules and often forget how important it is for our bodies and minds to rest, recover, and recharge. I call it the three R’s. These are three little words that should mean so very much and take place often in our busy lives. In reality, they have almost no place in our busy schedules. Life comes first, and our busy deadlines and commitments to be at a place at a specific time take over everything and override our basal instincts. Sadly, this is how we live in our fast-paced society. Everything happens instantly. Phones ring off the hook, meetings take place all the time, deliveries are constantly arriving at our doorsteps, and our kids go to school where they barely get time for recess. Life is busy in the 21st century, but it wasn’t always like that. In the past, our societies were slower-paced. Before the internet, cell phones, and fast food we relied on “snail mail” and landlines to communicate and ate homecooked meals. Deliveries could take weeks to arrive, and we had to delay our expectations of instant gratification. They are now a vague memory for many people, and I count myself in this category. I can barely remember life before the internet.

It is only when our bodies scream for us to relax and we get sick that we stop and listen. We need to take better care of ourselves. As a survivor of child abuse, I am the last person to think about myself first. I know I am not alone in being this way because it is a common defense mechanism after being abused. I will move heaven and earth to help others to the detriment of my own needs. I know I should be paying myself a lot more attention and listening to my own needs, but I always choose others first. 

Are you a survivor like me? Have you ever felt overwhelmed by life after a flashback? Why don’t you try to take a mini vacation away from it all for a few days? Whatever you do after a trauma memory, make sure you take care of yourself. You are uniquely worthy, and you matter.