The Body Keeps the Score - My recent stay in the ER

Today is the day that our daughter, Mercy Joan Mertes, died.  It's been 13 years.  Yesterday afternoon, I felt it again, the hard compression in my sternum, an ache radiating to head and jaw.  

A week ago, it landed me in the ER.  The grinding pain began on Valentine's evening and only increased by daybreak, radiating in all the ways that make one nervous.

Good news: I'm OK. No sign of heart attack etc.  

February 15. The day is all wrapped up in love and loss and trauma.

It is the day that Mercy Joan was born.

Over the last few years, my body manifests something on February 15.

A few years ago, it was a horrible outbreak of herpetic conjunctivitis (dormant for 35 years and back with a vengeance)

A year or two ago, I threw out my back while doing stability exercises, which feels like the height of irony!

This year, the heart+chest pains. 

There is also a particular exhaustion that permeates the month. 

Much like those early days of grief and loss, I fade quickly.  Like Frodo Baggins so eloquently stated in The Lord of the Rings, "I feel thin, stretched.  Like butter scraped over too much bread."

In it all, I continue to listen to my body with curiosity as well as to learn/explore how our whole selves tell the story of our healing and our trauma. And I'm sharing this story because I know I'm not the only one. 

Anniversaries are not just dates on a calendar, they are written in and on our bodies.  Maybe you also mark anniversaries with a bodily manifestation.  Or perhaps you feel particularly disembodied around times of remembering.

My mind seems to be in a constant churn of analysis and projection.  I can sometimes dodge what must be looked at, instead focusing on the immediate or what is to come, or avoid parts of the past that feel discordant.  

Our bodies tell a truth about how we have experienced a situation.  And, as we learn to listen and care for our bodies in ways that lead to greater integration, we can experience other truths.  

This morning, I felt the clutch of breathlessness again.  I went upstairs and lay for 20 minutes on the acupressure mat, releasing tension stored in my body and breathing deeply. 

I listened to music that feels particularly resonant.  I entered back into the space of those 13-year-old memories and asked, "what do I need to see/integrate in the story of this day?"

In response, I felt myself standing to the side, watching the memories, with 13-year old Mercy nearby.

She stood, tall-like-I-was at that age, put an arm around me, and whispered, "Thank you for loving me."

I'm linking some of the most illuminating works on the topic in the above Rook Recommendation.  I especially love The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk, My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem as well as It Didn't Start with You by Mark Wolynn.

I've also included some other great recommendations from my network in the list.  Stay curious.