Dear Friends,
Thank you for your ongoing encouragement. Like all grad students, this time of year brings additional stressors and deadlines. My background is in human science and I studied gross anatomy. I was absolutely ok with cadavers until this…
The human body is incredibly complex and beautiful. It can also be marred beyond recognition. In the study of gross anatomy, I was able to run my fingers into and over the sinews of another – to get under his/her skin. Incredible – until I saw identifying features.
Once I saw identifying features like a tattoo, I was shaken – this was a person. Much work had to be done to regain clarity of thought/study. Now that I am studying the anatomy of abuse, I run my fingers under the skin of slaughtered souls who are still alive.
Identifying features are everywhere. Faces, names, stories, psychological pulses, and heart-rending hemorrhage. Studying the anatomy of abuse is not like dissecting the dead – it is like dissecting the living.
Many times, it is with shaking hands that I reach for a scalpel to study abuse and find my hands shaking. The face is mine, the hair, the curve of the spine – the tattoos of trauma are under my skin.
I am doing all that I encourage you to do in terms of self-care. I am stable and safe. Even so, my hands sometimes shake with every abuse study started, and every incision made. Thank you for your kindness to me.
Truly,
LA