My Near Death Experience and How the Body Remembers

I woke this morning from a nightmare that my abdominal cavity had re-herniated. I asked my husband if this was the anniversary of that surgery. He scrolled back through our pictures and discovered that, yes, it is. The body remembers. The body holds onto that fear. And while I woke up calm and well, I am remembering quite a lot of 2014 right now, a year when I had not one surgery, but six.

I wrote a little bit and recorded a video about my near-death experience that year in this post, "What You Can Do When the Body Remembers but the Mind Does Not". It stemmed from a routine outpatient procedure and resulted in the 5 surgical procedures which followed. Here is that story and recording.

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Possible triggers: scars, body horror, disordered eating and poor medical care

The body remembers.

These last two months have been filled with me running a body-memory obstacle course. I have struggled with depersonalization, derealization, disordered eating and body horror. My conscious forgets all that I have been through, but my body reminds me at every anniversary.

Almost four years ago I had a tumor removed from my left orbital bone. I woke up to my own voice crying for my three-month-old daughter. She was placed in my arms briefly. My voice turned back to saying "ow, ow, ow."

Two years ago at this time, I went through a series of surgeries after an outpatient procedure resulted in a near-death experience. The result is a set of scars I am still accepting. I've written a bit about the scars and my sense of betrayal. There is much more to say, many layers I can't yet access. At some point that will show up in my writing. For now, here is a video I recorded awhile back where I recounted the story of fighting death.

In what ways have you fought to stay alive?