Residue Episode 1: What the Body Remembers

This entry details traumatic medical experiences. If this is something that feels heavy for you, feel free to skip this one.

I sat in the office of my myofascial physiotherapist, cross legged on the treatment table, watching my reflection in the mirror that hung above the bed. I was referred last year by another provider to address the chronic, structural pain my body has held for years. Our goal was not to eliminate pain entirely, but to find ways for my body to be more functional in the unique shapes it has learned to hold in the name of survival.

She noted this time that my spine stood straighter - something I’d been unable to do when I first found her - and I was no longer curled in around myself. I’d spent years if not decades in that posture, in a last ditch skeletal attempt to protect myself from further injury and invasion. It is here our inquiry into the stories of my body began.

On this day she tells me I hold all of my strength and stability in the upper part of my body. And it’s not that I’ve spent a lot of time doing bicep curls and forgoing squats. My body learned to cut itself off from its grounding force entirely. When it wasn’t safe to kick or run, my legs learned to collapse.

In individuals I see with varying degrees of medical trauma, I also often see a profound disconnect from the lower body in particular. When it isn’t safe to be in the body, we aren’t. Add in lower body trauma (legs, pelvic floor, lower abdominals) and it is no surprise we vacate the area entirely.

My physiotherapist and I practice muscle movements to redevelop connection. She notes when I go to sit, my entire body flops backwards rather than having any control in my movements. She notes, as I practice sitting and standing, I don’t engage my left side.

…

I’ve heard it said that one of the cruelest medical interventions a patient can endure is the placement of an IO. I’ve heard them used as a threat, as a way for someone to be “forced into compliance”. And I’ve been told that the majority of time patients are not responsive for the insertion process. I don’t know how true that is. I was not conscious for my first, but I was for my second. Consent was not freely given, and the mere mention of an IO makes my entire body freeze even after all these years.

I don’t remember the exact feeling of the pain but I remember the sound of my own screams. I remember being restrained, and the sound of the drill going through bone. I remember the second I left my body, the behaviours of collapse and fawn I was very aware of doing knowing I could not run or fight. I remember the way I was lied to, isolated on purpose, and treated with less care than I would offer an animal. I remember begging them to stop, my consent being overrode, and thinking this had to be equivalent to actual torture.

I remember still being in the hospital over a week later, and surprising everyone when I still couldn’t put weight on my left leg. There was nothing structurally wrong with my leg, they said after running tests. There was no medical explanation for why I just stopped being able to use it to support my weight.

…

“I think that’s the moment I left that part of my body” I tell my physiotherapist, the entire memory flooding back as I practice engaging the muscles on my left side.

We’d come to meet a functional disconnect in my body, and found ourselves at the altar of my body story. We weren’t just unraveling muscle and fascia but a narrative that had wound itself around my being for so long. The story was of the way my body held what had happened, and had turned into something that was fundamentally impacting how I moved through the world.

I had been watching a medical drama the night before when one of the doctors made a comment about the patient still being alive, of course they should be satisfied with their care. And my blood ran cold. Is that really the standard we’ve adopted? Is just not being dead good enough?

Even in necessary, life saving interventions, the body remembers. Our body stores what happens as a living narrative of sorts. It’s a map, and with each event the topography of who we are changes. When we deny these changes, we not only deny the place of the wound but the site of the healing.

When I connect back, when I consciously engage my lower body, not only do I touch the site of trauma but I brush up against my own agency. The pain, and the scar, offer doorways into my deepest healing and wholeness.

The thing about healing is it’s fluid, ever evolving. The story doesn’t end there. I get to shape shift inside of my own story. I get to take the residue of pain left over from the necessary trauma and make medicine from it. The residue left in my body isn’t trauma that will remain having forever altered my story, but something sticky and alive that speaks of what I survived and how I can weave it into strength.