For most of my life, I treated my body in ways that were not helping me grow. I almost treated it like an enemy.
Instead of nourishing it properly, I was laser focused on weight loss, work, and school. I didn’t recognize the signs my body was sending me over the years. I thought pushing through was the answer.
When I was 13, I began experiencing debilitating migraines. They started with flashes of light and fuzzy squiggles, followed by intense pain and vomiting. I tried to manage them the best I could, but nothing truly helped. As I got older, I only pushed myself harder.
Once I was living on my own, I worked two jobs while going to school full time. I pushed myself to the absolute limit. I was hardworking, but I ignored what my body truly needed: proper nutrition, rest, and mental care. From a nutrition standpoint, I thought I was being disciplined, but looking back, I was overly restrictive. I kept my calories too low and deprived myself in the name of being “healthier” and losing weight.
There was a period of my life when I struggled with chronic back pain and severe anxiety attacks that sent me to the emergency room, convinced I was dying. This cycle went on far too long, and both my physical and mental health suffered. I lived in a constant state of tension and felt like I was never doing enough. I prioritized everything and everyone around me while neglecting myself.
I tried small acts of self-care here and there, hoping they would keep me afloat, but they never lasted. It felt like drowning, coming up briefly for air, and then slipping back under the surface.
As I got older, I tried to quiet the noise and manage the pain. Going gluten-free was one piece of the puzzle, and it dramatically reduced my migraines. I went from having migraines nearly 20 days a month to once a month or less. But I eventually realized that food alone was not the missing piece. My mental health needed attention too after years of ignoring it.
I had tried therapy and medication in the past, but nothing seemed to break the cycle. After graduating from college, I truly believed that removing school-related stress would fix everything. At the time, I was working full time, finishing school, and caring for my daughter, who was under two years old. I assumed once school was over, the anxiety would quiet down, but it didn’t.
When I returned to therapy, I felt lost. I understood some of my triggers, but I never believed my past played such a significant role in how I felt physically and emotionally. After sharing more of my history, my therapist suggested Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, commonly known as EMDR.
EMDR helps individuals process trauma by changing how difficult memories are stored in the brain. For me, that meant following a moving dot while listening to bilateral clicking sounds. After just a few sessions, something shifted. The memories were still there, but they no longer carried the same emotional weight.
After several months of EMDR therapy, my therapist and I decided to pause sessions to see how I felt. The change was undeniable. The intense panic and anxiety that once consumed me were gone. I still experience anxiety, but the volume dropped from overwhelming to manageable.
What surprised me most was that the chronic shoulder and back pain I had lived with for years disappeared. I had undergone X-rays, MRIs, physical therapy, and countless tests searching for a physical cause. In reality, my body had been signaling distress all along. That realization changed everything.
This was four years ago, and I am in a completely different place mentally. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped growing or that I don’t struggle at times. If anything, I’m more aware of the work still ahead of me. But now, I listen. I slow down. I notice the signals instead of ignoring them.
Learning to listen to my body has been a journey. It has been a series of realizations, choices, and adjustments. It has been challenging, but it’s something I continue to practice every day.
If any of this resonated with you, or if you’ve been living with anxiety, pain, exhaustion, or that constant feeling of being “off,” your body may be trying to tell you something. Sometimes the first step is simply slowing down long enough to notice the signals.
Growth takes time. Healing is not linear. Learning yourself in a deeper way does not happen overnight. Try not to get discouraged by the road ahead. See it as an invitation to care for yourself in a way you may not have before. You deserve that. I know I did.