The Body Keeps Score
Roots and Truth
Last week I wrote a blog post titled: 5 Physical Factors that Lead to Illness
The post mainly focused on chemicals or viruses getting into the system and creating illness. (Give it a read, if you want a broader view of the five categories that I mentioned.)
The fifth category stepped into a muddy river of discovery that I can’t skip or ignore. This messiness begins with the category of:
And this is where things get muddy—
After YEARS of personal discovery, I realized that events in my life that had happened to my physical body were HUGELY creating my disease. (I’ve been struggling with chronic pain for over 12 years.)
These events, accidents and surgeries are a part of my story, and no they are not chemicals or radiation. They aren’t even mold or bacterial infections (although one of my surgeries caused an undetected bacterial infection that plagued me for years).
What these events had in common was, they shaped the way that my life would unfold. They effected my body. And these specific event created a vulnerability were my immune system was overwhelmed and weary.
This specific article is not about my story, although you can read
more of my story on this blog under the subheading: My Story
Physical and Emotional Processes
This specific blog post, that you are reading, is what I began to observe as I entered the healing community created online. There were many platforms that I used to reach out to individuals, or read their experiences. The first healing community that I was involved with online was the Medical Medium community.
This community was interesting, because the way that Anthony, the teacher in the community encourages those who are looking to heal, is by juicing raw fruits and vegetables and through eating and living majorly on plants.
Through this process, it is encouraged to examine what is coming up emotionally.
My lived experience, when I started juicing, was my emotions were high. Lots of crying. Lots of anger issues that were accompanied by spiritual highs and bursts of physical energy.
I received a lot of clarity as I ate this way and at the same time I was majorly confused! It was a lot of sadness to process and handle. So much of the sadness of childhood came into view, not only for me, but for others that were in the healing community.
I noticed very quickly that physical, or sexual abuse was coming up for almost everyone that was ill and seeking a physical healing. Statistically one in every three women, experience sexual abuse sometime in their lifetime. 2
Estimates for men are not quite as consistent as they are for women. But an estimated one out of six men are victims of sexual abuse. The majority of those men being victimized at 18 years old or younger. 3
It is important to note that the experience of sexual abuse should probably not be shared online, but should be addressed at some point in your healing journey. I have made a list of directories and resources on my website that have links to resources where you can start the healing process on your own (if you struggle with trusting another, or trust has been misused) and, or you can find a trained story work therapist or somatic processing therapist to work with. General therapy is not always the place to go in a case that involves of mistrust and abuse in a person’s history.
Being a victim of sexual abuse is just one of the examples that I will use in this post as I attempt to describe the psychosomatic effects that these types of events can have on the body.
The Body’s Signals and Cues
In my experience, accidents, surgeries or abuse, need to be recognized in order to heal. If the effects of these experiences continue to be ignored (because the truth is, they are hard to handle) most likely the disorder or disease will continue. And the body will continuously send signals and clues that it has the desire to be free.
My example that lead into this blog post was accidents and surgeries. At least for me, these have had not only psychological effects but through the discovery of psychosomatic medicine, my illness has been much more fully explained. As we break down the word psychosomatic here is an overview:
Psycho, is short for psychology; the scientific study of the mind and behavior.
Somatic, stems from the greek work sōma; a word for ‘the living body known from within’, or known to the Self 4
Simply stated, there is research in the medical field behind events that happen to or with the body, that have an effect on our minds, and vise versa. The two work together, and with healing these, the goal is to get the body in sync and in harmony within the landscape of the mind.
Listed below are a few more examples of experiences that may demonstrate how the conditions that we grow up in can shape the mind. The visual starts with my example that accidents and surgeries that I believe affected my overall health. I believe that sports injuries, and birth defects that someone is born with, can be added to this list.
(More reading about the physical causes of disease are written in this post: 5 Physical Factors that Lead to Illness)
These are all examples of stress that happened in everyday life.
