body memories

body memories
K

Kid A

Registrant
Sometimes my body feels contorted, disgusting, strained, and stuck. For instance occasionally I'll notice I am biting on my tongue or have my neck pinched against my shoulder. Sometimes I just feel dirty, oily and disgusting. Physically, however, I am thankful for my general health, but these feelings are sometimes overwhelming. My therapist reminds me that they are trauma reactions related to the abuse, that my body stored the overwhelming discomfort and terror that happened during the abuse and now triggers can envoke body memories. Yoga has been helping me develop body awareness, and when these memories come on the best thing I can do is be mindful of what is happening rather than trying to resist (which leaves me feeling even more stuck and strained). Something that somebody here said a while back is that your feelings are real but not necesseraly true. I'm taking somebody else's guilt and perversion that was forced upon me when I was a child. It is still here years later and its my job to figure out how to let go of it. I have to remember when these body memories come back that they are passing, that they are not me. It gets very hard sometimes and brings me to a near panic. I lose sleep and often forget there is any cause for why my body is freaking out (occasionaly there are visual memories which makes it easier for me to understand what is happening, but not always).
 
I think I can kinda relate. we I feel a trigger sometimes i'll get this sharp pain going down the back of my neck or get into this hypervigilant state (pure Sympathetic mode with my adrenals glands baginging out adrenaline) I used to combat this with numbing out and one of those ways was by Driking ALOT and many times passing out from it. I've began to not use that vice anymore and was thinking about trying Yoga or meditation-i heared Biofeedback works for some people-it probly incormporates vaso vagal manuvers and the vagus nerve.


I always resisted trying yoga 'cause I asociated it with somehow being effeminate-but I don't feel that way anymore.

I don't kno if this helps but just waqnted to let you kno I get the same physical body 'symptoms' that I think you get.

Take care.

-Logan
 
Kid A
Thank you for posting this. I have been having some body memories lately and I have scoured this site for mention of them. I wanted to post but didn't want to be the first. On Sunday my body went through like a whole re-enactment thing. It was like I wasn't there and my body was just going through all the motions. Then I felt his hand on my arm and my arm just started to flick him off. It carried on. And it happened the next day.
It's so weird. It's like a memory without emotion. Like a memory without a picture. I felt more present afterwards. Like something had shifted, come undone.
So weird. And I feel like its only just begun.
 
Meditation is amazing. You can feel the hyper-vigilence in your body, sit with it, and then feel it soften and melt.
 
Thanks for the responses. One book thats helped me too is called Waking the Tiger: Healing from Trauma. Its not specifically written about sexually abuse but really shows how trauma is stored in the mind and body and how we need to release it by becoming aware of our feelings and physical sensations. It helped me get out of my head a bit anyways.
 
Some time ago I wrote loads on mind/body memory.
Dont try figure it yourself google it, there is loads on the subject.

It basically says that the mind cannot store all the hurt so it places memories in the body to surface later and be dealt with by nightmares etc.

It is best to find the best type of therapy to release these 'stored' memories,

ste
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top