I was sitting in a restaurant with my family. The sounds of people chatting at their tables reverberated in my head like the beating of bass drums. The clanking of silverware stabbed my senses. The touch of one of my children repulsed me. I was being pulled in more directions than my body could stretch. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I had to get out.
The past week my anxiety has been on overload.
When grief was still a relatively new dance for me, I wrote this, Dealing With the Dark Side of Grief.
Now, 2 1/2 years later, I am still awkwardly going through the motions of a changed life. Sometimes I think I should be OK. Sometimes I think the anxiety should be gone.
Then I found this book today.
Even though I am coping emotionally and spiritually with the death of my son, my body keeps the score.
The Bible says, “For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.”
I am flesh.
I am mortal.
“For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.” 2 Cor 4:11
While my spirit feels the peace that Jesus offers, my flesh, my mortal body is keeping score. In fact, they aren’t just keeping score, occasionally they are giving a play by play.
When I read the title of that book a light came one. Someone gets it. I am changed. I am different.
Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs…
I connect with that quote from this book so deeply I can’t read it without welling with tears. Some days I feel so lonely in my grief. Some days I feel lost in sea of “no one understands.” Some days the effects of grief and anxiety are worse than the grief itself. The rigors of home life, public life and just dealing with life are too much for me. I feel bombarded.
Maybe you connect with this too. Maybe you feel the same gnawing inside. Maybe you feel bombarded. I just want you to know, I get it. This isn’t a post to offer solutions, advice or tips. It is simply to give voice to my own battle and, maybe to let another grieving mom or trauma survivor know, you aren’t alone.
You aren’t alone.
