Do you suffer from unexplained stomach aches, nausea, or other digestive issues? The cause might not be what you think.
Diets worked – until they didn’t
I first talked about my stomach ache and nausea issues in one of my earliest episodes called “First Symptoms of Abuse in my Childhood”. In that episode I mentioned that my stomach issues began before the abuse. I realize now that I was always a low-key anxious kid. After the abuse, the stomach aches got worse. So I went to several doctors and had tests taken to find the cause. But no one ever found anything physically wrong with me! I remember one doctor who asked if I was nervous. At the time, I didn’t see myself as a nervous or anxious person. So I said, “no”.
Keep in mind, I didn’t tell anyone about the abuse that happened at 12 until I was in my mid-thirties. So for over 20 years I associated my stomach aches and nausea with food because it was usually after I ate that I felt the worst. From there I started studying nutrition and I’ve tried every diet I’ve ever read about that sounded like it would help. I’ve also done elimination diets and cleanses because I was looking for the healing to come from food. Now I’ve decided not to talk about the specific diets I’ve done because I don’t want to point to a certain way of eating as “right” and others as “wrong”.
Here’s the thing. These diets generally worked – until they didn’t. The reason I think they worked is because of my mindset going into them. So when I started a new way of eating, I was super excited and hopeful. I thought I had finally found the key to eliminate my digestive issues. But inevitably, the same foods that started out as my friends eventually became my enemies. Which led me to studying new diets and ways of eating.
Getting to the root of stomach aches
As you can see, I’ve had a complicated relationship with food for a long time. I started to have anxiety just around eating because I didn’t know what food would make me feel good or send me to bed. The problem was that I couldn’t see the pattern. I was always looking at food as the source of the stomach aches and nausea. The truth is food is part of the problem, but it isn’t the root cause. It wasn’t until I connected the trauma with my stomach aches that I started to get some relief.
One of the places I learned about this is from the book The Body Keeps the Score. Part of this book explains what trauma is and how it affects our nervous system, brain, and even our digestive system. So when I read that trauma can cause nausea and stomach aches and why – I got really triggered. I had to put the book down. It was like, hearing that and understanding what was really going on brought up an overwhelm of emotions. I was both relieved and upset and I didn’t know why. It’s like getting closer to finding the solution also brought up grief for all the years I was looking in the wrong direction. I also read this at a time when I was very fragile and highly reactive so reading even good news brought up a lot for me.
It can get better
If you’re also recovering from trauma then I don’t have to tell you how exhausting it can be. Partially because a lot of times we are on our own. Hopefully we have a therapist helping us, but that isn’t always an option. So I feel really blessed that this book came into my life and helped me understand what was going on in my body from the trauma. It helped me get out of the cycle of chasing diets to try to fix the problem.
To be clear, what we eat is still important. Especially knowing that what we eat can cause more anxiety and depression. But the last thing I’m going to ever do is indoctrinate you into thinking there is only one way to eat and that’s going to solve all your problems. For me it wasn’t until I connected the emotional and the trauma with the physical to realize I had to go to a deeper level of work before I could heal this physical issue.
At one point there were very few foods I could eat that didn’t give me a stomach ache. If you’re there right now I want to encourage you that there is hope in healing. This isn’t a life sentence. I’ve been able to broaden what I eat over time as my nervous system healed and I learned new ways to curb anxiety. The same can be true for you. Stay hopeful!
Calm mind, calm stomach
So here are some things that have worked for me. The first one is simple but not always easy. Slow down. If you just rolled your eyes at me because you’ve heard this before, I know. It sounds too simple to actually work, but it does. Slow down when you eat. Slow down when you’re preparing the meal. For me, when I’ve cooked dinner in a rush I was already wound up by the time the meal was ready. By adding a half hour to prepare the meal, I was way calmer when I sat down to eat.
