Why can’t I get away from my memories?

Written on our mind and in our bodies these bundle of cells lurk waiting to be reactivated when a smell, sight, sound, touch or taste hit that hot button and fire off a flashback.  The evidence is piling up from research and personal experience.  I didn’t remember most of my abuse.  My brain shielded me from my own memories.  However, my body lit up like a neon sign when my wrist was grabbed.  A clue before counseling that something was terribly wrong.  I didn’t know what but my body was telling me something terrible happened at some point in my life.

http://ptsdhome.com/cell-memory/

This article asserts that we must revisit those past hurts.  Fortunately, my counselor believed that general idea was needed but I didn’t need to re-experience every horrific one to find relief.  My body remembered. My mind didn’t in the conscious portion, it buried my memories.  I work on calming myself when I am triggered.  I keep in mind the mantra taught to me by my first counselor, “If I lived through it, I can survive remembering it.”  Didn’t deaden the pain of remembering but it helped me to hang on to hope as I went through the memory.  I am getting more efficient at experiencing, remembering, processing, and filing away past hurts.  My counselor taught me to sit with my emotions and not be afraid to feel sad, angry, hurt, frustrated, and any other emotion brought up by my body memories.  So many things happened I have no desire to reexamine each and everyone of them separately.   Like leaves in Fall, I don’t have to pick up each leaf individually that falls, raking them all together and dumping them in the trash works.  At first, I was dismayed when I learned about body memories.  Now, I accept that they are there and give me an opportunity to process unfinished business from my past.