What My Effed-Up Spine Taught Me About Trauma
Sometimes, our bodies hold stories that keep us trapped in pain
My neck hurts.
“Do you want to see what the problem is?” asks Dr. Rob. He’s staring at an X-ray he just took of my neck.
“Of course,” I answer. I can’t wait to see physical proof of whatever is holding my neck rigidly in place. After months of physical therapy and on-and-off years of looking like a newbie boot camp recruit, I’m more than ready to see what the hell is going on in there.
I stand next to him in front of the large computer monitor, our faces lit with ghostly blue light. It takes a moment for me to fully understand: Oh, that’s my skull, my vertebrae. Those are my teeth, not a picture of some dead person’s insides. Somehow this doesn’t seem possible. How can I be fully alive and look like a skeleton at the same time?
I must look confused because Dr. Rob asks, “Have you ever seen your spine before?”
“Yes,” I lie, without realizing that I’m lying. It’s something I do sometimes, to be agreeable. It takes me a few seconds to reach back into a half-century of memories and come up empty.
“Okay,” he continues, “then you’ve seen your kyphotic curve?” Now I’m stuck. A previous chiropractor ordered X-rays…