If we sit down to eat and we’re feeling tight, anxious, or stressed our digestive system is not going to be happy. So anything we can do to feel more relaxed while eating is very helpful to feeling better afterward.
Think ahead for fewer stomach aches
Another way to reduce stress around eating is to plan your meals. I know, another one you’ve probably heard before. Try planning a couple meals and see how it goes. Trust it because it works. When it’s dinner time and you already know what you’re making your stress will be so much lower than trying to figure it out then. You’ll be setting yourself up for feeling so much better after dinner by reducing the stress around preparing it.
Now if you hate cooking…do you know someone who enjoys it? Maybe you can trade them for mowing their grass or something. You don’t have to love cooking, but learning to enjoy and appreciate it has so many benefits. Give yourself some grace to try new recipes and be ok if they’re awful. It happens to all of us!
I changed my view
I didn’t used to value cooking. I looked at it as this “housewife job” and I didn’t value that either. It didn’t seem as important as some high profile, high paying job. (If you don’t yet know, I’ve been a housewife, stay at home mom for 27 years.) Over time I have come to greatly value what I do – including making meals for my family.
I’m not a magnificent chef, but I have a couple meals I can make well enough that I’ve made them for others when it’s been really helpful to them. It may seem like a small thing to make a meal for someone when they’re going through a rough time, but it can really be a big thing to them. It also gives us a sense of purpose and becomes part of our own healing. It’s mutually beneficial, how cool is that?
Keep track
My other suggestion is keeping track of where you’re at emotionally by journaling or audio recording. Whatever is easiest and you’ll go back to. This is another thing you’ve probably heard before. I get it, but are you doing it? How many tools are we given that we know about but don’t actually implement and then wonder why things aren’t getting better?
There are so many things that are stressful in our daily life that I don’t think we even realize. Many of them are out of our control, so we say, “It is what it is” and file them away and don’t know how much they affect us.
Be curious
Tracking the emotions is step one. Step two is to read what you’ve written (or listen to what you’ve recorded) and approach it with curiosity. Since we aren’t used to doing this and generally think our thoughts are true and right, pretend you’re someone else. Look at your thoughts and feelings from a different perspective. Ask yourself, “Is that true”?
Emotions are part of our physical reaction to something and feelings are our thoughts around that emotion where we attach a meaning to the emotion. So for some of us in trauma recovery, we may still be heavily influenced and weighed down by shame. Our beliefs and feelings then are going to be: A. Not true and B. Really negative. We will tend to put ourselves down and think we should have dealt with something better than we did. If you’re like me you ruminate on things and replay conversations in your head about one hundred times asking yourself, “Why did I say that?”
By getting those thoughts, feelings, and emotions out by journaling or recording them we can more easily see where some of our thinking isn’t quite right and give ourselves a lot more love and grace. Then we can work to change our thoughts and replace the lies with the truth. We can flip the coin and take the place of shame and realize that’s not who we are. It’s not our identity.
Get it out with creativity
Lastly, how can we use our creative outlets to express our feelings and get it all out. Put it in words, songs, images, whatever your creative outlet is. That process of creating gives us insight and changes our perspective. For me, when I start to paint what I’m feeling I start to think about it on a deeper level. Instead of just having the feeling, I start to question my feelings. And because I can see it visually, I’m faced with asking, “Is that true?” It may be how I was feeling, but now that I’ve gotten it out I’m learning something new about it. That’s usually how the creative process works for me. I start out in one place and end up somewhere very different.
Last words of encouragement
I hope you’ve found some of this helpful. Even just to know that if you’re dealing with digestive issues, you’re not alone. I hope that these suggestions help you have less stress, anxiety, and a happier stomach. Stay hopeful and remember that healing is possible! Don’t believe the lie that you aren’t worth it. You ARE worth it. What happened to you was not your fault. The road to recovery can be difficult, but keep going. I know you can do it!
Do you feel hopeful your stomach aches, nausea, or digestive issues can get better?
Share your thoughts below. 💬