Gloria Dickerson, HRC Recovery Specialist, shares a personal story about surviving and understanding trauma. She learns about the physical pain caused by the history and memory of traumatic stress. Gloria also explores the prevalence of somatic disorders, and how health care providers often do not recognize them.

I met Lesley years ago when we were both patients at a psychiatric hospital, and our friendship grew in our classes at a day program. We shared experiences of early childhood abuse and multiple hospitalizations. Our histories united us and although unique, left us with many of the same struggles, challenges and the shared experience of having risen from the ashes.

Eventually, Lesley was discharged to a mental health group home and I was discharged to the YWCA, where Lesley visited me daily.  She was suffering severe stomach pain, and she spoke of multiple visits to doctors, and the experience of always feeling ignored and dismissed.  Her repeated attempts to get medical care ended in failure and her distress increased.  She was overwhelmed and it was difficult for me to know how to help her.

I assumed her stories had more to do with her mental health than with any physical condition. I would ask her if she was scared or anxious, and she would become enraged, telling me I was doing “the same thing as the doctors.” I felt angry that she was rejecting my attempts to help. Soon, Lesley stopped coming over and my calls to her went unanswered. Later, I heard from a mutual friend that Lesley had been re-hospitalized. I blamed her, thinking it was her decisions that caused her re-hospitalization.

Now, as I reflect back, I see that life has a funny way of highlighting our imperfections and difficulties. In a rude awakening, I ended up in the same shoes as Lesley. 

During the last two years, my experience of seeking medical help for physical pain has left me feeling overwhelmed, distressed and enraged. After several visits to healthcare providers, my diagnosis mostly included references to anxiety as the cause of my physical pain. It made me feel isolated, unheard and devalued. My outrage was inconsolable, and I was filled with rage at my healthcare providers. It seemed like I was living Lesley’s experience and I wondered if my healthcare providers were racist or unskilled.  Were they angry at me? I suspected that my doctors were wrong or deliberately mismanaging my care. Feeling alone, without an ally and at the mercy of providers who I felt were the enemy, I became unreachable.

Then I discovered that many trauma survivors recount similar experiences. My therapist told me that many trauma survivors experience somatic disorders, which occur when the pain experienced during a past trauma recurs years later. The memory of trauma comes in the form of pain, and it can be as intense today as it was in the past. This type of memory occurs when someone is triggered, or reminded of the original trauma. There are no clues to help the person know the pain is a memory, and the survivor feels like she is having a serious medical crisis.

I did not know that a memory of a pain could feel the same as any other physical pain, even one caused by a gaping sore.  I knew nothing about the long-term effects of unprocessed trauma, and truly believed that I was suffering a medical emergency.  I felt in danger of dying and my doctors’ inability to help me left me feeling mistreated and mislabeled as mentally ill.

The quality of my life skyrocketed as I began to learn about the interaction of body and memory trauma. I felt vindicated: my body was telling my trauma story. My mind was not ill. An important source of healing was reading “The Body Keeps the Score: Memory and the Emerging Psychobiology of Post Traumatic Stress,” by Bessel Van der Kolk. It explained the interaction of body and memory in people who experience chronic trauma. This knowledge transformed me.

Now I can see that Lesley really needed an ally, a friend and a safe place where she was heard and her fears acknowledged. Instead, my assumptions about her condition left her feeling as unheard as I had felt.

Looking back, I wonder what would have helped me. If more medical providers were trained in the interplay of trauma memories and physical symptoms, would I have found help and understanding sooner? Would a trauma-informed medical system be more effective and responsive to survivors?

Could I have been helped by peer specialists trained on the interaction between trauma memories and physical pain?

Knowledge is transformative.  I ask providers: How would incorporating trauma knowledge and trained peer specialists help you help others?

References:
Van der Kolk, B.A. (1994) The Body Keeps the Score: Memory and the Emerging Psychobiology of Post Traumatic Stress. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 1, pp. 253-265.