Dis-embodied!

'He got the belt out again.

She pulled down her little trousers.

The first lash, a whip across her five-year-old bare skin.

A sound split the air, a screech.

It was hers.

She had already gone.

Gone somewhere else in her head.

Her place of escape.

Where pain could not find her.

She screamed louder,

cried harder,

hoping it would satisfy him.

Hoping he’d feel he’d done enough.

Hoping he’d stop.

She doesn’t remember if it worked.

She had gone somewhere else in her head.

The offence?

Seconds of chocolate cake and custard at his friend’s house.

The lesson learned:

Her body is not her friend.

She hated her body.

She treated her poorly.

She tried to destroy her.

She starved her from the earliest days,

feeding her was an ordeal,

a battlefield where control was the only weapon.

The enemy?

Her own flesh.

Her own skin.

She hated her body.

Food became a language of power.

Feeding her, or not, was the only thing she could control in a world that felt unsafe.

She starved her so much, her mother worried.

Meals shrank to crumbs, tiny portions for a child far older than her plate suggested.

Still, she didn’t eat.

It went on for years. It was an ordeal.

Her mother worried. She worried so much she tried to force food down her throat.

That didn’t work.

She would go somewhere else in her head.

When she reached her teens, starving her didn’t satisfy.

So she began to overfeed her instead, a family pattern, a cycle of punishment and comfort.

She didn’t feed her body nourishment. She fed her emptiness, until fullness became unbearable, and she threw it up.

By sixteen, she starved her body again, ate only in public when she had to, then purged in secret.

She couldn’t allow her body even a fragment of sustenance.

She hated her body.

By seventeen, she was with a man

a grown man,

a violent man.

A man who hurt her,

punished her,

treated her badly.

It was okay.

She already knew how to leave.

She already knew how to go

somewhere else in her head.

Disassociation from body and mind is a common characteristic of trauma sufferers, the desire to escape. Those who have suffered trauma exist in a world separate and distinct, often vacating the body, so as not feel pain. As result, emotions are shut down and shut out, leading to an emotional range so stunted that only extreme emotions are felt. So, extreme actions, extreme reactions, extreme relationships and extreme circumstances are attracted, because extreme is needed just to feel something!

It is no surprise that addicts of all kinds will say;

'I wanted to get out of my head'

'I wanted oblivion'

'I drank/used to escape'

We who have suffered trauma often have difficulty being in our body, living in the present, being in the here and now. Being fully present in mind and body can be excruciating, because there is so much stored in the body, waiting to be felt, wanting to be let go.

Some people are so much 'in their head' that they have lost connection with their body. It may seem obvious to state that our minds are for thinking and our bodies are for feeling, but that is not the case for those who have suffered trauma. The more extensive the trauma, the greater the disconnection between mind and body, thinking and feeling. Some trauma sufferers have lost all sense of connection to their feeling world, so they feel, in their head; that is, they imagine what feeling is like, because getting in touch with the real feelings, can be too painful, too overwhelming. But, the path to re-connection, to real connection and to love and joy is wholly possible.

We have many behaviours that serve as an escape, using people, places and things (food, drugs, sex, work, tv, exercise, overly focusing on helping (or hating) others, social media, busy-ness, internet, porn, we can use anything). It is not uncommon, especially in this time of social media, photo-shop and filters, for us to look in the mirror and pick ourselves apart, unable to love the skin we are in, because of the social messages we receive of not (good) enough-ness. So, we change, we augment, we cut and shape and reshape ourselves looking for the perfect shape. This can also be an escape, never satisfied, always something wrong, hoping that fixing the outside will fix the inside. But, the path to re-connection, to real connection and to love and joy is wholly possible.

Our bodies are not who we are, we are spirit beings inhabiting this sacred and precious vehicle. It is our means of experiencing the world around us, learning our lessons and growing. It gets battered and bruised along the way, it is not who we really are, but it is the key to it.

The path to re-connection, real connection, to love and joy is wholly possible.

The path to reconnection, to feeling safe in your own skin, is possible. Through gentle, embodied practices, we can reclaim the body as our ultimate ally, not an enemy. This is the heart of Somatic Resonance Alchemy: restoring wholeness where fragmentation once ruled.

Somatic Ritual:

This piece was compose in resonance with this song - an invocation and a blessing - you are invited to allow it in.  It resonates with those who have felt the need to retreat from the world to preserve themselves safe one that aligns with trauma, healing, and the search for inner peace.

#bodytherapies #traumabodywork #emdr #hypnotherapytrauama #mentalhealth