Structural Dissociation?

[shimmerz]

OK, this may be out there but...

Thank you so much for saying this first. It is a secret I have held for 5 years now. I know as well as anyone else that secrets are bad for trauma survivors.

Let me explain. I have a whole bunch of 'normal' friends. Normal meaning within this context, not being raised in the type of situation I was. They were all loved, pre and post birth, happy, well adjusted families. I have no idea how I ended up being able to relate to 'normal' people. The power of thinking I suppose because up until 8 years ago I had NO idea my past was filled with such darkness. Funny thing is, I 'understood' and just knew (before I knew of my past), how to relate to trauma people. I related to them in a totally different way and my 'normal' friends could not at ALL understand how I could deal with them. I didn't just deal with them, I 'got' them. And they liked me a lot because I was the only seemingly 'normal' person that did. lol. What a crazy life I have.

Anyways, I absolutely cannot tell my 'normal' friends any of this. Even my traumatized friends don't get it, but because you brought it up, here goes (belly completely exposed right now). I am not certain if having a shaman for a very dear friend is a good thing or not.

Anyhooo.....I did a complete melt down during my rekindling, 8 years ago. I meet a women's counselor who is a shaman. She offers her services. I take her up on her offer. While I am still a 'green' journey-er, she takes me on a journey. There I am.....in the midst of a journey and I am screaming in my head but I can make no sound. My body is writhing, grasping. My mind is going ballistic and I can feel it. I know she is dead. And I feel completely responsible because I should have been able to stop it. Whatever happened was brutal and sudden, I could feel it while I journeyed.

All of the sudden, while still journeying, I stop moving. I say to the shaman, as she continues the journey forward, 'but don't you understand? There was a mistake. She can't die. Don't you see? It was one big mistake! She can't leave me, I can't leave her. She has nowhere to go. We are meant to be together. She is me and I am her.'

Honestly. Craziest.Thing.EVER. I am new at journeying when this takes place (now I am used to this stuff)! I had no idea how to process it but I swear to whoever is in charge of this goddammed universe, I felt it. Every freaking cell of my body was reliving it. *Shudder*

Perhaps this part doesn't want to die for the sake of dying, but to be reunited with your twin?

Yes. I believe it is an intermingling or, as you so aptly put it, a braiding of souls. Survivors guilt is a large part of it on my side, but I am going to put it out there....she is a part of me as well. She has her reasons and they are very strong ones, for wanting to stay here, I don't know what they are. We can't get to them.

In which case a kind of metaphysical/mystical intervention might be in order. Trying to connect with your twin past death. It happens, and it can be very very healing.

Yes, but we are missing something. I did improve greatly when we 'fixed' this. There were complex pieces of it so it took quite a few journeys. But with each round, my catatonia was reduced more and more. My wandering out and wanting to die diminished. But we were missing something. It never truly went away. I had an intuition that it was because I couldn't quite get to why she kept needing to come back when we released her. Somehow we were missing a key piece of the ties that kept us 'braided'.

Except this. Now (for the last three months) I swear to you, the catatonia is completely gone. The triggering is completely gone. The dissociation is completely gone. I have had no need to wander outside and die. I did not journey in that time, no metaphysical stuff. I was on the road to California. It.Just.Left. Poof. Gone. *Heavy Sigh* My friends are stunned. My personality has completely shifted because the dissociation is .... gone. Except whe I come to this posting.

And me? I should be so excited! Noooooooo!!!!!! I want to know where the hell it went and why!!!! I should be excited as could be! I am functional - completely (if only my pancreas would catch up). I seriously wonder if it has something to do with my 'pain' part having been activated and acknowledged. I feel like the pain part (I was operated on with a paralyzing agent only, no anesthetic) was a crucial piece in my integration. For two weeks while I was in the hospital, I did nothing but process my version of what pain is, I seriously had never felt pain before. While I was in the hospital I knew this was going to be a big piece of my healing. I had no idea how big.

Okay, I have said it.
I know it sounds insane BUT....This is my truth, I swear to you.
Seriously, this would be fascinating. If it wasn't happening to me.

And this is the first time I have posted in this thread and not dissociated at all. Thank.You.Eleanor. The secret is out. The sorry thing is, I feel like an idiot for even broaching the subjects I did in this posting, but I do believe every word of it.

 

[shimmerz]

I just want to say one more thing. When I first rekindled I had all sorts of crazy dreams about people making me un-human. Not taking away my humanity, but literally making me be un-human.

