Listen When Your Body Screams What Your Heart Won’t Say

Your stomach drops when you hear their key in the door.

You can’t remember the last time you slept through the night. The headaches have become so normal you’ve stopped mentioning them. As for that weird chest tightness, you tell yourself it’s nothing.

But what if it’s everything?

What if your body has been screaming at you this whole time, and you’ve been too busy making excuses to listen?

Here’s something nobody talks about enough: your body knows you’re in a toxic relationship before your brain is ready to admit it. While your heart’s still clinging to hope and your mind’s manufacturing reasons to stay, your body is quietly keeping score.

And the bill always comes due.

You know that friend who suddenly developed “mystery” stomach issues? The one who’s always tired, always getting sick, always dealing with some vague ailment doctors can’t quite pin down?

That might not be a mystery at all.

I learned this the hard way. Thirty years into a marriage I kept calling “rocky” (because what else do you call a disaster you’re still living in?), my body finally staged a full revolt. The chronic fatigue I blamed on my job. The daily bathroom emergencies I chalked up to bad eating habits. The burning pain so intense I’d scream into a towel so my kids wouldn’t hear.

Turns out, it was Crohn’s disease. An autoimmune disorder where your body literally attacks itself.

Poetic, isn’t it? When your relationship makes you feel like you’re under attack, your immune system eventually gets the message.

So what does it look like when your body tries to sound the alarm?

It starts subtle. You’re more tired than you should be. Sleep doesn’t feel restful anymore. Your stomach’s always upset, but you can’t figure out why. You’re getting sick more often, staying sick longer.

Then it gets louder. The headaches that won’t quit. Muscle tension that settles into your shoulders like cement. Your heart racing for no reason. Skin breakouts that seem to appear out of nowhere.

And if you still won’t listen? Your body will make you. Digestive disorders. Chronic pain. Panic attacks. Autoimmune flare-ups. All the ways your nervous system says “I can’t do this anymore” when you won’t let yourself say it out loud.

The thing is, we’re really good at explaining these things away. It’s work stress. It’s getting older. It’s just how life is now.

But is it?

When’s the last time you felt genuinely relaxed around them?

Not the performance version of relaxed where you’re carefully monitoring your tone and choosing your words. Actually relaxed. Guards down, breathing easy, just existing without constantly calculating your next move.

Can’t remember? That’s your first clue.

Here’s another one: do you feel lighter or heavier after spending time together? Do conversations energize you or drain you? When they text, does your chest open up or tighten?

Your body answers these questions before your mind finishes asking them.

And if you’re scared to speak up, scared to disagree, scared to have needs? If you’re walking on eggshells in your own life? That’s not love. That’s survival mode. And your body knows the difference, even when you’re pretending it doesn’t.

We talk a lot about why people leave toxic relationships. But we don’t talk enough about what happens to your body when you stay.

Every time you swallow your truth, your body holds it. Every time you shrink yourself to avoid conflict, the tension has to go somewhere. Every time you ignore that voice saying “this isn’t right,” your nervous system logs it as a threat.

And eventually, constantly living in threat mode breaks you down. Not all at once. Slowly. Cell by cell. System by system.

The exhaustion becomes chronic. The stomach issues become disorders. The anxiety becomes your baseline. You start to forget what normal feels like because this becomes your normal.

I know what you’re thinking. “But everyone’s stressed. Everyone deals with some of this stuff.”

Sure, but there’s a difference between regular life stress and the specific, sustained nervous system activation that comes from living with someone who makes you feel unsafe. Emotionally unsafe counts, by the way. You don’t need physical bruises for your body to register danger.

When you’re constantly monitoring someone’s mood. When you’re always one wrong word away from an explosion. When you can’t relax because you never know which version of them you’re going to get. Your body experiences that as a threat. Not occasionally. Constantly.

Humans aren’t built to live in constant threat.

Here’s what I wish someone had told me years ago: that tightness in your chest? That’s information. The insomnia, the stomach issues, the constant fatigue? That’s your body trying to communicate in the only language it has left.

Because you stopped listening to your intuition. You talked yourself out of your feelings. You minimized, rationalized, and explained away every red flag.

So your body had to get louder.

And louder.

And louder.

Until finally, maybe, you’d pay attention.

The question is: are you listening now? Or are you still making excuses, still trying to push through, still convinced you’re somehow being dramatic about pain that’s making you physically ill?

You’re not imagining this. You’re not being oversensitive. You’re not making a big deal out of nothing.

Your body is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: it’s trying to protect you. And it will keep trying, louder and louder, until you finally hear it.

Maybe that’s what’s happening right now. Maybe this feeling in your gut as you read this? That’s recognition. That’s your body saying “yes, finally, someone gets it.”

You don’t have to have all the answers yet. You don’t have to know what you’re going to do tomorrow. But you do need to stop pretending your body’s messages don’t matter.

They DO matter. You matter.

And somewhere deep down, beneath all the reasons you’re making to stay, you already know what your body’s been trying to tell you all along.

The only question left is: when are you going to listen?

Note: This article is based on personal experience and general information. It’s not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice. If you’re experiencing physical symptoms or are in an unsafe relationship, please reach out to a healthcare provider or support service.

Before You Go…

If you are interested in learning more, I highly recommend this book, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. He is a top researcher on how our bodies react to trauma and how it tells us when things aren’t right.