November 16th: The Body Remembers
12 Steps of PTSD by Randy J. Hartland, Ph.D
Today was relentless.
I moved through all twelve steps, sometimes all at once, sometimes overlapping. Each one drained me. By six o’clock, I collapsed into bed, utterly spent and emotionally unravelled.
My body remembers everything.
Every ache reminds me:
It’s Sunday, November 16th.
I am in the Intensive Care Unit.
I am alone.
Ingo has gone to check on the kids. Our neighbor has watched them for two days while he slept in the chair beside me.
A young pastor from church appears. Almost at the same moment, a doctor enters with news.
I protest.
“Cancer isn’t possible. I’m only 42. I have babies. Teenagers. My kids need their mom.”
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As if anger and denial could undo truth.
The doctor leaves.
The pastor prays.
Blood from another person flows into me, keeping me alive.
Even a decade later, my body knows this day. My heart aches with the memory, the distinct intimacy of facing death. The deepest pain was knowing my children would suffer because of me.
This week, I made a conscious choice: to immerse myself in the most beautiful, love-filled space I know. A place so abundant with warmth that I believed nothing could penetrate the fractures of my brokenness.
And yet here I am.
In a quiet hotel room, awash in memories I rarely encounter. Trauma, no longer ever-present, has seized me on this November 16th and wrapped itself so tightly around my soul that I can scarcely breathe.
I gasp between slow, deliberate breaths, those meditative inhales meant to tether me to the present. My body keeps its own reckoning, even as my mind resists the impulse to fight, flee, or freeze. I inhabit the in-between: not quite broken, not quite whole.
Surviving made me resilient. But I am still human.
It is possible to be both shattered and mending at once.
Tonight, I am broken.
And with a little faith and a little patience, I trust the light will find its way back through the cracks.