I get a sense that each of these EP's are attempting to express the pieces of humanity that have been taken away from me (or that I have not been allowed to express). Bit by bit I have attempted to allow myself to be human again. First I had to define what human was within the scope of humanity. That was a tough one. It is human to be able to feel pain.

I cannot at this point actually feel pain (I have a disconnect of some sort due to neurological processes that were missed during a critical brain mapping 'window' (Norman Doidge, The Brain that Changes Itself)), however, due to my recent hospital stay, I was allowed to have a relationship with pain that was meaningful to me for the first time in my adult life. I believe this process is key to healing EP issues.

Take Eleanors list of 'needs' that corresponds to each EP and fly with it when the opportunity arises. And the opportunity will arise. This is why we see patterns (imho) of the same issues coming up over and over again. To provide us with the opportunity to 'rework' them. *Deep breath*

It was a very real possibility that I was going to die in the hospital 2 months ago, and I prepared to die. For a week I processed this very real feeling. I gave myself up to it, determined what that would mean to me and those around me. Then, luckily for me, I had people fight for me to live while I was in the hospital. They kept vigil for me. My parents were supposed to do that. My bleak history was re-written during those two weeks. I got to choose how I wanted to relate to both the pain and the dying issue. It didn't feel like much of a gift at the time, but it was.

I can't believe I am actually writing this. Thanks for listening. Honestly, I haven't been able to say this to anybody. Ever. Thank you all for this gift.

 

[Eleanor]

What an amazing story. And here in Northern California is does not sound "out there" particularly at all. Unusual yes. (Happily) but ... not impossible by a long shot.

I was on the road to California

Is it important to know why she felt she could go? And is your intuition that the place or the destination was important? Or was it just coincidence?

I should be so excited! Noooooooo!!!!!! I want to know where the hell it went and why!!!!

I don't know. I mean, yes you should feel excited about symptom relief. But... not before you mourn your loss. I'm sorry she left you so abruptly. I guess she was eager to get on her way?? :( To a more comfortably "holding orbit." And now... maybe you can relax enough to connect on a different, less frantic (??) level? To do whatever you need to together.

FWIW - You couldn't protect her, dear shimmerz. You were as helpless as helpless can be on this planet at the time. And there were forces at play FAR beyond your control. You valiantly did your VERY BEST, but couldn't change the outcome. There is value in that. Value that will never be lost. Please, guilt is not appropriate here. Not for you. Not for her. You need to recognize each other, and appreciate each other for what you tried to do but couldn't. Maybe set the intention to be sisters again the next time around?

Then, luckily for me, I had people fight for me to live while I was in the hospital. They kept vigil for me.

Couples T taught me a new phrase yesterday "Corrective Experience."

 

[Hope4Now]

Shimmerz :hug::hug::hug: Thank you for sharing. I am glad it is not a secret any more. Secrets are unhealthy for us folk. Far more than others, I think. What a painful and profound journey you've been on all this time. You don't have to hold it all by yourself anymore, you know. We're here too. Walking with you. Holding it all with each other together.

I am profoundly intrigued (? is that the word? moved? honored to witness? compassionate? empathetic? maybe all those and more) I have wished to work with a Shaman for a long time now. I talk very little about my spiritual existence on this forum because there aren't a lot of people who understand or are open to it. It is really, really hard to find people like that, actually. Much of my fall apart and crazy crazy symptoms happened because of some really out-there stuff that happened. I did some spiritual work that unleashed the fury. My system was not ready.

FWIW - You couldn't protect her, dear shimmerz. You were as helpless as helpless can be on this planet at the time. And there were forces at play FAR beyond your control. You valiantly did your VERY BEST, but couldn't change the outcome. There is value in that. Value that will never be lost. Please, guilt is not appropriate here. Not for you. Not for her. You need to recognize each other, and appreciate each other for what you tried to do but couldn't. Maybe set the intention to be sisters again the next time around?

Dear Shimmerz...What @Eleanor said. I could not have said it any better at all.

One adult trauma I have worked on a bit in therapy was my inability to save a man who was fatally injured in a motorcycle accident. I happened 25 years ago. Thought I'd dealt with it, but it has reared it's ugly head along with all the other unprocessed trauma. I was the first person on the scene. I have good emergency medical training. I was terrified and totally dissociated (although I did not know what that meant then). I did everything I could...which ultimately was very little and a failure. He was dying while I watched. Then, his girlfriend who had been thrown from the bike into the woods came stumbling out of the woods, drunk as a skunk and unharmed. Yikes...can't even write about this.

