By the end of 2012 I came home after a year that changed my life. Australia was everything I’d dreamed of and so much more. The 20-year old girl that came home was someone else than the 19-year old that left one year before. That 20-year old had experienced an amazing adventure, seen such beautiful places, met so many interesting people and learned so much about herself and the world around her, but she had also become very broken after a destructive relationship and without realizing, stuck with PTSD and a massive stress about retaking her spot on the football team, getting into the physiotherapy program and generally figuring out her future.
I was completely going on overdrive and I was loaded with emotions that were impossible for me to name, impossible for me to manage. On top of that there were a whole heap of layers. Layers I put there in order to survive, in order for those emotions to stay inside, in order for me to not explode. Layers of denial that made it impossible to organize the chaos that existed within. Layers of shame, fear, incomprehension, anger, anxiety and a great grief over the loss of identity, self-worth, self-esteem and self-confidence.
The human body is amazing in so many ways, but when it feels like it’s been mistreated for too long the body starts saying no. Our body knows things that our head can’t yet comprehend. It’s trying to tell us things, but sometimes we refuse to listen. I didn’t listen either. I wanted to be strong. I was too stubborn for my own good. In a stubborn and desperate way I held on to the layers that I created for myself. My body said no, but I didn’t listen. Until I had to. Unable to work, unable to exercise, unable to do so many things that I used to love doing, because I’d been trying to be strong for too long.
In this case my legs started saying no. I experienced horrendous pain, a feeling of extreme fatigue and pulsating sensations in both of my legs, without having done anything in particular. If I was walking around town for a few hours I would be in horrible pain afterwards. Those who’ve lived with pain for an extended period of time knows that eventually it starts taking a toll on your mood and this time I couldn’t go to the gym or football practice to make me feel better.
I was on sick leave on and off for an extended period of time and I was ashamed of not being able to go to work and be the good girl I desperately felt I needed to be in order to be enough. I went to see lots of different doctors that did lots of different examinations. Different blood samples, painful massages, electromyography, thyroid biopsy, Lyme disease suspicions, almost impossible diets etc. Nothing helped. And despite all the needles going into my veins, throat and legs, not even my fear of needles was cured.
When the first doctor suggested that maybe I should talk to someone, seek therapy, I became annoyed, even angry. I wanted to scream that I don’t have mental problems, the problem’s in my legs. I can only imagine how much time and money I would’ve saved if I only would’ve listened and done something about it right away instead of staying underneath my layers of denial. Listened to that little voice inside of me saying “maybe he’s right”. It’s always easy to be wise with hindsight, but of course it was nice to know for sure that I didn’t have Lyme disease or some severe neurological disease.
Someone once told me that “maybe your legs want to run away”. Initially I didn’t really understand what this person meant, but the more I read about trauma and stress reactions the more I do. The human brain hasn’t changed much since we lived in hunter-gatherer populations and back then the greatest stressor could’ve been a dangerous predator that wanted to kill us. In a life threatening situation like that we would most likely have run as fast as we could or potentially fought. Nowadays our stressors are very different and we might not be able to outrun whatever causes us stress, but my body sure showed signs of wanting to.
When experiencing traumatic events or severe stress it is important that we first get through the stage of denial, accept the situation and then process it in order to start looking ahead. The processing phase can look very different from case to case, but I truly believe (like others who do research on the subject) that a big part of the answer lies in the movement. When we’re feeling stressed or traumatized we have a tendency to “freeze” if it becomes too much, when the body maybe most of all would need to move. Shake, punch, run, dance, yoga, just release all the emotions that desperately need to get out, just complete the stress cycle. So maybe my legs wanted to run away from the destructive relationship I was in. Maybe my jaws were tense and I got a headache because I actually wanted to scream and stand up for myself, but something held me back.
Trauma is so very complex, it doesn’t have to be about wars, natural disasters and brutal torture. The war can unfold inside of us. It’s not visible to the outside world, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not there torturing you day after day. The only way is through and to get through we need acceptance. Accepting that we’re not okay, but that it’s okay not to be. Then we do whatever we need to do to get out on the other side of the tunnel. With help from others, by being kind to ourselves and truly listening inwards.
[The photo is from the Great Ocean Road, Australia 2012]