Soul Leaves Body
By Adrienne Garrison
@adrie.garrison
*Content warning: reference to sexual trauma*
There is more than fight or flight in the face of fear. There is also freeze.
He was the OB of choice for all of the resident wives. The one to request for rotation, the one the doctors-in-training could imagine themselves having a beer with, probably. I could see it in the way he breezed into the room, nodding at me and clapping my husband on the back. I could see it, but I didn’t want to believe I could be excluded from a moment like this. I was holding the hope of eight years of marriage and eleven weeks of wonder inside of me, and that day we were going to see the child my heart had been longing for. I laid back, as he told me to, scooched down, knees touching. He tapped the back of his gloved hand against my kneecap as he recounted the antics of a recent shift with my husband and I understood I was meant to spread my legs. It wasn’t until I saw him stretch a condom over the ultrasound wand that I comprehended what this viewing session would be. I remember the aquatic chugging of the doppler heartbeat in my ears, and everything went gray.
The soul leaves the body with remarkable ease. It gathers itself up with select portions of the mind and heart, and levitates. On this day, I melted into the ceiling tiles, speckled like the shell of an egg. The grid on the ceiling stretched north, south, east, west in such straight lines, crossing themselves at a reasonable, predictable interval.
Back on the pavement outside of the clinic, my husband squeezed me in for a goodbye hug, telling me he’d see me after his shift. I was startled, suddenly, by the blue sky arching over me, by his familiar touch. He was halfway to his car when I called out to him.
“The baby is fine?”
He looked at me, cocking his head to one side. “Yeah, babe. Healthy as can be -- you heard him.” And with a wave he was gone.
Driving home, I was hyper-aware of how it felt to drive 70 down the highway, as though there was no steel-coated skin around me. I took my exit and a few minutes later, I was sitting in a hot car in my dark garage, gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline. There were no words. Tears, shame, so much anger. Everyone loved this doctor. What was wrong with me?
My mom called and it rang through the Bluetooth, startling me. “How did the appointment go?”
Her excitement seemed distant, garish. “Fine.”
“Are you crying?”
“The baby’s healthy.”
“Did the appointment go okay?”
“No. Not really.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I just—really don’t like that guy.”
“Honey, you can go somewhere else. It’s not too late. Text a few other girlfriends for recommendations and make the call.”
Two weeks later I walked into an all-female clinic and spent the rest of my pregnancy nesting and dreaming like any first-time mother. I folded the memory of that day and placed it into a box marked “Bad Men”, then kicked it into the basement of my mind.
Two years and a cross-country move later, the memories wanted out. I stumbled out of a Mother’s Day massage, teeth chattering in fear, unable to answer a single question from the very confused woman at the counter who, after being able at least to clarify that I had not been physically harmed during the session, wordlessly slid a gift certificate for another massage across the counter and watched me leave. That certificate sat in the bottom of the glove compartment for weeks, harassing me. I would never go back, never. My heart beat a strong resolve. But my mind was ever ready with that white-hot question: What was wrong with me?
It was holding plank that undid me. I was holding plank pose in a yoga class and my hair fell like a curtain on either side of my face, so when the teacher came by to offer an alignment that I did not consent to, feeling her grip on the back of my neck unexpectedly, the animal part of my brain unleashed every ounce of cortisol it had. And my body did the thing that it knew to do in crisis, it kept perfectly still. I emerged from that class trembling with anger that gave way to a soul-scraping shame. Once again, I sat in a dark garage holding the steering wheel, sticky with sweat and tears, realizing that I could no longer survive this life by giving a wide berth to my triggers. I couldn’t see them coming anymore, and it seemed like the more years that passed, the harder they hit.
I will never forget the day, several months into intensive therapy, when I felt brave enough to ask my therapist the question nestled deep in the core of me. The one that had been nudged awake by the daughter I grew and that had learned to torment me in new, impossible ways.
“I want you to tell me what is wrong with me. Why am I like this?”
She paused, watching me for a moment. “Your diagnosis has been in your chart for a while now. Post-traumatic stress disorder.”
My heart beat in perfect unison with the clock on her wall. “You mean, like a soldier?”
She stood and walked over to her bookcase, removing the DSM-V and placing it on her lap, like a Bible, turning to a section and reading a list of symptoms straight from the diary of my heart. Every last one.
A few sessions later, we made a game plan, talking through what I could expect in my first OBGYN appointment in my new town. I rehearsed the words I needed to say. I reminded myself that I wanted another child so much more, infinitely more than I wanted to avoid this terror. In the days leading up to my appointment, when panic settled its stifling weight on my chest, I held tight to my newfound truth like a lifeline: I am safe. I have a voice. I know things now that I didn’t know then.
At the OB office, I write those four letters on my new patient intake form. PTSD. There is no check-box for this. Trauma, it seems, is not so medically relevant as a minor surgery, or the history of my paternal grandmother. In the patient room, my husband waits next to me, still a talisman of comfort, and now sobered to the reality of how my past and present converge suddenly and violently in situations like this. He is here to help anchor me. The nurse enters and reviews my chart, does not mention the note I wrote in, tells me the doctor will be in soon and asks me to undress.
“Do you have any questions?”
Inhale. “I have a history of sexual trauma. It would be better for me to meet the physician first—with my clothes on.” Exhale.
A simple thing. The most humane request lost in the machinery of medical efficiency. Her brows knit together and I see her intention there: to care for women. When the doctor comes in, he seems unfazed by this change in routine, introduces himself, and goes out again. I undress, feel the pull of my soul, begging to leave. Returning to the room, the doctor walks to the side of the bed, making eye contact and asking about our daughter, reaching out his hand to help me lower onto my back. In a few minutes, my IUD is removed and I do not dissociate. I am present for every uncomfortable, vulnerable moment of the procedure. Inside, it seems as though my body is barreling along like a freight train. Even as I slide my sweater over my arms, I feel the remnants of hollowness there, an echo of something that happened long ago.
You are safe. I speak these words to myself like a friend, like a mother. You are safe.
Guest essay written by Adrienne Garrison. Adrienne lives in Bloomington, Indiana with her husband and their two little ones. Her essays have appeared in Coffee+Crumbs and New Millennium Writings, and her short story “No Longer Mine” was recently featured in LETTERS Journal. Adrienne believes magic takes the form of heart-to-heart conversations, petit-fours, and walks in the woods. You can find more of her writing at adriennegarrison.com