The Body Remembers What the Mind Cannot Hold

Site of Accident, Moabit, Berlin

I walked into therapy in pieces. Not the kind of broken that announces itself clearly. No, it was a quieter, more disorienting kind—the kind where your body insists you are safe while your mind refuses to believe it.

I hadn’t been in session for weeks, and it hit hard. Before my body found the chair, tears spilled out—uncontrollable, jarring, silent. Words—especially in German—abandoned me. Instead, I pressed trembling hands to my chest. “My body feels safe,” I choked out. Then I lifted a shaking finger to my head. “But this… doesn’t.”

What I tried to explain was simple but impossible: I didn’t feel safe in the world—not just with strangers, but with people I trusted. Nothing dramatic had happened, just a series of disappointments that quietly eroded my sense of security and made my nervous system revolt. My world shrank, and I found myself overwhelmed to tears again and again, without relief.

I entered therapy ready to collapse. Ready to let everything spill out. Ready—painfully—to admit defeat: I couldn’t do it anymore.

On the table, my crying deepened, guttural and raw. That wasn’t unusual; my sessions are rarely easy. But this time, something shifted. With a few small, trembling movements—my neck, my head, my spine—it felt as though something inside finally aligned. In that instant, I was hurled back—not metaphorically, but truly, reliving the moment of impact.

It happened on an e-scooter. I had been riding for less than two minutes. Then I was thrown, violently and suddenly. Like being bucked off a bull. Full speed into a metal pole. The kind you see all over Berlin: waist-high, meant to divide sidewalk from street. It seems almost impossible to hit your head directly on something like that. But I did. Perfectly. A direct collision with my face and skull.

At the time, I knew I had broken bones. I had undergone emergency brain surgery. But there was always a question lingering in me. How had the rest of my body escaped? During this session, I got my answer. It hadn’t.

On the table, I felt the impact ripple through me: head, neck, arm, side, spine, leg. The pain was excruciating along my side. I curled and writhed as if the accident were happening again. My therapist—who I can only describe as something close to a witch—held me as my body remembered what my mind never fully processed.

“I have so much pain in my side,” I managed to say. Then it hit me. With a kind of force that was almost absurd: I had really, truly hurt myself. Not just my head. My whole body.

I became small, childlike. I coiled inside the shock of it. Yet something was different from before. Back then, I had no choice but to endure. Now, with awareness, I could open my eyes. When I did, I realized I was no longer alone on a dark street at midnight. Instead, I was in a room with someone I trusted. Someone who cared. That changed everything.

What followed felt like moving through time in layers: from the accident, to the hospital, to the present. I explored my body, turning my hands over, lifting my arms, feeling them. My legs moved wildly, as if running in place. I apologized. My therapist said, “You’re free.”

I cried harder, because suddenly I was in the hospital again. Post-surgery. No painkillers. My body wrecked, my head unbearable. I could feel the fear, the vulnerability, the isolation. But at the same time, I could feel something else: my body working, my therapist’s touch steady and kind, the absence of coldness and disdain. I wasn’t being neglected. I was being held.

The tears changed, trembling into something like awe. My voice shook: “This is like time traveling.” Somehow, impossibly, I was pulled through three realities: the accident, the hospital, and now, almost five years later.

Alive. In a body that, in that moment, felt completely free.

When the session ended, I stepped into the Berlin streets. Nothing felt ordinary. Five years is a long time to travel. Walking home, I noticed things as realizations: I live here. I have my own apartment, furniture, plants, clothes, and a life. I’ve gained weight, aged, and changed.

I’ve built something away from home, while in survival mode.

And yet, part of me is still back there—July 2021—frozen in that moment.

But now, something is shifting. Not all at once, not cleanly, but undeniably. There is exhaustion, yes, but there is also something new: a grounded awareness, a quiet astonishment.

I survived.

That is the truth that feels almost fantastical. Not just that I lived—but that I am here, now, in this body, still becoming.