I feel the pain of old injuries sometimes when triggered. The injuries were healed long ago, so it's not actual damage I'm feeling, it's phantom pain or memory pain. Sometimes there is no pain, but instead I'll feel cautious about my knee or ankle getting sprained, and I'll worry about hurting myself. I also get a weird itching in my mouth, and it makes me lick my teeth. And I'll rub my hands because they feel dry and weird. The feeling of my hands and mouth gives me the shudders. I finally realized it was linked to gymnastics chalk, the blisters from gymnastics, and chalk dust in my mouth. The injuries and chalk are from a certain age: puberty. When i was going through puberty, it must have brought up some sexual memories from my younger childhood. Sometimes I was injured because I was spaced off and not grounded. So now when triggered, my subconscious might be warning me that I need to stay aware of my surroundings and focused, or I could get hurt. So although my mind gets very confused, at least I'm walking around extra cautiously.

I had to write this out for my healing. I even heard myself say out loud, "okay. I did it."

I have this sad memory from when I was six. I'm just going to put it here. I think I was disassociating back then. Ok yes I was. I guess I don't want to commit to that, because then I will go on the whole spinner of answering "why" I was disassociating and what that means. But that's what I need to do... so I was at school, and I was frightened of my teacher. Come to find out later her husband was alleged to have touched students. Her husband was frequently coming to our class. I don't remember anything happening with him, but I don't remember many things; I definitely remember odd sexual things were happening in my life at that time. Anyway, one day during recess, I was playing on this giant tire that was part of the playground equipment. I was so skinny I could squeeze between the edges of the rubber to actually go into the tire and be complete hidden. I was in there when the bell rang to come in. I felt so safe in there, and I guess I thought I could just disappear. I remember feeling like I was in a dream as I peered out the crack of the tire. I saw some people looking for me, but I felt like I couldn't move. I knew I was going to be in trouble, but some part of me didn't care. I have no memory after peering out the crack. Right now writing about it, I have no feelings. But when I'm feeling spacey and dreamlike, I have suddenly remembered that day, and felt so crushingly sad. I guess it was a cry for help of some sort, because I was not a rule breaker, but I did hide sometimes and try to disappear.