Anyway, I understand that we can process things intellectually...we can KNOW in our heads that we were helpless but tried our best but couldn't change the outcome. That there are universal forces at work far beyond what we can conceive of with our limited spiritual wisdom. But if that knowledge doesn't integrate with our hearts and bodies (the other parts of being human) it doesn't get fully processed. Stays stuck in us. Mapped into our consciousness at some level.

I seriously wonder if it has something to do with my 'pain' part having been activated and acknowledged. I feel like the pain part (I was operated on with a paralyzing agent only, no anesthetic) was a crucial piece in my integration. For two weeks while I was in the hospital, I did nothing but process my version of what pain is, I seriously had never felt pain before. While I was in the hospital I knew this was going to be a big piece of my healing. I had no idea how big.

So, as spiritually oriented as I am, I also have a solid background in neuroscience and, since last year, a pretty decent intellectual understanding of trauma processing (Of course, the actual personal experience of DOING it is quite different from understanding it, and integrating those two things even different still). So...sorry if this sounds all intellectual...but it is a piece of it. I think things like your experiences process both spiritually and physically/emotionally (those are inextricable). It is likely that when you were in the hospital in that crisis and integrating your version of pain was a final (perhaps?) piece of your brain re-wiring itself...processing the trauma through your body. If you've read about somatic experiencing/Peter Levine's work, you will have some understanding of that. But your experience is different...dips into the spiritual realms as well in different ways. I'd hazard to propose that your difficult work with your shaman prepared you for processing what you did in the hospital.

I don't know. Perhaps I'm just projecting. But a former forum member with whom I had many conversations (a healer type), suggested to me that I was processing my trauma backward from what happens to most people. Meaning that it started with the spiritual. Oh Ugh, I don't think I can explain it.

This is why we see patterns (imho) of the same issues coming up over and over again. To provide us with the opportunity to 'rework' them. *Deep breath*

Yes! Yes! Yes! I see patterns in EVERYTHING. Hyper-processing!

Seriously, this would be fascinating. If it wasn't happening to me.

:bawling: I've thought the same thing about myself.

 

[Eleanor]

Shimmerz :hug::hug::hug: Thank you for sharing. I am glad it is not a secret any more. Secrets are unhealthy for us folk. Far more than others, I think. What a painful and profound journey you've been on all this time. You don't have to hold it all by yourself anymore, you know. We're here too. Walking with you. Holding it all with each other together.

I am profoundly intrigued (? is that the word? moved? honored to witness? compassionate? empathetic? maybe all those and more)

Yes. All those and more. Me too.

At the end of the day ... it is all about energy (in that vague or maybe not so vague) physics sense. So the spiritual/physical interplay is not so odd to me. (Thank you Bishop George Berkeley) The quantum theorists tell us that it is not the STUFF that is primary and makes the relationships ... it is the RELATIONSHIPS that make the STUFF. This means something to me, but might not to anyone else...

And it is so important to remember how VERY plastic brains are. That is kind of their point...

@Hope4Now that sounds... just awful. AWFUL.

(Of course, the actual personal experience of DOING it is quite different from understanding it, and integrating those two things even different still)

Amen to that. There is a famous philosophy paper called "What Mary Didn't Know" by Frank Jackson. About neuroscience and its limits... Just a random firing... Tho I might have to read it and rethink it a bit, as my ideas about imagination have shifted somewhat... Anyway... tangent.

Hugs to you too @Hope4Now You are making BIG strides too...

 

[shimmerz]

Corrective Experience

@Eleanor, do you feel that this keeping vigil was a 'corrective experience' for me? I know it allowed me to realize that I had actually built a life where two people (man and woman) actually cared whether I died or not. Then, it turned into my being horribly afraid of corners in rooms and that people would jump out at me. lol. No rest for the weary. I read about the Corrective Experience Theory. It is interesting stuff. Do you feel it may help you? I just want to say that you are such an incredible support here. Absolutely selfless. I thank you so much for all that you do to help others. :hug::hug::hug:

I was processing my trauma backward from what happens to most people

I know what this means. The spiritual stuff, if you aren't ready for it, is overwhelming at times. It is so much about trust in .... well something divine. I didn't even know if I believed in divinity. There came a point in time that I had to buy in though. Otherwise this whole struggle was pointless. I frame this stuff up both spiritually and conventionally. I speak about dissociation but at times I mean soul loss. @Eleanor is right though, there are very few people that I can speak about this stuff to. It is too 'out there' for them. I have heard how people spit out the term 'New Age' as if it is the root of all evil and encapsulates anything that is not scientifically proven. I don't believe that science has the answers for us all. There was a time that the world was considered flat you know. lol.

Yes, Peter Levine's work is great. I worked with a SE healer as well. It was difficult stuff for me at the time because I so didn't feel my body. The work with her confirmed my t-docs position which was, 'for every emotion is a physical response'. I had to leave the work with the SE therapist. My mind wasn't ready for body work at that time. My somatics were out of control at the time.

Okay, so now that I have completely taken over this thread, it is my genuine hope that everyone knows my 'secret telling' is over and I won't monopolize this thread anymore. Floor's open to all again! Thank you all, genuinely, for hearing me.

 

[Chava]

I cannot at this point actually feel pain (I have a disconnect of some sort due to neurological processes that were missed during a critical brain mapping 'window' (Norman Doidge, The Brain that Changes Itself)), however, due to my recent hospital stay, I was allowed to have a relationship with pain that was meaningful to me for the first time in my adult life. I believe this process is key to healing EP issues.

This is very cool (not that you were sick or in pain, but that you felt a new connection). I remember feeling hunger as hunger and how bizarre that was...I couldn't tell my normal friends this stuff either. Aside from being too bizarre they would have wanted to say, "f*ck you and your skinny problems." The only "needs" I felt were needing a cigarette. I used to understand needing a drink, but I got sober through many attempts and finally many months in rehab. Feeling tired, hungry, anything...just didn't happen. And even in earlier treatments when therapists tried to make them happen for me (behaviorists, hospitals), I had horrible feelings about meeting basic survival needs...it's like I had to find all new ways to slightly die.

Once I started rewiring these cues (needed to finally gain and maintain weight) I started having horrid panic attacks...flooded with info I could not process. I think my pain is tangled into this somehow, maybe more the emotional part. With all the body info I had to try to process without being totally hurled over the edge, I still had to blunt my feelings, but without the help of starvation. I think a lot got tied up into chronic pain. Before then, I didn't feel much. I was the person who could fly off a bike or be cut open and not really be bothered or feel much. I don't think I had your relationship to pain, but the whole thing of cues has been very abnormal for me. Anyway, now little bits of those feelings try to leak out and they feel very childish, like they've been locked in there for decades. No wonder I didn't want to deal with them...that's just plain confusing and requires some good, compassionate support.

 

[Eleanor]

Do you feel it may help you?

I think my H and I do this for each other. A fair amount. Most of the time now it is dealing with the fall out of the dark times. But sometimes it is still old stuff coming up. And please don't think I am as selfless as all that. I get ALOT out of being here. It is the first community...how do I say this... of healthy relationships? I've been a member of. Really ever. I am frequently in awe of this community, of how smart and good and wise and compassionate people are. People, for the most part, who have every excuse not to be.

Thinking about the whole pain thing...

 

[shimmerz]

I am so happy that you can refer to the 'dark times' as a thing of the past. Good for both you and your husband! Yes, this community, for me, is like landing on a planet that speaks my language. All of my life I have felt like everyone spoke a different tongue than I did. I don't have to think so hard to keep up! lol. And yes, they (and you, my friend) are smart as whips).

Thinking about the whole pain thing...

Yes, me too. I had a doctors appt yesterday - I am certain my pancreatitis is still flaring up, but he absolutely does not believe that I don't feel pain. Anyways, the appt was cancelled. I have been anxious all week about how to get across to him what this is. I thought about perhaps giving him my dentists number. He may or may not call him but my dentist absolutely knows that I don't feel pain based on the procedures he has done for me with no pain agent. He is also a 'spiritual' type so I never really had to explain it to my dentist, he just accepts it for what it is. He will go to bat for me. It is sad that I need someone to vouch for me though, you know? Why can't I speak for myself on this one and be believed? *heavy sigh* I don't get this world.

Anyway, I understand that we can process things intellectually...we can KNOW in our heads that we were helpless but tried our best but couldn't change the outcome. That there are universal forces at work far beyond what we can conceive of with our limited spiritual wisdom.

This, I think is where we have to have fully bought into the power of spirituality or god or whatever and give it up. The thing that I find interesting about my situation is that I had no conscious memory of it. I was not even born yet. This has me think that cellular memory is so very important here. Almost more important that what we remember. I am so sorry you went through the motorcycle incident, it sounds absolutely horrifying. Yes, you know on an intellectual level that you did all you could, but what was your body doing at that time? What EP was activated? The helpless one? A different one? I am finding for myself that recognizing the piece that would have shown up is a great help to me. It helps to rid one of shame, guilt etc because we can equally intellectualize the EP stepping in and dealing in a way that we would not normally have if we had been whole. Now what would it look like if we were whole? Just a few thoughts. May not be good ones, but still mine. :eek: :confused: I can't do EPicons nearly as well as you!

Is it important to know why she felt she could go? And is your intuition that the place or the destination was important? Or was it just coincidence?

Ahhhh, I so don't believe in coincidences anymore, so no, not that imho. It is fine that she left and my intuition tells me that I was holding onto her. We did so many escorts for her to walk to where ever we go when we are not tied to this earth plane. I feel as if it was the trip that did it to me. It triggered a feeling. I had given away all that I had prior to the trip. Not just material things but my role as a mother, my role as a friend etc. I was leaving. I was completely free of everything. Not against my will, but I had made that choice. I feel like that process, that decision, the playing out of walking away from everything to drive to an entirely different coast, country, culture was my ticket to establishing the self that no longer needed to dissociate. It felt surreal and was almost like a fugue without the amnesia part if that makes any sense at all.

 

[Eleanor]

he just accepts it for what it is. He will go to bat for me. It is sad that I need someone to vouch for me though, you know? Why can't I speak for myself on this one and be believed?

Just to affirm, yeah, it is always curious to me that people won't believe others when they tell them something that they are CLEARLY not lying about. Who would lie about this for god's sake? I pretty much believe any "crazy" thing people tell me about themselves at this point. Not that I don't sometimes think "weeeeellllll .... ok.... I guess..." because it is pretty far out there. But in my experience I do a lot better when I believe people about their experience than when I don't. I think it is harder for people who fall within the "norm" (or think they do, or are committed to think they do) to make conceptual space for experience that is significantly different than theirs. That is their handicap.

For me I grew up and have always loved sic-fi/fantasy and different sensory modalities and cognitive structures are a staple, and I'm pretty well practiced at trying to imagine them. Also, I have and work with a lot of animals, and approach them (or try to) from their point of view.

Doctors, for better or probably worse, more or less get socialized in med school that "the patient is the enemy." Tanya Luhrmann wrote an ethnography of psychiatry... really interesting. (I've always been interested in her work since I once almost seriously screwed up an interview for her for a really important fellowship... It worked out ok, and I learned that I Should Not Ever Again be a secretary. ADD + complex scheduling = disaster)

Doctors don't, as a general rule, have clue one about pain. They have not, until quite recently, been taught much of anything about it. It is only VERY recently that any serious research about pain has been done. They inexplicably traditionally don't seem to actually believe in it. Or maybe that is ungenerous. Maybe the dynamic is more like my old friend and horseshoer Fred, who was rescuing this horse and had to keep him in a rather small stall for a few weeks while the bones knitted back together. It drove the girls and the ranch crazy that this horse was locked up. And they picked and nagged at poor Fred about it until one day he walked into his trailer and got a pistol and handed it to the gal who'd been nagging him that morning and put it in her hand and said, "Fine, if you want to let him out, go ahead. But if you do, you might as well shoot him now because once he puts serious weight on that leg he will never walk on it again. " And walked off. I had not, in fact nagged at him. So he talked to me about it later and explained that he doesn't "See" the horse's pain, if he is going to fix them he can't. He would never be able to do what needed to be done if he was always aware of their pain and frustration. And he fixed A Lot of "unfixable" horses that would otherwise have been put down. So maybe that is what old time doctors did... but now it has become a left over and dysfunctional part of the culture.

Plus, no one understands (scientifically speaking) pain very well. Getting better, but still bad. Physical pain, I should say. We are starting to get a body of knowledge about physical pain. Emotional pain? Nada as yet. We are culturally barbarians about emotional pain.

Ya know... maybe that is one "why" this forum is so incredibly valuable to me. People here take emotion seriously. Dead seriously. Like it actually exists or something.

Also, while I didn't have any major trauma (just the run of the mill "normal stuff") and nothing that could remotely count as abuse in my childhood, it is also a community of people who have been emotionally neglected like me. Which is (closely) related but different. Perhaps because both prevent integration of experience... causing splinters.. ????

establishing the self that no longer needed to dissociate. It felt surreal and was almost like a fugue without the amnesia part if that makes any sense at all.

