Last night I went to a large abortion-rights rally downtown, and I was surrounded predominantly by young through early middle-aged women and people from the LGBTQ community. There were also older women like me, and maybe about 5% to 10% men. In the middle of this huge crowd of passionate (and scared, frustrated, angry) people, I had a BIG realization. *** Since I was sexually assaulted 4 years ago, I’ve thought a lot about hypotheticals: What was his ultimate plan? What if he had completely overpowered me and kidnapped me? What if he had physically hurt me worse than he
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(A bit of my story. Trigger warning.) “In the arousal response … the brain will focus on the threat, tuning out any nonessential input from the body and the outside world.” This assault or threat response explanation by trauma expert Bruce Perry was spot on for me, and I thought I’d share a little bit of this experience — now that I’m more healed — because I’ve always found it really fascinating (though a bit disconcerting). Maybe you never knew exactly what your brain is capable of. It’s pretty cool! When the sexual predator grabbed me, I had only a
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We have a saying in our family: You gotta show up at the trailhead. Essentially that means “showing up” is half the battle. Before today, I hadn’t swum since December because I had an injury and was in PT. Then I got my Lynch Syndrome diagnosis (see previous post) and several weeks ago had a total hysterectomy (removal of the uterus and cervix) with bilaterial salpingo-oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries and fallopian tubes) to prevent cancer-development. I’ve been walking as part of my surgery recovery, but am just up to 2.5 miles, and overall I’m terribly out of shape and
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