Time and gentleness with yourself can help the intensity of feelings fade, but they never quite go away completely in my experience. Muscles retain memories too, it’s why certain form of touch can trigger such intense flashbacks, just as smells, images, sounds can do the same. I used to have a lot of issues with overcoming muscle memories, especially when I went to school to become a massage therapist. What help me was trying to trace the source of the muscle memory that triggered my feelings, like when an ex-boyfriend sometimes would touch my arm in just a certain way that it made my skin crawl and I would instantly feel dirty and distressed. It wasn’t easy but in those days I got into the habit of every time those feelings arose, I wrote down all the factors that happened right before they surfaced. Eventually I found patterns within all the chaos. With the help of friends, self therapy and hard work I found a way to reprogram some of my muscle memories. I likely never would have made it through massage therapy school otherwise. We learned a technique called Feldenchrist (this is probably spelt horribly wrong but it was also over 20 years ago & my memories are fuzzy). It was a retraining of muscle movement, slowly and intensely, to reprogram muscle memories that caused decreased range of motion (if I remember my principles correctly). But it really really helped me in retraining both my muscle & subconscious reaction to touch.

Dance was very therapeutic but I’m a solo dancer. I used to do Middle Eastern dance professionally (but as more of a hobby than seriously). I can imagine how hard it would be if my abuse & rapes affected my ability to dance. It would break my heart. How strong you are to overcome the trauma, Ds95 & be able to continue to dance after what happened! Very inspiring.

I’m not sure if any of this is helpful, but you have my support and I wish you healing, strength, and the very best. Gentle hugs!

Oh, thank you! That made me feel better. I’ll try

Good reflection, dsf95, of the kind that serves as a role model for me, too, for me to go back and take a look at where I've come from with all of this PTSD stuff. No, it'll never be OK, healing leaves scars on the skin and on the mind to remind us of that. But when something heals over like a broken leg (I had one once skiing) we can take off the cast and walk, dance, on that leg again, literally moving on. Yeah, it's hard. But it's real. Thanks for reflecting on that in your post.

More thanks for the insightful reflection. Possibly the most important of the reflections in my own PTSD healing. No, trauma will never be okay, but I still want to be part of the dance, even when I am afraid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RqpizanmHY