Healing, Glowing, and Growing – One Act of Self-Care At a Time

I am only just beginning to understand how long my body has been trying to talk to me.

Not gently.

Not subtly.

Not in ways that were easy to ignore — even though I did.

My body has been carrying this long before my mind was ready to name it. Long before I had language for what was happening. Long before anyone validated what I was feeling. Now that I am finally slowing down enough to notice, it is heavy to realize how much I dismissed in order to survive.

The body remembers before the mind.

Mine always has.

The Ways My Body Has Been Trying to Get My Attention

My body speaks in alarms, not whispers.

My stomach twists so violently it feels like it’s folding in on itself — nausea rising fast and uncontrollable, sometimes ending in vomiting that leaves me shaky and drained. There is rarely a clear warning or an obvious cause. Just sudden, consuming distress that takes over my system.

My muscles stay locked in a constant state of bracing. My neck, shoulders, and upper back feel like stone — tension so persistent it turns into headaches, then migraines that can linger for weeks. Even when the pain eases, the tightness remains, as if my body never fully stands down.

At times, pain arrives sharp and specific — stabbing sensations that move through parts of my body without explanation. Other times it’s more diffuse: a burning feeling spreading through my limbs, as if my nervous system itself is overloaded. These sensations don’t feel symbolic. They feel physical and real.

Sometimes my joints stiffen without warning. Places that once moved easily suddenly resist, as if my body has forgotten how to bend. I move more carefully then, unsure of my own limits.

Sound can overwhelm me quickly. Ordinary noises send my nervous system into overdrive. My heart races. My thoughts scatter. Panic floods my body so fast that re-centering feels nearly impossible in the moment. I know I am safe — but my body hasn’t caught up yet.

And sometimes, my body shuts down.

I freeze mid-conversation. My mind goes quiet. My limbs feel distant. I continue outwardly, but something inside me pulls away to stay protected.

These responses have been with me for years.

I just didn’t know how to understand them.

How I Learned to Distrust My Own Body

Instead of responding to these signals with curiosity or care, my mind learned to override them.

It minimizes.

It rationalizes.

It explains everything away.

I tell myself I’m just stressed. Just tired. Just sensitive. I remind myself that other people have endured worse. That I should be able to handle this. That if I can’t point to a clear reason, then my reaction must be the problem.

Certain relationships reinforced this pattern. When I named discomfort, it was dismissed or reframed. When my body reacted, I was told I was misreading things. Over time, I learned that trusting my body created conflict — while doubting it preserved connection.

So I chose doubt.

Again and again.

When the Medical System Turns Doubt Into Silence

Medical gaslighting didn’t just make me question my body — it isolated me.

Test after test came back normal. Imaging looked fine. Bloodwork didn’t explain what I was feeling. I was told everything appeared healthy, which should have been reassuring, but instead left me questioning my own experience.

My symptoms were acknowledged, but never fully held. Anxiety was mentioned. Stress was suggested. The message, repeated gently but consistently, was this: If we can’t measure it, it can’t be that serious.

I left appointments quieter than I arrived. Less confident. More disconnected from my own body.

And when professionals didn’t believe me, I stopped talking — not just to doctors, but to others as well.

Because if the pain couldn’t be proven, how could I justify it?

How could I explain something that lived entirely inside me?

So I carried it alone.

The Thoughts I Didn’t Have Language For

There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes from believing your pain is invisible.

When symptoms persist for years — when the body never fully settles, when the nervous system never truly rests — the mind looks for relief. Not because it wants to die, but because it wants the pain to stop.

For me, that search showed up as repetitive thoughts over many years — especially over the last fifteen — where the idea quietly surfaced that maybe the pain would end if I wasn’t here to feel it.

Not as a plan.

Not as a desire to disappear.

But as a reflection of how overwhelmed and unsupported I felt inside my own body.

Those thoughts were difficult to name — especially in a world that had already taught me my pain was questionable. So I kept them to myself, assuming they were just stress, just fatigue, just something I needed to manage better.

The silence grew.

What Survival Mode Cost Me

Survival mode taught me how to function while disconnected from myself.

It taught me to ignore pain.

To override exhaustion.

To keep going no matter the cost.

To treat my body as something to manage instead of something to listen to.

Slowing down felt dangerous.

Feeling felt unsafe.

So I stayed in motion — even when my body was clearly asking me to stop.

Over time, I can see how this self-abandonment compounded. Ignoring my body didn’t make the symptoms disappear — it intensified them, forcing them to speak louder.

Where I Am Now

I am not writing this from a place of closure.

I am writing from inside the awareness.

I am learning — slowly — how to stay present with my body without immediately trying to silence it. I am learning to believe what I feel even when I don’t yet understand it. I am learning that endurance is not the same thing as care.

This process is uncomfortable.

Unfamiliar.

Ongoing.

But it is honest.

The Boundary I Am Holding

There is one thing I am clear about now.

I will not abandon myself again.

Because I know how easily unacknowledged pain turns inward. I know what it feels like when relief starts to seem synonymous with escape. And I know that I never want to return to a place where disappearing feels like the only way to rest.

So staying with myself — even when it’s hard, even when I’m unsure, even when I don’t have answers — is no longer optional. It is a commitment.

Listening to my body is not indulgent.

Believing my experience is not dramatic.

Staying alive matters.

The body remembers before the mind.

And now, I am choosing — deliberately and imperfectly — not to leave myself behind again.