The Body Remembers Sexual Trauma

Trigger Warning: This post discusses sexual assault and its somatic impacts. Please read at your own pace. If at any point you notice overwhelm, dissociation, panic, or a sense of leaving your body, consider pausing and offering yourself support. You might ground by placing your feet on the floor, naming five things you can see, or reaching out to a trusted person or mental health professional. You are not required to finish this post in one sitting.

Sexual Assault Lives in the Body, Not Just the Story

Sexual assault is often spoken about as an event, a memory, or a story that happened in the past. From a somatic perspective, it is also something that can continue to live in the body long after words fail or memories blur. The nervous system does not track time the way the mind does. What was once overwhelming or unsafe can still be held in muscles, breath patterns, posture, and reflexive responses.

Many survivors wonder why they feel anxious, numb, disconnected, or suddenly flooded without a clear reason. Others feel frustrated that they have talked about what happened but their body still reacts as if the danger is present. These responses are not signs of weakness or pathology. They are signs of a nervous system that adapted to survive.

What Happens in the Body During Sexual Assault

During sexual assault, the body may move into fight, flight, freeze, collapse, or appease responses. These are automatic survival responses governed by the autonomic nervous system. They occur without conscious choice.

Some bodies mobilize with tension, heat, or the urge to escape. Some go still, heavy, numb, or disconnected. Some comply in order to reduce harm. None of these responses indicate consent. All of them reflect the body doing what it needed to do in an impossible moment.

When these responses are not able to fully complete or resolve, they can remain stored as unfinished protective patterns. Over time, this can show up as chronic tension, pelvic pain, gastrointestinal issues, difficulty with intimacy, startle responses, dissociation, or a sense of not fully inhabiting one’s body.

Why Talking Alone Is Sometimes Not Enough

Cognitive understanding can be helpful. Naming what happened, making meaning, and reclaiming the narrative all matter. But trauma is not only encoded in explicit memory. It is also held in implicit memory, in sensation, movement, and physiology.

This is why someone may logically know they are safe while their body feels braced, guarded, or far away. The nervous system learned safety or danger through sensation, not language. Healing often requires meeting the body at that level.

A Somatic Approach to Healing

Somatic work does not require reliving the assault. In fact, it often emphasizes going slowly and building safety first. This might include learning to notice neutral or pleasant sensations, tracking subtle shifts in the body, or gently increasing the capacity to stay present with sensation without becoming overwhelmed.

Healing can involve helping the body complete protective responses that were interrupted, such as pushing away, turning, orienting, or grounding. It can also involve restoring choice and agency, especially around boundaries, touch, and pacing.

Importantly, somatic healing honors the intelligence of the body. It does not force release or catharsis. It listens.

If You Notice Activation While Reading

If reading this brings something up for you, pause. Look around the room and orient to where you are now. Notice the support beneath your body. Take a few slow breaths, letting the exhale be longer than the inhale if that feels accessible.

You might place a hand on your chest or abdomen, or wrap yourself in something warm. You might remind yourself, silently or out loud, that the event is over and you are here now.

If activation persists, consider reaching out for support. This could be a therapist trained in trauma and somatic approaches, a trusted friend, or a crisis resource if you are feeling unsafe. You do not have to carry this alone.

A Closing Note

Sexual assault can fracture the relationship with one’s body, but that relationship can be repaired. Healing is not linear, and it does not look the same for everyone. The body that learned to survive can also learn safety, connection, and pleasure again, at its own pace.

If you are on this path, go gently. Your body has already done so much for you.