Alan cumming

Alan Cumming’s book “Not My Father’s Son” opens with a description of the time his father, in one of his many irrational bouts of anger, came at him with shears and forcibly held him down and cut his hair.

Later in this chapter, we discover that Alan, as an adult, often felt nauseated while at the hair salon. In fact, he even vomited two different times. He says, “…my body was manifesting physically what I could not yet cope with emotionally.”

This is such an eloquent and accurate description of how trauma disconnects the emotional from the physical. Processing and trying to make sense of something that will never make sense is a formidable exercise. So what do we do? We avoid processing it, in the desperate hope that our body will just…get…over…it.

But guess what? Until the trauma is processed, it lives within our bodies, agitating us at a cellular level and begging to be noticed. Every time we place ourselves in an environment that reminds us of the triggering event, our unrest amplifies to dizzying proportions.

How do you stop this vicious cycle?

I believe it’s only through calling out and talking about our traumas that we can stanch the flow. This is not easy. Not easy at all.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, it took me over 20 years before I began to *try* to articulate what I had experienced as a child. It took another two full years of therapy to put most of the pieces together.

After all of this therapy, will my body still get amped up when I’m in a triggering environment? Yes. But not as much. And now I at least have the words to articulate what I’m experiencing in the moment, which helps to diminish the punch.

I used to think that I needed to have all of my fractured medical pieces glued back together if I were to share my story with others beyond my close circle. Further, I thought I needed to be at a point where I didn’t get emotional while sharing these intimate details.

Now I have a different viewpoint. I’ve come to accept that there are parts of my story that might never make sense. I’ve also come to accept that what I lived through was terrifying, and that it’s ok if I feel emotional with every single retelling.

While this path looks different from what I originally envisioned healing to look like, that doesn’t discount all the progress I’ve made. Please keep this in mind as you take steps toward healing.