Is it Alexithymia, or is it Dissociation Fueled by Trauma?
Emerging research suggests they’re one and the same.
Since undergoing top surgery, I’ve become far more attuned to my body. I find it easy and natural to pull my chest upward toward the sky, expanding my upper torso and relieving the pressure on my back. With one heavy sigh I can drop my shoulders toward the floor, releasing all of the stiffness a desk job puts on my neck. I can tell when I’m tired, I can tell when I’m hungry. I was not like this before.
For years, feeling at ease was just something my body could not do, because I had so little access to it or awareness of its states. I couldn’t understand how I felt or how those sensations were communicated to others by my body and face. My external form was a mystery to me, and a stiff, inert husk to everybody else.
That’s all changed dramatically. From the moment my surgical binder came off, I could breathe away all the tension and stress in my body, as easily as blowing a loose hair from my face. The way my chest muscles connect to my arms and back suddenly made sense, and I could adjust each of them in relation to one another the moment I felt stiff.
After top surgery, I realized for the first time that when a person walks, their arms and shoulders are meant to move, fluidly, as…
