If You’re Not Expressing It, You’re Carrying It

You’ve probably heard the saying, ‘The body keeps the score’. It’s actually followed by: ‘If the memory of trauma is encoded in our senses, in muscle tension, and in anxiety, then the body must also be involved in the healing process’ - Bessel van der Kolk.

When those stored experiences are unresolved, they often reveal themselves as illness or pain.

One memory resurfaced recently and completely reshaped the way I think about “healing your own body.”

It all started with a migraine. The big bad, throbbing kind that refuses to let go. Searching for answers, I stumbled on a podcast - The Cure for Chronic Pain by Nicole Sachs. The episode was Season 3, Episode 37: “Moving from Actual Fight/Flight/Freeze to Chronic Migraines with Kristin.”

But my migraine story began much earlier, back in 2019. They hit like a storm; debilitating, floor-bound, blackout-curtain migraines. Panadol did nothing. I missed work, calling in sick almost monthly, until my boss sat me down with concern: “I really think something is wrong, Zeisha.” I remember breaking down, terrified of what was happening to me.

A doctor diagnosed them as hormonal migraines and prescribed Rizatriptan. It worked but only sometimes and only if I caught the migraine fast enough. I feared them every month and they were completely out of my control.

Once I went through surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, my migraines took a back seat. They were still there, but not as bad. I wasn’t sure why at the time, but I was glad (and didn’t really care to go looking for an answer as to why at this point).

Then in June 2023, they returned briefly. As I dug for answers, scared of being out of control floor-bound again, I landed on Nicole’s podcast. Listening to Kristin’s story, her experiences of Covid anxiety, job pressure, and living in fight-or-flight resonated with my own history - years of emotional and physical abuse in a relationship that left me living in constant fear + shame from being groomed, and shame for carrying others opinions of me that couldn’t have been further from the truth. I just had no strength in me to fight for my own name anymore.

One line changed everything:
“If you’re not expressing it, you’re carrying it.”

Nicole explained that ‘a migraine, something so physical can be literally eliminated by understanding the brain science behind the fact that when the brain is in long-term flight or flight, and you are panicked and that vigilant, the body must unload it for you. It’s not possible for you to stay in that state of being’.

How was this showing up for me? It showed up as fear, shame, suffering, waking up every everyday living the same traumatic moments looping over and over again. I realised my life was being controlled by the fear of going “backwards,” and reliving the same traumas.

Another episode (S3, Ep 39: “Real-Time Heal – When Emotions Turn Into Pain”) drove it home: ‘The way we perceive danger is that if something is uncontrollable, it is deemed dangerous or not surmountable, our brain will do anything to divert us from feeling it. And that’s where you get the headache or the neck pain, or whatever’s happening out there. You get this symptom in order to protect you and distract you from that which feels unsurvivable by your brain and your nervous system”

And suddenly it clicked: safety regulates the nervous system. When you feel safe, you relax. And when you relax, nervousness has nowhere to live and it leaves.

I started that episode with a migraine. But as I absorbed the message, I felt it leaving my body. For the first time, I believed that my body wasn’t betraying me - it was trying to protect me.

I cried.

When I was first diagnosed, I felt so hurt that my body had betrayed me. But I realised, this was not the case. My body had been fighting all along - for me to survive. And that understanding became the first step to healing.

Today I get migraines, but just not like I did before. I’ve started to slow down and it is hard to do that, having a 10 month old. I don’t stress out over the small things like I used to but I still have that cognitive overload going on and I know there will always be more work to do in calming my own mind. Writing has become an essential outlet for me - something I need to do to care for my mind, body, and spirit.

I hope that these words might also bring comfort or clarity to someone else walking a similar path.

- Zeish