Welcome to ReStory Your Life – Freedom After Trauma. My name is Wendy Williams, and I am glad you found my website and blog. I am eager to share with you what I’ve learned about trauma, especially pre-verbal infant trauma, and post-traumatic stress and how to use tools to heal yourself. On this site, you’ll find some of my original paintings and drawings, my poetry and prose, and ten years of blog posts (over 300!) about my experiences healing from preverbal infant trauma without anesthesia or pain control. On this blog, you’ll also find book reviews, synopses of articles about trauma, and references to resources and websites that you can use to educate yourself.

My difficulties began early on at twenty-six days old. I had a life-threatening condition, which required a major stomach surgery, and was given a paralytic, not anesthesia or pain control. I recovered but was left with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Trouble is, I didn’t know that I had PTSD until I was fifty years old! My life up until age twenty-six, when I began to work with a wonderful therapist, was a real roller coaster: major ups, such as earning honor roll grades in high school, participating in sports, and attending an Ivy League college, and many downs, such as self-harming, depression, addictions, anger issues, panic attacks, and more. Back in the ’70s, even my therapist didn’t have a name for what I was suffering from. That’s why I’m eager to share what I’ve learned with you so that maybe you will find some relief from suffering and/or be able to help someone else.

Many of us have had invasive medical procedures as infants and may not remember consciously the effects they’ve had on us. But guaranteed, our body remembers. Our emotions, our breath, our sensations, such as sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and touches, have registered the trauma. Traditional talking therapies often don’t tap into these early wounds and require more body-based approaches. Artwork and writing are other strategies that can tap into early trauma. I hope that you find some hope, understanding, and/or inspiration from what I’ve shared on ReStoryYourLife.com.

Again, welcome! I am eager to connect with you.

Below is a pic of horseshoe crabs, creatures who helped me heal. They also inspired my memoir story, Autobiography of a Sea Creature: Healing from the Trauma of Infant Surgery, currently a manuscript seeking a publisher.