By Amy — Strangled in La Jolla

Content note: This piece contains references to domestic violence and strangulation.

Strangulation is often described as a momentary act of violence — something that lasts seconds or minutes. What no one tells you is that the body experiences it as a near-death event, and the nervous system responds accordingly. The physical act ends. The aftermath doesn’t.

Ten years after surviving strangulation by my husband’s ex-wife, I am still learning the long reach of that day.

For years, my healing was a private excavation. I filled notebooks with the details my mind tried to forget but my body refused to release. Writing was how I made sense of the migraines, the jolts of fear, the erratic heart rate, the sudden tears that came without warning. It was how I coaxed myself through each step of recovery.

Today, I find myself in a different place — not beyond trauma, but in a quieter aftermath where the story continues to unfold. I’m beginning to see the years that disappeared, the ones in which my life contracted around repairing the damage done not only to me, but to the fragile relationships inside a blended family.

There were connections with my husband’s children that were severed by the violence that entered our home. There were partners who entered the story later, inheriting dynamics they didn’t fully understand. A decade of my life slipped into the cracks between truth and denial, between the person I used to be and the one I became out of necessity.

“Trauma didn’t just change me. It changed the space between all of us.”

This week, I was triggered. It’s a word that has been flattened in public conversation, but in the clinical sense, a trigger is a full-body response — not a memory, not a feeling, but a cascade of hormones and neural pathways that react as if the threat has returned. The body doesn’t ask permission. It simply responds.

For me, triggers manifest as migraines that move along the same lines of pain I felt after the assault. It’s as if my body keeps an internal map of that night and follows it automatically.

“When fear arrives, the body reacts first and explains itself later.”

The holidays amplify it. Because we share children with the woman who strangled me, her presence — physical or implied — reenters our lives every year. A decade later, she maintains a fictional narrative in which she is the victim. Her denial is not passive; it is strategic. It positions her children in an impossible terrain where acknowledging the truth risks emotional exile or financial punishment.

I used to wonder how people could go along with a false story so easily. I don’t wonder anymore. Children raised inside distortion often become adults who cannot afford to unravel it. The cost of clarity is sometimes more than a person can bear.

The Anger That Never Fully Leaves

There is no polite language for what she did.
She had no right to put her hands on me.
No right to endanger her own daughter by assaulting me in front of her.
No right to traumatize my four-year-old stepdaughter.
No right to drag her sons through years of psychological fallout.
No right to terrify my tiny dog who listened helplessly.
No right to destroy the financial stability of our household.
No right to fracture trust, safety, and community.

There is a freedom in saying this plainly.

Survivors are often encouraged to move toward forgiveness. I’m not there, and I’m not sure I need to be. The absence of remorse on her part has made forgiveness feel like a performance meant to comfort everyone but me.

The Private Cost of Public Silence

A strange feature of trauma in blended families is that the event becomes unspeakable, yet its effects are everywhere. For years, we tiptoed around the fallout. People aligned with her out of fear, loyalty, or inheritance. She rallied allies the way some people collect furniture. The fracture lines ran quiet and deep.

By the time the dust settled, we were emotionally gutted and financially drained. It took nearly ten years to rebuild what she attempted to destroy.

And through all of it, I had to stay obsessively attuned to my health — not because I wanted to, but because my body demanded it.

“Healing didn’t end when the danger ended. It began when my body finally realized it had survived.”

When you survive strangulation, the nervous system becomes a lifelong companion in your recovery. Trauma is stored in the fascia, in the breath, in the micro-movements of the spine. Healing requires discipline, not just hope.

Two People with CPTSD Trying to Stay in Love

My husband and I both live with CPTSD. This means our nervous systems often misread each other. A neutral silence can feel like withdrawal. A simple question can sound like accusation. The smallest miscommunication can escalate into two people trying desperately to find each other through the static of old wounds.

When both partners carry trauma, love requires tools — not wishful thinking.

So we created something practical. Something physiological. Something that brings us back into our bodies before we try to solve anything with words.

Below is the ritual that helps save our marriage:

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The 6-Minute Co-Regulation Ritual

(for couples living with PTSD or trauma-related nervous system dysregulation)

Step 1 (20 seconds): Sit knee-to-knee.
A reminder you are allies, not adversaries.

Step 2 (30 seconds): Palms together.
Activates safety pathways through touch.

Step 3 (30 seconds): One sentence each.
You: “My nervous system feels overwhelmed, but I’m here.”
Him: “My nervous system feels scared of losing connection, but I’m here.”

Step 4 (2 minutes): Sync your breathing.
Slow inhale. Slow exhale.
Bodies softening.

Step 5 (30 seconds): Gentle eye contact.
Recognition, not pressure.

Step 6 (20 seconds): Closing line.
You: “I’m with you.” “We’re okay.” “Same team.”
Him: “I love you.” “I’m here.” “We’re good.”

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Where I Am Now

It still feels unfamiliar to write about the present instead of excavating the past. But perhaps this is healing — acknowledging the ongoing reality instead of reliving the details.

Ten years after strangulation, my life is shaped not only by what happened, but by what I’ve learned:

Trauma reverberates.
Families fracture under its weight.
Denial is its own form of violence.
Healing is nonlinear.
And love — real love — requires regulation, communication, and a willingness to return to each other again and again.

“I am still here. Still healing. Still rising. And that is its own quiet victory.”

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Author’s Note:
Amy is a writer, trauma survivor, and advocate living in Southern California. Her work focuses on the long-term neurological and emotional impact of non-fatal strangulation, blended family dynamics after violence, and the lived experience of complex PTSD. “Strangled in La Jolla” is her ongoing project documenting the ten-year aftermath of a crime often misunderstood, minimized, or erased. She writes to help other survivors make sense of what their bodies remember long after the world insists the danger has passed.

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long-term effects of non-fatal strangulation

how CPTSD affects marriage communication

why holidays trigger trauma survivors

body remembering trauma years later

nervous system dysregulation after abuse

healing when both partners have CPTSD

co-regulation exercises for couples

why trauma responses feel physical

how blended families are affected by violence