{"id":3466,"date":"2024-01-24T14:32:36","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T21:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irenenorth.com\/writings\/?p=3466"},"modified":"2024-04-22T02:46:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T02:46:03","slug":"i-dont-feel-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/2024\/01\/24\/i-dont-feel-well\/","title":{"rendered":"I don’t feel well"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I looked at the clock \u2013 5:27 a.m. I\u2019ve lost nearly 90 minutes in this flashback. The screaming woke me up again. My nausea alternated between a 7 and a 9. When it finally settled down to a 3, I started crying. I thought to myself, \u201cI don\u2019t feel well.\u201d Then, a memory unlocked of a conversation I had many times with my mother when she came to wake me up for school.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you awake?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d I would pause. I always paused. \u201cMommy, I don\u2019t feel well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

She would come over and feel my head. It was never hot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you don\u2019t have a fever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy head hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019ll give you a Tylenol.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that kind of hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t explain it then. I never could. I am 53 years old. I just figured it out this morning. It\u2019s hard to even type the words onto paper. Back then, I didn\u2019t know the words flashback, rape, assault and a whole host of other words I\u2019m not going to list right now. I couldn\u2019t describe it. I only knew that I hurt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, you need to get up and get ready for school. Do you want a Tylenol?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes, I took the Tylenol. Sometimes, I didn\u2019t. It never worked for this kind of hurt.<\/p>\n

All trauma is preverbal. It is processed in our brains as pictures first. It also doesn\u2019t get encoded in our brain in order, which is why you don\u2019t remember traumatic events in order.<\/p>\n

I now know what I was trying to explain to my mom was a flashback of being raped. I didn\u2019t have the words, only pictures. I couldn\u2019t convey the information to her. It only came out, \u201cI don\u2019t feel well.\u201d<\/p>\n

I also see in pictures. If I retell a story, such as my trip to see the Big Buddha in Hong Kong, I am not just telling you it, I\u2019m seeing it as I tell you about it. If I describe a tree I once saw, I see it in my head as I describe it to you. Now, take that information and think about how hard it is to talk about the things that happened to me as a child. It\u2019s a delicate balancing act every week in therapy.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t feel well today. I now know why. It\u2019s still hard to explain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I looked at the clock \u2013 5:27 a.m. I\u2019ve lost nearly 90 minutes in this flashback. The screaming woke me up again. My nausea alternated between a 7 and a 9. When it finally settled down to a 3, I started crying. I thought to myself, \u201cI don\u2019t feel well.\u201d Then, a memory unlocked of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[143,238,294,377],"class_list":["post-3466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings","tag-flashback","tag-mental-health","tag-ptsd","tag-trauma"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3508,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions\/3508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}