I am no stranger to chronic pain. I used to joke that the gift my ex-husband gave me for our first anniversary was an ulcer. I now realize that my misplaced sense of humor about it was a way of minimizing the very real stress I endured. But even though my mind suffered the traumas of narcissistic abuse, the toll on my body remains long after the emotional pain is gone.
Doctors have long known that stress can cause disease. Stress puts pressure on every system in the body, causing inflammation, heart disease, and digestive disorders. For me, like many others, lower back pain seems to flare up whenever I feel overwhelmed. Diego Rivera has a painting in which a farmer is doubled over carrying a load that is too heavy for him. See it here: painting by diego rivera
I think about that every time my back reminds me that I need to pay attention.
Trauma is too heavy a burden for our bodies to bear, and chronic pain lets us know..
One of the worst lies abuse victims tell themselves is I can not stand it. The truth is that no one can endure sustained abuse without serious injury. And living with an abuser is a life of constant harassment. In the same way that repetitive motion can cause injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome, the constant fear of attack and recrimination sends our bodies into reels. Today I remembered how my ex would steal my pillows and hide them every time he woke me up to take care of our babies. He would wake up enough to take them off. Exhausted, he would search for them until he finally found one and could go back to sleep.
Now I have too many pillows on my bed, more than I need. But it’s only been in the last two years that the little emotion of fear stopped resonating in my body when I woke up in the middle of the night. One of the things I love most about my current husband is that he would never do something so petty. But add in the vicious little games and the harangue and your body braces itself for the worst for a long time afterward.
Over and over again in inner healing sessions, I watch chronic pain arise. Each time, the one who receives the prayer is surprised. But I tell you this: every memory in his brain that has an emotion attached to it is sent down the neural highway to his body. Healing from PTSD is not just about resolving the memories. Often it’s about teaching the body new ways to respond, learning to take care of itself when our bodies let us know we’re in trouble.
Doctors have begun treating chronic back pain, pain that doesn’t go away easily, with antidepressants.
This just shows us that our minds and bodies work together when it comes to chronic pain..
For me, moving always stimulates a bit of trauma. Since it ranks in the top five on the list of stressful life events, it’s no wonder my body disagrees with that. With every move, I can expect several months of dissociation or distraction and a flu-like pain in my body. I know I expect it, and therefore I use mindfulness and other techniques to keep my stress levels down. But how many force their bodies to keep going without realizing that they are doing themselves and their bodies no favors?
When my chronic pain rears its unwanted head, I am reminded of Jesus. I went to a Shroud of Turin exhibition a few years ago. Interestingly, I learned that one of our assumptions about the spanking of the cat o’ nine tails is incorrect. They taught me that the whip had bits of bone and metal that abraded skin and muscle. Actually, the cat o’ nine tails had small heavy metal balls attached to the end. Jesus would have collapsed and died from blood loss in most film depictions of the event involving a rending whip. The royal whip bruised the bone. The pain would have been much more excruciating but not deadly. The word, unbearable, itself comes from the Latin word Torture What does it mean to crucify?
For this reason, when my chronic pain surfaces, I take it to the cross.
When my body aches or my right hip throbs, or when my head starts to ache, I remember Jesus on the cross. I imagine that no part of Jesus’ body and soul escaped the trauma. The pain would have been worse for him than any other on a cross that day. None of the others had a bruised bone or two.inch spines that rip off their heads. Humiliation, betrayal, bullying, she knew them all. And none of those things beat him and because of his resurrection, my suffering doesn’t have to beat me.
I have a picture of Jesus on the cross. Just an outline, it doesn’t depict anything shocking or horrifying. The outline is enough. I have had abuse victims touch his body where they have been hurt on his. There is something so healing about knowing that He not only bears our sins in His body; He bears the sins of others inflicted on us as well.
The prayer that I pray for myself and that I lead others to pray is Lord, absorb this pain, this trauma, whether caused by me or others, in Your body on the cross. Such a simple prayer, really, but one that I see soothes the bodies and minds of many, including mine. When we receive Communion to remember the flesh and blood of Jesus given for us, we must remember that resurrection life is available to every cell in our body. The suffering of Jesus is an acknowledgment of our trauma as humans, among other things. But his resurrection is a promise that triumphs over all evil deeds we have done or have been done to us.
I would not preach the resurrection of Jesus unless I have experienced it myself and seen it move in the lives of others. In this world, we often have the most tribulation. But take heart, because Jesus has overcome the world and he traumatizes it.
Epigenetics, Inherited Trauma, and You: The Ghost of Generational Memory