The Stupid Things People Say: When Survival Is the Only Victory They’ll Never See

The other morning, I woke up thinking about it again – something someone close to me had said about what I was eating and how it was “bad” for my metabolism. Except it wasn’t about eating too much or the wrong things. It was about eating enough at all. About navigating cycles of nausea, aversion, and finding creative ways to nourish myself when my body refuses. And for a moment, I felt that flicker of irritation, the dark ghost of old toxic shame – but then I laughed out loud. WTF! That ship of having a normal body and metabolism sailed at f’ing birth!

My body’s trajectory, my digestion, my metabolism, my ability to regulate, to sleep, to handle stress wasn’t something I chose yesterday. It was forged in childhood trauma, in survival instincts, in a system that learned to keep me alive at any cost. And year after year of chronic neglect, abuse, and trauma helped grow it into CPTSD. Eating or not eating for days wouldn’t have shifted my weight. My body – any body – only shifts when it feels safe.

Your body is not a problem to be solved. It’s a living, breathing story of survival.

Digestion isn’t just about food – it’s a conversation with your body. When your system is struggling, overstimulated, or unsafe, it can’t digest properly. So of course there’s aversion, nausea, cycles of refusal. It’s not a choice. It’s communication. And it’s not just about food. It’s about the ability to digest life, ideas, work, relationships – everything. When your body is on high alert, nothing passes through easily; everything becomes heavy, uncomfortable, or rejected.

So yes, my digestion has moods. My sleep is fragile. My nervous system jumps at shadows. And yet here I am. Still alive. Still moving through the world. Still making choices with a system that wasn’t built for ease. And anyone criticizing it can be grateful I survived at all! Because surviving wasn’t easy, and it came at a cost my critics and the ignorant will never understand.

To all of us carrying CPTSD, this is the rule, not the exception. People will say stupid things. They will comment on your body, your habits, your choices, as if any of it was ever simple, or any of their business. And when it comes from someone close, someone who’s supposed to see you, hear you, and empathize, it’s infuriating and unacceptable. And it hurts!

What we see on the surface is never the full story.

_Unknown

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