My Body Forgot to Forget

They told me I was better. That after twenty-six sessions, five hundred and something dollars, and an entire box of off-brand tissues, I was over it. Neatly folded trauma, filed alphabetically under “C” for childhood stuff that wasn’t that bad anyway, placed into the drawer of memory marked Resolved.

Closure, they called it. Sounds like a furniture store going out of business. But I knew it was a lie the first time someone brushed past me in the grocery store and my lungs filed for resignation. That kind of full-body shutdown where your brain goes: “Oh look, a stranger touched your shoulder. Let’s pretend we’re dying now.”

Better? No. Just quieter.

You don’t really get rid of trauma. You just learn to live with it like a weird roommate who never pays rent and steals your peace of mind.

Sometimes, I watch people who seem untouched. You know the type. They blink slowly, drink green juice, and say things like “my parents just did their best” without a twitch in their eye. Their past doesn’t grab them by the throat when they hear a certain ringtone or smell the wrong brand of shampoo. Must be nice.

Me? My body keeps score. It keeps all the scores. Even the ones I didn't sign up to play. Every time I think I’ve lost the memory, my body goes: “Hold up! Here's a rerun from 2003. Enjoy the panic!” It’s like my nervous system is a vintage radio that only plays trauma FM.

The worst part? I forgot most of it. Conveniently. My brain, that loyal saboteur, decided to chop certain memories into pieces and bury them like landmines. You know, for protection. Isn’t that sweet?

Except those landmines don’t expire.

You’re walking along, thinking about what to cook for dinner, when—boom—your chest tightens, your fingers go numb, and your inner child starts screaming in a language you forgot you spoke.

Trauma doesn’t age. It just changes its outfit.

At twenty-three, it looked like insomnia and spontaneous crying in bathroom stalls. At twenty-eight, it wore hyper-independence and dry humor. Now it wears sarcasm like body armor and gets irritated when people ask if I’ve “tried yoga.”

Sure, Susan, let me just downward dog my way out of generational pain.

My therapist once said the body stores pain in the tissues. I nodded wisely like I understood. But now I think it’s literal. Like maybe somewhere deep inside my left thigh is a screaming ten-year-old who never got to say “stop.” And she doesn’t care that I pay taxes now or that I go to brunch and pretend I’m fine. She wants to be heard. And no amount of adulting will shut her up.

Healing is not linear. Healing is drunk. It shows up uninvited, makes a mess, then disappears for months. It flirts with hope and then ghosts you mid-epiphany. You think, I’m good now. And then someone says something in a certain tone and you’re six again, heart pounding like a trapped animal, eyes darting for the nearest exit.

And the worst part? You’ll smile through it. You’ll say, “Haha, I’m just being dramatic,” because it’s easier than explaining to someone that your nervous system has trust issues and your body doesn’t believe in peace.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m exaggerating. If I made it all up.

But trauma has a way of proving itself. In nightmares you didn’t order. In flinches you can’t control. In the way your brain protects you by building little walls around certain feelings until you forget how to feel them at all.

Protection or prison—depends on the day.

Don’t get me wrong. Therapy helped. I’m not the same wreck I was five years ago. I’m a different wreck. A more self-aware one. Now I can name the monster under my bed. I’ve even drawn charts about it. Trauma Processing Spreadsheet Version 4.1.

But naming the monster doesn’t mean it leaves. It just gets better at hiding.

And here’s the thing nobody tells you: healing won’t make you who you were. That person is gone. The version of you before the impact—they didn’t survive. The best you get is a reconstruction. A careful stitching of pieces that almost fit, with gaps filled by art, sarcasm, and the occasional panic attack.

You can laugh again, but it’ll sound different. Like you earned it. Like it cost something.

You’ll hold joy like a bird with broken wings. Gently, with both hands, and a whisper of apology—because part of you still believes you don’t deserve it. But you do. You do.

Even if your body hasn’t gotten the memo yet. Even if you flinch when someone raises their voice. Even if you sleep with the light on. Even if you cry during dog food commercials and can’t explain why. Even if the past still shows up unannounced like a drunk uncle. You are still healing.

And healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It means remembering without crumbling. It means learning to breathe through the ache. It means forgiving your body for the things it did to survive.

It means holding your own hand, even when it shakes.

Especially when it shakes. So no, I’m not over it. And maybe I never will be. But I’m here.

And sometimes, that’s enough.