So... like the first time you didn't have to "have a foot in both worlds?" A new identity as a "single" entity? That makes perfect sense to me.

 

[Hope4Now]

Okay, so now that I have completely taken over this thread,

It's YOUR thread! You can take it over any time you want!

But look out...:nailbiting: here come my secrets.

I speak about dissociation but at times I mean soul loss.

I understand, I think. I haven't quite connected the dots in a way that makes sense to me. Am thinking along the lines of soul injury or soul invisibility (versus "loss". That the soul can be found and brought into the light and healed through integration. Hmmm. Need to keep thinking on this.

I talk about feeling like my mother "stole my soul." It is why I was far more terrified of her than of my father in spite of the more obviously frightening things he did to me. My mother was sickly subtle. She is so narcissistic that she had/has absolutely no idea what she did (and still does) to me. Before any of my life and all these problems became at all clear in any way, I remember calling my therapist one night last spring to ask if there was something called "emotional rape." I was having all these body flashbacks and somehow identified what I was feeling as soul rape. I had no idea what it meant, but I do now. The repressed memory of the physical rape didn't come until months later in a still seemingly unending flashback. So...there's my secret...I was raped physically and emotionally...over and over again. And I never even knew it. And now my mind does it to myself over and over again.
:yuck::confused::mad::eek::banghead::arghh;:stop::speechless::alien::alien::alien::alien::alien:

I had to leave the work with the SE therapist. My mind wasn't ready for body work at that time. My somatics were out of control at the time.

Yes, that makes so much sense. I think it is why my journey of the past year or so has been so wildly intense (and backward). The chronic pain issues are somatic. I think called a conversion disorder if I had to name it. I think my t mentioned this among other things. Anyway, I didn't know then. So I went through all the medical routes (which all failed) and ended up working with two extraordinarily talented and intuitive body workers. I think the work broke through some dissociative barrier that had kept me completely separate from my body in many ways (although I do feel pain...sort of the opposite of what you talked about...I am hyper-sensitive to any sensory input at all...a bit like a skittish wild animal really).

Then I started doing meditation...totally untrained and on my own. (I've always been a deeply spiritual person and have meditated for years, but this was a whole new experience.) That's when the really really crazy stuff started...visions, auditory hallucinations, involuntary body movements and sounds, none of which made any sense at all and completely terrified me. A yoga therapist I went to called it Kundalini Syndrome. When the body workers eventually suggested I seek out a trauma therapist, I thought they were nuts but I was so desperate, I did. Thank god. So, who knows, really...my trauma and dissociative symptoms are pretty closely aligned with symptoms of kundalini syndrome. Maybe once I heal myself I'll become some kind of enlightened yogi :wideeyed:. Anyway, now the somatic work I do is extremely slow-paced and gentle, and the meditation is more movement oriented and focused on me being in my body and learning that I have a body:eek:. Part of why I think I am starting to have all these breakthroughs and insights and understandings now is that the somatic work, as well as my relationship with my therapist, has made it feel safe enough to occasionally feel myself in my own body. Queasy and terrifying, but getting there bit by bit. I've always had an easy time getting to what buddhists call no-self...that communion with the universal energy. I'm on a backward spiritual journey...trying to find my-self. :p (Can you tell that I've recently learned how to use emoticons?!)

Yikes. That was a long post. Probably makes no sense at all. I'm pretty "out there."

 

[shimmerz]

I understand, I think. I haven't quite connected the dots in a way that makes sense to me. Am thinking along the lines of soul injury or soul invisibility (versus "loss". That the soul can be found and brought into the light and healed through integration. Hmmm. Need to keep thinking on this.

Yes, this is the idea of a soul retrieval journey done by a shaman. Through my experience, it works.

A yoga therapist I went to called it Kundalini Syndrome.

Are you speaking of a Kundalini Awakening? See here for more info.
http://www.reiki-for-holistic-health.com/kundaliniawakening.html

learning that I have a body:eek:

Ridiculous as it sounds, I sooooo get this.

Can you tell that I've recently learned how to use emoticons

Hadn't noticed that. You look like a pro that I will never be able to catch up with! :( :arghh;

I found this in another thread which I thought might be helpful for this conversation

In order to survive the trauma, you separated into a Physical Self and a Dissociated Self. To prevent destruction of your Core Self, you hid it where your abuser could not find it. You then forgot where you hid it, because if you could remember, there would be a chance your abuser might get the information from you and thereby gain access to your Core Self and possibly destroy it.