If you know me, it’s probably for my work on intimacy, sexuality, and the paradoxes of desire in modern relationships—and not for my work specifically about trauma. And while I’m not a trauma therapist, I am often in conversation with them: Gabor Maté, Bessel Van Der Kolk, and my own husband, Jack Saul, who has spent his career treating survivors of torture and political violence.

Through them, and through my own personal history, I have learned that trauma is not just the imprint of pain, it is also the silencing of aliveness.