“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” —Anais Nin 

A dear friend reminded me that when we hear experiences like our own, we are no longer alone. This is especially true with parts of ourselves we’ve had to suppress or sever.

Trauma can make us feel estranged from ourselves. It can also trigger a cascade of symptoms—from confusion to chronic fatigue, persistent pain to people pleasing. While it felt vulnerable, I recently shared a traumatic experience on the 2 Lives podcast, in hopes it might help others find their voice too. 

In brief, while traveling in Japan at age 34, I was sexually assaulted by someone I’d met though work. Unable to defend myself or escape, I froze. I got an agonizing urinary tract infection on the 17-hour plane ride from Tokyo to San Diego and blacked out.  

Back home, I couldn’t find the words to tell anyone what happened. I was mired in shame, confusion, pain—what I now recognize as hallmarks of trauma. It triggered latent memories of an earlier rape when I was on spring break in Mexico with college girlfriends 15 years prior. 

After the turmoil in Asia, I fell ill with chronic fatigue syndrome for 13 years. I lost my career, fiancé and child-rearing years in an dispirited medical maze.

Dozens of doctors never asked if anything stressful had happened to me. They told me I was sick with a mysterious illness with no known cure. They sent me on wild goose chases for every kind of herb, diet and injection. None of those interventions helped me recover. 

It took years of study and meditation to realize my symptoms stemmed from trauma.

Scientific literature shows that stress causes 80 to 90-percent of chronic conditions. After working with trauma for decades, physician Gabor Maté has found that “trauma is an underlying dynamic in virtually all chronic conditions of mind and body.” 

Physician Lissa Rankin explains, “What I know for sure is that trauma causes disease.” She goes onto say that the reversal of chronic and life-threatening illness is tied to the state of our nervous system. 

In his iconic book The Body Keeps the Score, Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk explains, “After trauma the world is experienced with a different nervous system. The survivor’s energy now becomes focused on suppressing inner chaos, at the expense of spontaneous involvement in their lives. These attempts to maintain control over unbearable physiological reactions can result in a whole range of physical symptoms, including fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and other autoimmune diseases.”  

At different times, I was diagnosed with all of those. Unfortunately, physicians get little training in the devastating effects of trauma on mental and physical health. Our culture largely ignores rape and maligns women who try to prosecute it. Yet, one out of six women will be a target of rape in her lifetime, according to the advocacy group RAINN. 

Trauma comes in many forms. There are the bigger events: car accidents, the loss of a loved one, natural disasters and war. But not having our emotional or physical needs met as a child has insidious effects too. So do the stressors of living with Covid, climate change and discrimination. Prolonged stress from a disrespectful relationship, financial insecurity or social isolation can also trigger a prolonged flight and fight response in the nervous system.

When the NPR reporter Laurel Morales invited me to be on her podcast 2 Lives, I wasn’t expecting her to ask details about the trauma that precipitated my long descent into illness. She was kind and patient, reassuring me that I didn’t have to go beyond my comfort zone. I paused.  

something in me wanted to speak out about what I’d held in for 15 years. so I shared more vulnerable details than I’d expressed publicly before. It made me squirm. I woke up with anxiety in the night. yet, I knew what I had to do.  

We live in a culture of complacency around acts of hatred and violence towards vulnerable populations: women; Black, Indigenous and people of color; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and others without levers of power. As you’ll hear in the 2 Lives podcast, anti-Semitic slurs were leveled against me. I’m inspired by the courageous people speaking out through #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, the LGBTQ movement and in ordinary, daily life. 

One day, a family member asked why I’d publicly share that my symptoms started after an assault. I replied, “Because that’s what happened. That’s the truth.” To imply otherwise, would be like pretending that rain does not make us wet. Of course, there’s no imperative to speak out before we’re ready, or at all.  Healing is a deeply personal undertaking that happens in our tender interior reaches. 

Moreover, we need skilled and compassionate support, whether it be from a partner, friend or trauma therapist. When we can’t share what happened to us, we hold it in. That trapped energy can turn into pain, fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome or cancer. It can lead to addiction and mental illness. It can wreak havoc on our relationships and make us feel numb. 

Maté points out that trauma can’t heal when it’s unseen, “When your vulnerability is not recognized, when your wound is not respected, and you're not given the relationships in which you can heal, we're in deep trouble. It's that refusal to see or the inability to see that keeps it going.”

With gentle care, our wounds can mend. We need a safe space to exhale, express, expand. We need someone to listen lovingly. We need to let our animal body move how it instinctively wanted to when it was trapped. I’m lucky to have found a gifted Somatic Experiencing practitioner to guide my way and I recommend this modality. 

I tentatively sent this 2 Lives podcast episode to a few friends before sharing it here. One confidant replied, “I was moved by how willing you were to confront the specificities of the assault. I think that reaches out to people who have experienced similar things and can help them know that they don’t have to suffer alone.” 

I want others who are suffering to know that they are not alone. If this is you, you are not alone. I see you. You have done nothing wrong. You deserve to be treated with respect, integrity and dignity.

You can heal in ways you may not have realized are possible.  

I felt broken for so many years. My energy, clarity and zest for life vanished. Something in me gave up on life. Despite great intentions, I made bad choices in relationships with men. I blamed myself, until I realized that poor decision-making can come from post-traumatic stress. 

The amygdala stores emotional memories and sees life through a distorted lens. I eventually found self-compassion for my suffering and my inevitable response to trauma. 

Even in the dark days, something inside me knew I could recover from chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Just like something inside me knows that you can overcome what ails you. Just like something inside you knows you can reclaim your essential self too. 

Trauma can obscure but can’t strip us of who we really are. Healing invites us into a more intimate relationship with our authentic self, a place of free-flowing, creative life force.  

Rumi says “The hurt we embrace becomes joy. Call it into your arms where it can change.” The Persian mystic does not say to reject, repel or rebuff our pain. Great sages point to the same truth: our pain needs to be tended and loved. This applies to chronic pain, fatigue, heartache, anxiety, depression, numbness, loneliness and the myriad ways that suffering manifests.  

I was scared to share details of my story in a society still tinged with the patriarchal assumption that a woman asks for it. It’s insane to think anyone would want to lose agency of her body, to fear for her life, to suffer the terror of violence and years of disability to follow. A South African friend I shared the episode with brought a refreshing urgency to the topic. 

“My heart goes out to you. I am so sorry. I felt so sad when I heard that story. I got overcome with how you must have felt in that moment and how you couldn’t share it with anyone. I feel the pain of how much you’ve lost in your life.” 

As his voice choked up with emotion, my cells shifted in their orbit. There is subtle but real healing from being witnessed with genuine compassion. I didn’t know how much those words would mean to me until I heard them.

“Here in South Africa, rape is rape,” he continued through tears. We don’t call it anything else. It’s not something we look upon lightly. When I told my sister what happened to you, her face scrunched up as if she had been hit. Rape is considered one of the worst things that can happen to a woman. My heart is with you. You are not alone in this. We are walking this path with you.” 

Thank you, South Africa. We have something to learn from you. We all need compassionate company on our path of healing. Thank you for walking with me. 

Wherever you are, know that I am walking with you.