Is there anything on this list that has stood out to you?
What would happen to you if you shared about it, to someone that you knew? Are you still at risk to the same abuse that you experienced in your youth?
Takeaways
This was a very important blog post for me to write, because the majority of those who are dealing with unexplained chronic illness are women.
Years ago, it was a threat to hear a doctor say about the diagnoses of fibromyalgia, “It is all in your mind”. This response totally dismissed the women and the pain that they were experiencing in their bodies. (An estimated of 90% of fibromyalgia diagnoses are given to women, 10% to men. For the case of this example I am saying women allowing for the majority, and from my lived experience.)
I was once given a loose diagnoses of fibromyalgia from the P. A. that I was working with, and after reading about other’s experiences with it, the women seems pissed off that their symptoms were totally being ignored. It seemed like a fake diagnoses, because the medical system didn’t know what else to categorized it under at the time.
The condition, even in the last five years, seems to have a lot more sound reasons for the cause of the disorder. Many point to the root causes of the illness that I listed the before mentioned article.
Again, I am not dismissing men. But it is not an uncommon story for women to not be heard or understood. And if you are a man, dealing with symptoms. Do some of your symptoms possibly relate back to the list of examples that were listed on the chart above, that may have a mental link to what is going on physically.
The number one takeaway that I would like to include is,
- You are seen.
This very article is proof that you aren’t alone.
AND
- To begin to tell the truth doesn’t put you in danger.
It actually illuminates a path out. There is someone out there that has already done this journey before you. Pray, and ask that you will find them to mentor you. (Books are great for that. Other’s stories give us a little courage that we are on the right path.)
I have made a list of resources and a directory to help with healing conditions like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Complex PTSD and Fibromyalgia. Click below. (These resources involve healing both mind and body.)
Disclaimer
***This is not medical advice or psychological advice. It is medically sound, but this is written for the purpose of being a guide to help others see that our experiences are not just past and forgotten. It is very critical, while healing from a disease that the inner landscape of one’s body/spirit/mind is honored and retrieved by a skilled-trained professional. In my opinion working with some one off the above mentioned list, or using one of these directories may be helpful in your recovery. Thank you,
Another note on sexual abuse:
Having such an experience does not mean a boy [or girl] will definitely suffer significant long-term negative consequences. That depends on several factors, including how many times it happened, how long it went on, who else was involved, whether the boy [or girl] told anyone and, if so, the response he received. 7
Sources
Title of this Blog Post, slightly Adapted from Bessel van der Kolk’s popular book, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma . It is such a bold statement, that I didn’t believe for quite a while, but I also couldn’t explain why I was sick. After years of investigating, I finally started to trust my body and listen to the signals that my body was accounting for.
- Petersen, Cami. Accidents or Surgery: examples of physical events that can lead to illness. Created 2023 for visual aid only, https://rootsandtruth.com/ / .[↩]
- 1 in 3 women, around 736 million, are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner – a number that has remained largely unchanged over the past decade. Source: https://www.who.int/news/item/09-03-2021-devastatingly-pervasive-1-in-3-women-globally-experience-violence[↩]
- Men and sexual abuse or assault: Researchers use “sexual abuse” to describe experiences in which children are subjected to unwanted sexual contact involving force, threats, or a large age difference between the child and the other person (which involves a big power differential and exploitation). See former advisory board member Dr. Jim Hopper’s Sexual Abuse of Males for a detailed discussion of definitions (e.g., large national surveys using telephone interviews with few questions). source: https://1in6.org/statistic/[↩]
- Definition of Somatic source: https://www.theembodylab.com/[↩]
- psychosomatic medicine definition source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosomatic_medicine[↩]
- Petersen, Cami. Example of pyschosomatic issues that can lead to illness. Created 2023 for visual aid only, https://rootsandtruth.com// .[↩]
- https://1in6.org/statistic/[↩]
