My Body Knew

On anxiety, denial, and the ways the body speaks when the mind isn’t ready

For years, my body has told me, sometimes very bluntly, that I must pay attention. And for a long time, I ignored the signs until the pain became impossible to ignore.

It was February 2020, a week before my 25th birthday and a month before the world shut down from COVID. I had been dealing with intense jaw pain, to the point that chewing my food felt challenging. My dentist diagnosed TMJ and told me to eat soft foods, ice it, wait it out.

The morning of my birthday, I got in my car to pick up my then-boyfriend (now ex-husband) from the airport. He was flying back from Austin after attending a friend’s wedding and said he had plans for my special day.

I remember thinking it was strange that he hadn’t texted that morning — no “boarding now,” no “see you soon.”

It wasn’t until I was pulling up to the airport that my phone rang.

I could hear immediately how hungover he was. He had just woken up. Missed his flight. Said he was sorry. Said he’d catch a later one. Said he’d make it up to me.

I didn’t want to hear any of it.

I pulled into an empty Burger King parking lot and sobbed. The sadness and disappointment felt physical— my chest heavy, throat tightening. And then my jaw, relentlessly throbbing.

He tried his best to rebound from the mistake, but I couldn’t shake my sadness or anger. After begging me to go to dinner that night, I eventually agreed. As it turned out, getting me out of the house was necessary — he had planned a surprise birthday party with a few close friends and family. One that had nearly been ruined by his drinking the night before.

When we pulled into the driveway, I felt the energy shift immediately.

“There are people inside, aren’t there?” I asked, already exhausted.

So what did I do? I put on a happy face. My best attempt. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not very good at hiding my feelings, but I tried.

The people who loved me did their best to make the rest of the day joyful. And I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to eat some ice cream cake, even though every bite sent sharp pain through my jaw.

Two days later, I was lying on the couch watching an episode of The Bachelor. Everything felt calm — or so I thought. Suddenly my arm began to throb. A cold sweat spread across my skin. I couldn’t regulate my breathing. My back started spasming.

Am I having a heart attack?

My body felt under attack.

My boyfriend called 911. Before I knew it, I was in my bedroom, surrounded by four paramedics, assessing my heart rate, asking me questions I could barely answer.

180 beats per minute — higher than when I’m running.

They stayed for a while, waiting for it to come down. They knew what it was.

A panic attack.

I had struggled with anxiety for years, and thought it was being managed by my forced Planet Fitness workouts. Turns out, not so much.

As the paramedics began packing up, one woman crouched down at eye level with me.

“I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to listen,” she said.

“I see lots of crazy things every day — overdoses, injuries…”

“But nothing is worse than seeing what unmanaged mental health can do.”

“You need to get this under control, or it will control you.”

No words had ever felt more like a wake-up call.

The next morning, still in an elevated state, my boyfriend drove me to the doctor. After an EKG ruled out heart issues, she confirmed what I was experiencing was anxiety and panic disorder.

I started Zoloft the same day, and yoga and therapy later that week.

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Looking back at that moment over six years ago, I can see how significant it was.

One of my family members was in crisis, and a lot of processing from my parents was being run through me — classic oldest child perks.

I was overly critical of my body but felt no real enjoyment from my forced time on the elliptical.

And I was seeing the first signs of my ex-husband’s alcoholism. I loved him, and despite his mistake, he was a good partner who really did care about me. Just one month later, he proposed on a beach in Oahu.

I now know my body was trying to communicate with me. It was telling me to pay attention. To really look at what I was feeling.

In some ways, I started to. But being truly embodied takes time, and as humans we are never perfect at it.

And my body hasn’t stopped teaching me lessons since.

Gut issues began six months later — diverticulitis.

Three years after that, a car accident with an 18-wheeler led to a severe concussion. I tried to rush the healing process, only to be diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome.

Then cystic acne. I had always had clear skin growing up — why was this happening now, in my late twenties? Stress.

More gut issues, this time a stabbing pain that led to emergency gallbladder removal surgery. And just six weeks later, I was being forced out of my home by my husband, at the height of his alcoholism, and filing for divorce.

A major theme in Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score is that our nervous systems detect danger and activate survival responses faster than our conscious thoughts.

“The job of the brain,” he writes, “is to constantly monitor and evaluate what is going on within and around us.”

“These evaluations are transmitted by chemical messages in the bloodstream and electrical messages in our nerves, causing subtle or dramatic changes throughout the body and brain. These shifts usually occur entirely without conscious input or awareness.”

All these changes in my body over the years were signaling distress, trauma, something my emotional brain understood even when I didn’t. At the time, I couldn’t connect the dots. Now I can.

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In two days, I leave for Costa Rica for an intensive in trauma-informed yoga.

Yoga has been the most life-changing tool in helping me get out of my head and into my body. Without it during these pivotal moments in my life, it’s hard to imagine how much worse my nervous system reactions could have been.

No one is perfect. We all have moments where we disconnect from our bodies or take them for granted.

But now, each day, I journal my answer to one question in Sarah Jane’s Be With Your Body Planner: How is your body feeling?

The question asks me to sit with sensation, to notice what’s there. And more and more, I find myself asking: What is my body trying to say?

Getting to this point — this curiosity instead of frustration — has come from many painful lessons.

I know the lessons will keep coming. My body will never stop sending signals.

But this time, I’m listening.

Allowing myself to feel what’s there.
To be mindful, present, and nonjudgmental.
To treat my body less like an obstacle and more like a guide.