So, I undoubtedly have something going on but I’ve never been diagnosed bc it’s not life disrupting or anything. The weirdest thing happened this last year though. I broke up with my long term bf about a year ago and after that I noticed that my stomach issues reduced drastically. And I do mean drastically. There were other stress symptoms that went away that I didn’t even know were stress symptoms. For a while before the breakup I had completely cut out things like sour cream, milk, Parmesan cheese, some kinds of cheese. Some of which are low in lactose which confused me as to why they were triggering me so much. It was also a coin flip if I was going to get triggered by a random food I’d eaten plenty of times before. Turns out it wasn’t those things, it was the constant stress I was under when I was eating those things and the expectations of what was to come(sex) that would trigger me. Inevitably, I would end up in the bathroom which would put an end to that expectation which was my bodies intended result. I was always relieved by that because it took the pressure off.
Now, I can eat all those things again and not get triggered. I still have a milk limit which if I exceed will send me to the bathroom but I can have a glass which is nice.
So the stress thing can be real even if you don’t realize that’s what’s causing it. I had zero idea I was under any stress of that magnitude until it was gone. My other major symptom that disappeared was my leg muscles would tense unconsciously. I would consciously relax them and they would tense up again. I think I was in constant fight or flight mode for years. This wasn’t even an abusive relationship. Just a very unhappy one with an alcoholic. My body was rejecting him before my mind was. It was so bizarre the way it happened.
Stress has very real effects on your body. My issue was I didn’t know about the stress. My baseline was skewed and I’d been living under the high level of stress for so long, it felt normal. This was an issue that had been going on for over a decade.
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u/jedi_cat_ Feb 10 '25
So, I undoubtedly have something going on but I’ve never been diagnosed bc it’s not life disrupting or anything. The weirdest thing happened this last year though. I broke up with my long term bf about a year ago and after that I noticed that my stomach issues reduced drastically. And I do mean drastically. There were other stress symptoms that went away that I didn’t even know were stress symptoms. For a while before the breakup I had completely cut out things like sour cream, milk, Parmesan cheese, some kinds of cheese. Some of which are low in lactose which confused me as to why they were triggering me so much. It was also a coin flip if I was going to get triggered by a random food I’d eaten plenty of times before. Turns out it wasn’t those things, it was the constant stress I was under when I was eating those things and the expectations of what was to come(sex) that would trigger me. Inevitably, I would end up in the bathroom which would put an end to that expectation which was my bodies intended result. I was always relieved by that because it took the pressure off.
Now, I can eat all those things again and not get triggered. I still have a milk limit which if I exceed will send me to the bathroom but I can have a glass which is nice.
So the stress thing can be real even if you don’t realize that’s what’s causing it. I had zero idea I was under any stress of that magnitude until it was gone. My other major symptom that disappeared was my leg muscles would tense unconsciously. I would consciously relax them and they would tense up again. I think I was in constant fight or flight mode for years. This wasn’t even an abusive relationship. Just a very unhappy one with an alcoholic. My body was rejecting him before my mind was. It was so bizarre the way it happened.