A Conversation about Unresolved Trauma In The Body

On this episode of the A Bit From Within Podcast, we’ll be chatting with Toni: a wife, mother, and dental hygienist student from Colorado Springs. When Toni was in her junior year of college at Colorado Mesa University she was crossing a crosswalk on foot when she was hit by a vehicle moving about 40mph.

If you looked at her today, on the outside you may not know that she suffered such a trauma, although the chronic pain she’s in would tell you otherwise. Like many others, she was sure she didn’t need to dive into resolving the trauma from the accident in the first few years that followed- she felt like she was fine. She pushed on through life: graduating college, marrying the love of her life, and giving birth to their daughter. It wasn’t until then, when her body was dealing with postpartum hormones and a lack of sleep that her nervous system switched into fight or flight mode and couldn’t turn off. It was all of this unresolved trauma in her body that she didn’t know was there.

This lead her to a series of red flag moments that she couldn’t ignore, and decided to begin working with a therapist to understand what was happening to her. She began to realize that there was a lot of unresolved PTSD from her accident, and that post traumatic stress was wrecking havoc in her life. It was at this point that she really began to find healing and make significant breakthroughs with improving her well-being.

I love this conversation as we touch on issues that so many people, especially women can relate to. I think Toni brings a very well-rounded and relatable approach to the mental health conversation. Like she mentions, you can’t force yourself to be ready- but you can always do the due diligence of listening to your body and giving yourself the help you need when it’s time.