The Body Remembers What We Try to Forget

Surviving war, grief, and the road back to self

Before the darkness of war and conflict, my parents lived a fairly carefree life in a beautiful country, one filled with some of the most breathtaking parts of nature one could ever imagine. They were deeply in love—one of those rare connections that lights up all the stars in the sky. It was the kind of love that radiates from someone’s eyes because it runs deep down to their very soul. The kind you just know is real, even if you don’t personally know the couple.

But over time, that love began to fade. Or perhaps, it was buried under layers of pain and grief that neither of them had the means to process. The war had left them in survival mode 24/7.

For five years, there was no water, no food, no electricity. We fought every day just to meet our basic needs, and more often than not those needs were not met. Experiences like that stay with you. They tend to become like ghosts haunting every part of your waking and sleeping life. Those memories burrow deep inside our skin, muscle, and bones. They make a home within our bodies.

In my case – those memories wanted to be expressed and seen. They wanted to be acknowledged, and they burned within me until they were. Even to this day, in some way, they continue to create an eruption of fire within my body, only to be expressed and fully on display on my skin for everyone to see.

I buried them deep, assuming they’d never surface. After all, everyone goes through bad things, right? I diminished my experience by minimizing it and acting like it was normal. I spoke about death and destruction as if it were nothing. My fifth-grade project was covered in photos of dying people and skeletons, and no one even noticed. That was my “normal.”

People wondered how I could speak about death and destruction without much expression, but what no one realized was that my body and skin were expressing it for me the whole time. For many years, I tried to ignore that too, and didn’t see it.

But at some point, there was no more ignoring. I couldn’t continue to do that. My body was falling apart, and my mind was unraveling in ways I never thought it could. I was holding onto so much hurt, anger, sadness, grief, disappointment, that my body could no longer hold it in. I began having seizures and eruptions would show up all over my skin. I spent days, weeks, and months in the hospital – fighting with my own body.

Year after year, I was consumed by self hatred, and trying to look for love and validation in other people and places hoping to fill the void within me that was left over after the war and the separation from my home. Some things worked, but only temporarily – whether it was relationships, friendships, drugs, alcohol. I tried everything to numb the pain, or maybe just to feel something other than the hollow emptiness inside of my gut.

But the whole time, I was really just in dire need of my own self. I was in dire need of unraveling the parts of me I didn’t want to look at, and finally looking at them. I was in need of my own acceptance and love, in a way I didn’t understand. I’m not sure I still fully do, or ever will.

How does one learn to love oneself after a lifetime of hatred?

How does one find peace and gentleness after a lifetime of violence and fighting?

My journey isn’t just about surviving war or enduring pain. It’s about finding light in the darkest places and reclaiming my story – page by page – from the chains of trauma. It’s about honoring the resilience of the human spirit and breaking the silence, in order to rewrite my story the way I want to.

Thank you for being here and for being part of this journey with me. I hope my story resonates with you and helps remind you that healing, no matter how impossible and far away it may seem at times, is always possible, and often closer than you know.