I have this sense for when something really bad or otherwise monumental is happening, or about to happen. I can feel the cortisol shoot through my gut. My hands yearn to claw dirt, my feet clench. It’s that bungee plunge that never returns. It’s always powerful, never preventable. It paralyzes me — and often, I go into Fix It Mode.
One of my first times really noticing this gut reaction was when Mom lost their wedding ring. To me, the world as I knew it was ending. I thought of the symbolic implications, financial implications, perceived fidelity implications. And I was no older than nine.
I somehow felt responsible for Saving The Family. “If I can’t save things, nobody else ever could.”
Not until after we prayed to God did Mom find it, openly concealed on the liminal floorboards between kitchen and dining room. And we all breathed relief, but my gut was still uneasy. I still felt that hormone flood of dread. It’s not easily shakeable unless you’ve lived for longer.
Over a decade has passed, and shaking it is second nature. Through the powers of rationalizing and distraction, I can get through any dreadful spike of cortisol. Nothing is ever resolved, really, but my stomach can be manageably soothed now.
I’ve needed a stomach of steel because of this tendency to out-proportion my problems. But lately, the past few years, my gag reflex can get too tender to handle my stresses. This sensitivity has never led to anything, though; I just take longer and require more ritual when swallowing pills. Rarely, when I’m really dreading something, I need to take a break when I brush my teeth.
I’ve thrown up more this past December and January than I have in the past two years — granted, from illnesses. And I think it’s because I’m allowing myself to. I’m purging something, I think as I stare down the cream-white toilet bowls tainted with bile.
I’ve only truly thrown up from overwhelming stress once before. That was my court date, hours before I had to tell a room of strangers that, Yes, this person sexually and mentally abused me, and I fear for my safety and hope the judge understands how fucking embarrassing it is for me to sit here trembling in nice clothes, like a sick Chihuahua in a sweater, while my abuser representing himself asks me an irrelevant and pathetic question to try vainly to keep a hold over me, or change my mind, or get out of the consequences for hurting me — “Did you love me?”
I was not yet 17. He had just turned 18. The audacity of such a question in court is standard for a freshly legal adult, but my response… it haunts me.
“… Yes?”
I promised to speak the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Was my admittance perjury? I hoped at the time it wasn’t. I hoped my response wouldn’t throw away my entire case. This whole painful stretch of hours, my gut was wailing silent hymnals.
“If I can’t save myself, nobody else ever could.” Yet, Fix It Mode was an operation I couldn’t carry out; I had to put my faith in the legal system and some pieces of paper. And I won.
The last time I threw up from pure stress, then, was seven-ish years ago. (And the restraining order has been null for six years now.) The memory of that September day in 2018 carries about a few grams more emotional weight than Mom’s lost ring.
While my recent bouts of vomiting were due to various illnesses, I think I would have been far less susceptible to getting sick if it weren’t for the unrelenting stress I was feeling beforehand. Parents fight — my gut reacts. Fascists get elected — my gut reacts. The magnitude rarely differs. The severity is usually paramount.
Everything is always deep to me. That is how my body prefers it. That is why I feel bewildered when onlookers of my high-strung dismay dare to tell me It’s Not That Deep.
How can nothing affect you so viscerally? How can you watch your world burn and choose only to dribble water at your feet, if you bother to get that far? Is it calm you feel, even, or psychological detachment? Won’t you ever get inspired enough to DO something?
Since sentience, I was raised to analyze emotionally and act accordingly. (Having religious and intelligent parents does that to a kid.) My brain hemispheres received a balanced nurturance early on, but my alert system has always been a little trigger happy.
This is how I’ve stayed alive. Intense, all-encompassing analysis, and constant vigilance. It’s my strange, imperfect brain and bowels that make me who I am. Even when I’m on my knees, hurling dinner down the drain, I am able to glean a lesson. This is one of my strengths.
I MUST look out for everything, MUST be mindful of my circumstances. Why? Because there is always more to learn. And there is always more to do.
It’s not that deep to you, but it is to me. Call it a gut reaction to the life I’ve been given.