I've had pretty brutal body pain my whole adult life, I saw a lot of different flavours of skelatalmuscular therapy type folks over the years, you name it, I've had it. Around 6/7 years ago I was under a lot of stress with work, some particularly intense interpersonal business stuff to work through and my body pain was at an all time high. I booked an appointment at a random chiropractor near my office first thing in the morning the next day, the guy went to adjust me and then told me that I needed acupuncture first. I told him no because every time I have acupuncture I sob uncontrollably, not from pain, just from reasons I didn't understand, but that the person usually had to stop. He said exactly, I need acupuncture first. He took me to another room in his office, lights out, and stuck some needles in me, no crying, he said he needed to get me crying, moved needles around, found a spot, emotions exploded, crying. He moved the needle, more crying, deeper, deeper crying, he kept moving the needle till I thought all the needles would burst out of me from how deeply I wanted to cry but he told me not to be scared and I thought I was going to die. Anyway, he left me alone in that room for about 35 minutes while I wailed, I mean, awkwardly wailed. After everything started to calm inside me, I slowly started to be able to think again, and the thought that was there was the memory of the guy who sexually abused me when I was a kid, moving his hand off my hip. A bunch of muscles I didn't even know existed let go, and that was the best adjustment I've ever had by a mile. It was actually this experience that lead me to reading the body keeps score (Connie Zweig is good also if this kinda stuff interests you).
(Edit: someone emailed so for posterity, It was Steven Schram E 28th St NYC, no clue if he's still there it was some time ago.)
Thanks for sharing. I'v'e read the book, and for me it made everything click. I've had serious childhood trauma (violence, alcoholism, etc) and have been "clumsy" all my life. Basically, I was all brain, and I completely neglected my body till I was 40. After reading the book, I posited that clumsy is trauma-related, and since I've resolved the trauma, there is no reason why I can't fix the clumsy. It's a process, and clumsy is almost gone.
I think people who deny this have not experienced serious childhood trauma. I agree that body might not keep the score for everything, but sometimes it really does.
The other thing that happened after reading the book is that I've become aware of how common trauma is. 4 out of 5 my college buddies experienced variety of early traumas: SA, alcoholism. Often I can sense trauma while speaking with someone. There is awkwardness, intensity in their gaze, emotions slightly off. I used to be attracted to it.
Thanks for sharing. And yes, once you experience something like that, you don't even need scientific evidence that the body keeps the score -- you've experienced it. You know it the same way you know the sky is blue.
And that's what's frustrating when people want to invalidate the whole thing. They just don't know -- they haven't experienced anything like it. But they act like they do know.
Now obviously, scientific validation of these things is important to better understand causes, mechanisms, and healing methods.
But when people claim that the body doesn't store trauma as muscular tension, it's just frustrating because it feels like willful ignorance. Whether they don't know the stories of millions of people like yourself, or choose not to believe them.
I had a similar experience with my first EMDR session. It was in the middle of a normal couples talk therapy session, our therapist said "You're standing on the edge of your unconscious. I want to try something", brought out the lights, gave me the instructions, turned them on, and I just started sobbing. I've always been one to seek a rational explanation for everything, so after she put the lights away, I was like "What the hell just happened?" and she gave me the background for how the therapy supposedly works.
man I love stories like this. I know that that's impersonal and it was really hard for you. but it's very comforting and... inspiring?... to hear about people managing to face things they've held onto for many years. I feel like we get used to a model where people stay stuck how they are for most of their lives and I'd like to think that everybody can keep growing (past bad things, in many cases), and this kind of thing is a reminder of that.
(Edit: someone emailed so for posterity, It was Steven Schram E 28th St NYC, no clue if he's still there it was some time ago.)