The body carries the account

“It is not necessary to be a war soldier, nor visit a refugee camp in Syria or the Congo to find the trauma. Trauma happens to us, to our friends, to our relatives and our neighbors.

Studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have shown that one in five Americans were sexually abused as children.; one in four was physically abused by one of their parents to the point of leaving some mark on their body; and one in three couples resorts to physical violence. A quarter of us grew up with alcoholic family members, and one in eight has witnessed their mother being beaten.

as human beings, We are an extremely resilient species.. From time immemorial, we have been recovering from incessant wars, of countless disasters (both natural and man-made) and of the violence and betrayals in our own lives. But traumatic experiences leave their mark, both on a large scale ( in our stories and cultures) like close to our home, in our families, with dark secrets that pass imperceptibly from generation to generation. They also leave a mark on our minds and emotions., in our ability to enjoy and maintain intimate relationships, and even in our biology and our immune system.

Trauma not only affects those who are directly exposed to it, but also to those around them.

Although we all want to continue moving forward and leave the trauma behind, to the part of our brain that guarantees our survival (below our rational brain) He's not very good at denial..

Long after the traumatic experience, This part can activate at the slightest hint of danger and mobilize altered brain circuits and secrete enormous amounts of stress hormone. This precipitates unpleasant emotions, intense physical sensations and compulsive, aggressive actions.

These post-traumatic reactions seem incomprehensible and overwhelming. Feeling out of control, Trauma survivors begin to fear that they are deeply damaged beyond redemption.”

This is how the wonderful book by psychiatry professor Bessel van der Kolk begins, The body carries the account, a deeply empathetic book, revealing and compassionate that brings us closer to a reality that is almost not talked about.

Most of us have experienced potentially traumatic situations in our lives and of course in our childhoods..

The difference in how these adversities affect us mentally, physically and cerebrally and ranging from a surgical operation, until the death of a loved one, going through every abuse imaginable, It depends on whether there was an adult capable of helping us overcome and integrate that experience..

Most of the time, there was no one.

Maybe you saw how your uncle arrived drunk and the whole family became tense., or your mother “his hand was slipping” and I lived in constant stress that affected the way we interacted at home.. Or maybe you were very afraid of going to your grandparents' house because your grandfather touched you in ways that made you feel very uncomfortable..

when you were a girl, You were not able to put words to all this you saw., You didn't understand what was happening and if there was no one accompanying this, naming it and providing protection and security, all those experiences remained emotionally undigested.

your brain, either because I did not yet have the necessary language to organize it as a memory or because for your survival it was better to forget., has achieved, on some occasions, that you don't even remember all those things that happened to you or that if you do remember them you don't have any access to the emotions that those experiences caused you.

However, By not being able to integrate, they remain trapped inside you, and without having contact with the most rational part of your brain.

So all this traumatic memory is expressed in your life through physical symptoms such as recurrent migraines., muscle contractures, stomach pains, insomnia…and also in your reactions to the things that happen to you and of course in your way of relating to others..

Well, as Bessel says, the body keeps track of everything that has happened to us.

Those of us who are dedicated to accompanying people who have suffered trauma, We know the great difficulty of living with all these triggers and the lack of understanding we have to live with..

And in a very high percentage, We have also experienced it, we have needed and continue to need to treat ourselves, which makes us understand very well and have experienced the treatments that we now provide.

There is the belief, sustained for years by the professionals themselves, that if the person does not improve it is because they do not try hard enough, or because he is not capable and will never be, is damaged forever.

However, that is not what science and trauma experts reveal to us.

The missing piece was understanding at what levels trauma affects, and now we know that trauma is not cured because we rationally know what happened to us and executively decide to change behaviors.

We need to work at deeper brain and nervous levels so that we can restore our system so that it does not constantly feel in danger..

We need to live as many experiences as possible that contradict all the beliefs that the trauma left within us about ourselves and the world..

If, as a result of the developmental wounds and the traumatic relationship we had with our mother or father, there is a belief in us that people will only value us if we do what they want, we will need to experience relationships that contradict that, We will need to explore what it is like to set healthy boundaries for ourselves and see how we can continue to feel loved..

If we could not defend ourselves from aggression, It will be of tremendous help to us to experience with our body the ability to physically defend ourselves..

There is no one way to recover, but what I am absolutely sure of is that there is recovery.

All we need is to convince ourselves that we deserve to go to the other side..

We deserve that recovery, and that can be the hardest thing of all.