When heartbreak sent my nervous system into overdrive, my gut rebelled, trapping me in a cycle of chronic pain, misdiagnosis and self-punishment.
It was my third low fat Greek yoghurt of the day, the only thing that had passed my lips in the last two weeks. The thick, sludgy consistency had become almost comforting. My fridge was filled with neatly stacked rows of the stuff – bulk bought following a late night doom scroll of my symptoms. If I only ate alkaline, low-GI, tasteless foods maybe this gnawing pain in my stomach would go away.
It went down on the pitifully short list of ‘acceptable,’ foods, dwarfed by the ever-expanding catalogue of forbidden items, bolded in red as if to say DANGER! RISK OF DEATH!
The usual culprits – tomatoes, sugar, fizzy drinks, spice, deep-fried foods – were joined by anything that popped up just once on an internet advice page, including my elixir of life, coffee. It may come as no surprise that by this point I was miserable.
I was 19, fresh out of school and hopelessly in love. He was five years older than me, and cool. I was pretty and thin and straight out of a cotton-wool girls boarding school.
Yet, like so many heady exchanges, this one faded into oblivion almost as quickly as it took off, from his side at least. I was not so lucky, and what followed was three months of painful yearning, drafted texts, and cyclical conversations with increasingly impatient friends, all underscored by a growing pain in my stomach.
My grief began to take on a life of its own, uglier and heavier than an unrequited teenage crush. It had unlocked a much deeper fear – that four years of eating disorders and anxiety had also sought to mask – that I was fundamentally wrong, not ‘normal’.
After a gap year spent in emotional turmoil – when I could have been on a Brazilian beach with a porn star martini and a sexy stranger – I finally woke up to the reality that life had to move on.
The slight nag was that nobody told my body this, and the gnawing pain only intensified. What started as butterflies now felt like a wasps nest, accompanied by fits of dry heaving and the constant sense that acid had been poured down my throat.
Voluntary bedrest became compulsory, as movement became too painful. So much for my mental health too.
My friendship group dwindled as I failed to attend gatherings, stopped texting back, and emotionally shut down. Chronic pain stops you thinking about anyone or anything but yourself and the minutiae of every ache, every invisible stab, every new sensation.
What started as butterflies now felt like a wasp’s nest, accompanied by fits of dry heaving and the constant sense that acid had been poured down my throat
Mum found an expensive nutritionist, and my diet quickly shrank. After multiple consultants and NHS waitlists I was put on various PPIs (proton pump inhibitors) to reduce the acid levels in my stomach; I ate spoonfuls of prescriptions goo, intended to protect my gut wall, and generally wallowed in bed watching Friends through the night. None of the treatments worked, and, thanks to copious amounts of omeprazole, my body was now completely devoid of all acid, but it still felt like a spuming volcano. We had expended every private route, and, thousands of pounds later, I was still no closer to an answer.
The last appointment I had in the arsenal was an endoscopy, a procedure where, high on nitrous oxide, a camera is rammed down your throat into your stomach as you try not to gag.
When the results came back – ‘you have an incredibly healthy stomach lining, nothing amiss,’ – I was dumfounded. But I am in SO. MUCH. PAIN.
It’s difficult to explain what happened next. There seemed no option but to get on with life, smile through the endless churning and gagging. My nutritionist couldn’t help anymore, so I stopped the frantic texting; my gut lining was normal, so I started drinking coffee again; the yoghurt was actually disgusting, I had forgotten Mum was such a good cook.
Maybe it was fine? Maybe I was going to be fine. When every doctor and medical route had drawn blanks, I had, HAD, to look up. It started because my mind wasn’t healthy, I needed to go back there.
The vagus nerve is a large cranial nerve that carries information from the brain to the internal organs. Trigger warning: big words. It is a key part of your parasympathetic nervous system, meaning it controls autonomic processes like heart rate, digestion and sweating.
Crucially, the vagus nerve helps your body exit the fight-or-flight mode, when you live with chronic stress, it cannot perform this function.
I had been living in a state of constant fight. The mental-ill health, precipitated by rejection, and then compounded by physical pain, had played havoc with my nervous system, stimulating a physiological reaction. While it was not all in my head, it sort of was. I was not destined for a life of prescription medication and pitiful looks, I was just a girl who didn’t believe in herself. I could take that.
I had been living in a state of constant fight
The night before I was due to start university, bags packed in the corridor, new fake blonde, and the inevitable ‘use protection’ chat from mum, I got a text from the guy.
“You know you weren’t very nice to me,” I say as we sit down at the pub, assuming an air of nonchalant breeziness like the last twelve months hadn’t been a veritable hell.
He smirks in the way that only entitled young men can, “Leave it out, I was busy.”
As we finish our drinks, after a perfectly pleasant conversation interrupted by strange compliments on my figure and how ‘grown up’ I looked, he pulls me in, “Shall we go back to mine, I don’t think you should drive home now.”
Back to his parents palatial house where it started last summer. I can picture his room; school sports team photos hung like a shrine to privilege, boxers neatly folded by mummy at the bottom of the bed.
“Do you know what, I’m actually alright.”
Read more about heartbreak from a nutritionist here