Your Body Knew Before Your Mind Did — Viewer Stories

Dr. Kerry: [00:00:00] I bent over backwards. I completely emptied myself out. You end up having a physical reaction. You brace for it. Your body literally, your muscles tighten. You kind of even hold your breath, or maybe you clench your jaw when you're in their presence. Would you believe a few short days before our scheduled wedding, he dropped the bomb that he was still married and that he forgot about it?

My body sensed something that my mind didn't recognize. I knew before I knew that this wasn't adding up. When someone lays down the rules that fast, your brain tries to rationalize it and says, "Oh, I'm doing this because I'm devoted to them or because I love them." But the body knows differently. It registers it as manipulation or a threat

When you look back at your toxic relationship, I'll bet you use language that uses bodily descriptions [00:01:00] to describe what you experienced or what you went through. We'll often say things like, "I bent over backwards for my partner," or, "They completely drained me." What if I told you that those expressions of phrases wasn't just a figure of speech, but actually a way to describe the way you felt in that relationship?

What if it actually a manifestation of a physical experience from living with narcissistic abuse? That that chronic back pain, the constant exhaustion, maybe your tight jaw, the digestive issues weren't just a medical mystery, but actually the physical receipt of everything that you were forced to swallow just to survive inside that relationship.

On Monday, I interviewed Liz Tenuto, the Workout Witch, about how trauma gets locked in our cells, in our very tissue, and today we're gonna look at real lived experiences of surviving narcissistic abuse. What happens when we're forced to live inside of a cult of two? You weren't just psychologically brainwashed.

Your body [00:02:00] experienced the outcome of living with that trauma. So one of the first viewers that I came across that I thought p- really powerfully captured this, she wrote, "I really feel sorry for the person I was. I lost myself in that past relationship. I gave in. I compromised my values. I bent over backwards.

I completely emptied myself out." Notice that. She says, "Completely emptied myself out, and I got nothing back in return. I put my own needs on the back burner, and I now know that I don't have to accept bad behavior." That phrasing of emptying herself out, when you're living with a narcissistic parent or partner, you're living with somebody who is like an emotional black hole.

They're insatiable. There is not enough that you can do or be or say that's gonna keep the peace. So it puts you in a chronic position of over-functioning, and because you feel like there's that never enough, you end up having a physical reaction. You brace for it. Your body literally, your muscles tighten.

You tighten your pelvic floor. You actually stop [00:03:00] breathing. You ki- even hold your breath, or maybe you clench your jaw when you're in their presence. And the over-functioning is not because you're a codependent person. This isn't a personality trait. This is an adaptation to living with a system that's ex- actually exploiting you and all of your energy.

And the, the tragedy is that your body senses the danger before your logical mind can accept it. In fact, w- they've actually done studies and found that the distance between the brain stem, where the fight or flight alarm lives, is faster, shorter than it takes for it to travel all the way up into our prefrontal cortex, where we can actually use our logic.

We often sense or feel something's wrong before we know that. Another writer or another commenter wrote in and said, "He told me exactly what he expected from me and what my future would look like, and I look back in shock at how he manipulated me." When someone lays down the rules that fast, your brain tries to rationalize it and says, "Oh, I'm doing this because I'm devoted to them or because [00:04:00] I love them."

But the body knows differently. It registers it as manipulation or a threat, and as a result, your heart rate will spike, your g- stomach's gonna knot up, your muscles clench because your body recognizes that there's something wrong way before your mind's willing, willing and able to a- admit to it. This is how it happened for me.

In the early part of that dating while I was still being love bombed and I was in the throes of, you know, waiting for his next text and can't wait for our connection, I also at the same time felt a lot of fear, so much so that I found myself on the internet trying to research his history. And one of the questions, and I don't know why it was bothering me 'cause he gave me no indication it was concern, but he had been previously married and I wanted to know that the marriage was really over and that he was divorced.

And it bothered me so badly, and especially when I couldn't find proof, that I actually hired a private investigator to look into his background to give me the answer to whether or not he was married. The PI came back and said, "It looks like he's [00:05:00] living alone. I can't find the records either, but what I can say is he's not living with anybody.

