21/03/2026
🕺 THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE! - My body in survival mode. STRESS and Leiomyosarcoma (a rare cancer).
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The body keeps the score - not as punishment, but as protection.
This is something I have experienced, not only professionally, but personally.
The impact of chronic stress on the body - and what happens when stress comes from living in environments where you are not safe to be fully yourself.
Sometimes people spend years, even decades in relationships where their needs were minimised, their reality questioned, and their nervous system kept in a constant state of vigilance. This is often the invisible legacy of narcissistic relationships.
Over time this kind of stress is no longer only "emotional", it becomes physiological.
When the body is repeatedly pushed into survival mode, we see real impacts :
Dysregulation of the nervous system.
* chronic inflammation
* hormonal disruption
* compromised immune functioning
* fatigue that rest alone doesn't resolve.
We see the development of dis-ease (autoimmune, cancers, etc).
After navigating years of high-stress relational environments, I was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive cancer. While no illness can ever be reduced to a single cause, i cannot ignore the bigger picture - the prolonged stress, the emotional suppression, the years of over-functioning and abandonment.
Our bodies are not seperate from our lives. They are deeply responsive to them.
Healing is not therefore just treating symptoms - It's about creating internal and external environments where safety, truth, and self-connection can begin to return.
For me this meant ..... learning to recognise unhealthy relational patterns; rebuilding a sense of self after years of adaptation and self abandonment; supporting the nervous system to come out of survival mode; and allowing space for rest, grief and reconnection.
My healing journey has brought me to a place of healing - currently NED (no evidence of disease) relationally safe and strongly connected with Self.
If you are someone who has lived in these dynamics please hear this ...
* your exhaustion makes sense
* your body's response makes sense
* and your healing is not only possible - IT'S DESERVED!!!
