I went into my craniosacral appointment without an agenda, not trying to make anything happen. I laid on the treatment table and my doctor cradled my head with his hands. Before long, I felt a huge wave of deep grief rise up and expand inside my core.

I have enormous grief from everything that has been stolen from me by abusers and other people in positions of power. Especially the men I turned to for help in medicine and psychiatry, who smashed me again and again, until I lost virtually everything. This includes family, community, safety, connection, financial stability, health, quality of life, and potential future.

That kind of betrayal takes away any sense that help is safe, particularly because the institutions that are supposed to protect us from men like them actually stand by them and protect them from their victims. In my case, that includes the hospital, my health insurance company, estate licensing board, and a Delaware deputy attorney general. Layers of complicity.

There’s also grief that goes back my whole life. Men in positions of power subjected me to numerous experiences of rape, beatings, whippings, trafficking, and torture, before age 16. And there has been no accountability or justice anywhere, ever. I could have had such a better life if even one person had been held accountable somewhere. Just once.

On the treatment table the grief came in waves. The first one was massive. Several minutes later, another one, smaller. Then toward the end of the treatment, just a small flow. And then I was okay. That doesn’t mean anything was fixed or completed, just that I was okay after experiencing massive grief long held. I still have a lot of grief. It feels endless sometimes, and that makes sense. This wasn’t one event. It was a lifetime of exceptional harm, followed by systems that protected the people who caused it.

It’s remarkable how safe I feel with this doctor. My body knows it can let this happen there. Nothing is being forced or interpreted. I don’t have to explain anything or make it into something meaningful. I can just let it move.

From an Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) perspective, this is how traumatic material integrates. Not by digging or retelling. By having enough safety and enough relational steadiness that the body doesn’t have to keep everything locked down. Our nervous systems are built for this. They hold what they have to hold until it’s safe enough not to. When the conditions change, the body changes. This is not pretending the past didn’t happen, changing my perspective or thoughts, but being able to live in my body without everything piling up and crushing me.

The capacity to integrate and heal through safe connection isn’t special, rare, or earned. It’s our birthright. And being in a space where my body is finally allowed to do what it knows how to do is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever experienced.