This guy is living a single life." Would you believe a few short days before our scheduled wedding he dropped the bomb that he was still married and that he forgot about it, and then we had to delay the wedding because he had to go get a quickie divorce. My body sensed something that my mind didn't recognize.

I knew before I knew that this wasn't adding up. So I really want you to recognize that this sensation that you're having in your body, it is your body's effort to protect you. And we often shut it down for lots of reasons. One is that we end up thinking it can't be true, it must be paranoid, or maybe we're not giving that person the benefit of the doubt.

It feels kinda callous to feel like we have a question about this individual. But I want you to recognize that it isn't trying to shame you. It's trying to protect you. I want you to know that, that your body is probably your very best friend and it is looking for [00:06:00] ways to watch out for you. It's looking for ways to warn you that something's wrong.

So if you're feeling something in your body that just doesn't kinda add up to what's happening as you see it in the relationship, maybe it's trying to tell you that there is a lack of safety, that there is danger here that you're not quite attuned to, but yet you still sense. So here's some things for you to remember, kinda three truths to kinda walk away with from this.

Stop asking, "Why didn't I see it?" after it's all over. Instead, I want you to shift the frame to one that's more compassionate. You didn't miss the signs because you were foolish. You missed the signs because this person systematically manipulated with a playbook in order to force compliance. And if you stayed, no matter how long you stayed, it wasn't really about failure, it was about a survival response, that you were brainwashed into overlook the things that your body said was uncomfortable.

And I also want you to remember that your pain is legitimate data. If you're experiencing [00:07:00]unexplained physical pain or chronic tension or maybe a dramatic weight shift and it's happening for longer than three months, don't pathologize it as somehow a failing of yours. Maybe this is your body sending a distress signal.

It's trying to process the emotional trauma that your mind's actually tucked away. And the last one is kinda from my own story. When you sense something is off, and you may not have all the answers, all the pieces of it, instead of you dismissing it as just you being overly anxious or perfectionistic or maybe somebody with trust issues, see it as maybe a possible A warning, an early warning sign that there's something that your body has sensed that you can't pick up the rest of, and that you just need more information.

Take that information and hold it in, like, in a holding space, like you're waiting for the rest of the picture. It either will get confirmed or it will get dismissed. But having you allow yourself the space to wonder about it gives you time to gather more data. So I want you to [00:08:00] remember, these relationships are very sophisticated.

These individuals are motivated to keep us in the relationship for long as possible in order to str- extract from us what they need from us. But our body w- senses the warning, senses the lack of safety, and we can begin to become more sensitive to knowing that the body is trying to protect us by saying something feels off.

Thank you so much for sharing and, as comments, but also writing into me. And if you wanna bring up a story or realization, please feel free to send it to me at clients, C-L-I-E-N-T-S, @kerrymcevoyphd.com, or use the secure link that I've included in the show notes below. And thank you so much for trusting me with your stories and comments.

I really deeply appreciate this privilege. It's 2:00 AM again, and you're replaying that whole conversation over, and you're wondering to yourself, "Was it really that bad? Or maybe I'm just being dramatic." So you start to draft that I'm sorry text again because the guilt that [00:09:00] you're feeling or the confusion you're experiencing is just unbearable.

And you know this loop because you've been there before, but I want you to know that you're not alone. I'm Dr. Kerry McAvoy. I'm a retired psychologist, and for 25 years I've been helping people untangle exactly what toxic relationships do to your mind, how they create the confusion, the self-doubt, and that trauma bond that keeps pulling you back in.

Here's the truth. Recovery isn't about getting more information. It's about having the right support in the exact moment you need it. That's why I've created Reclaim You. It's a private, always available coaching app built from my work and my content organized into an extensive library that you can actually use when you're triggered.

Inside it, you'll get five-minute lessons when your brain can't handle a deep dive, check-ins that meet you exactly where you are, whether you're feeling strong, shattered, or numb, boundary scripts that help you say no without overexplaining, grounding tools that work fast when you're activated, [00:10:00] and progress tracking so you can see proof you're healing even on days when it feels like you're not.

There's no appointments, no waiting, no judgment, just practical support right when you need it. Reclaim You, real help in real time right in your pocket, and it's a coaching support, not therapy or emergency care. Learn more at studio.com/drkerry. So start your healing today and reclaim you.