Let’s Talk About Guts
When I was younger (so much younger than today…) my belly was tabletop-flat. My only forms of exercise were running for a bus, roller-skating the pathways of our village or dancing at nightclubs four nights a week (as a guest I mean; I didn’t have my own cage or pole or anything). The only time I thought about what went into my stomach was when my mother was having one of her fad-diets and I thought I’d try and be grown up enough to also eat only plain yoghurt, grapefruit and crispbreads with cottage cheese on top. In hindsight I think that was an attempt at being closer to her. It never worked. She’d give up, I’d give up and then I’d wait for the next fad to join her in.
Back then, a gut was a stomach, innards; something gross and red and slimy which my dad slapped about on the block at his butchers shop and tempted the ladies to buy. I’d always suffered with a delicate constitution; today I’d have been diagnosed with IBS as a teenager, advised to watch what I eat and shown how to recognise signs of anxiety. In those days, however, I just had waves of chronic constipation or violent diarrhoea with nothing in between. I also had emotions I fought daily to try and cope with, or at least understand and manage. But these weren’t discussed freely if at all. Constipation meant I hadn’t enough roughage in my diet and so prune juice sorted that out, and a case of the ‘other’ meant I was given dry, bland food until things firmed up. I know. Such compassion in those days.
In reality, however, I was constantly in a state of either anxiety or depression (this much I have since learnt). Extreme heightened states, anyway. Anxiety would cause my stomach to roil and expel anything that wasn’t emotion-based, and depression would mean a total stagnation of anything, mind, body and spirit. But these things we didn’t know, discuss or acknowledge, and I’m certain that I’d have been a very different person if I’d been born today.
Had I known about my gut back then, and given it some modicum of headspace, then these things Younger Me might have learned:
- The churning, sickness you feel anticipating school on a Sunday evening will not dissipate. You are not sick, though, you are fearful of what will happen because of things that have already happened and this is your body’s way of dealing with these worries. If you spoke to somebody about it and practised deep breathing techniques, these might help.
- The same churning feelings you have when you’re in the company of certain people is the brain and body’s physical reaction to caution – it’s the Fight or Flight response. Everybody has it. Every body is born with it; it’s hard-wired into your Reptilian brain and will endure. It’s made up of synapses and nerve endings and all manner of things which inform your brain to fire-up; something’s going to happen. In this situation, LEAVE. Nobody will think badly of you; in fact they may come to admire you for it.
- You cannot please everyone. No matter how much your parents insist that everyone else must come before you, this is really not the case. Your parents are not quite dicks, but they aren’t qualified in child-rearing and forming emotional attachments. You’ve probably noticed this already, but they’re your parents; you want to make them happy if nobody else. I get it.
- You’re allowed to say if you don’t like something, if you feel uncomfortable, worried or fearful; these things do not make you weak and you do not have to battle to tamp them down in case anyone notices. These feelings are relevant. Any feelings you have are relevant—they’re a part of you—and if anyone insists otherwise, then you have every right to be wary of these people.
When I look back at times when my gut was trying to speak to me and yet—because I’d been hardwired into believing my gut was irrelevant and generally wrong—was unheeded, I am horrified, saddened, angry at myself for ignoring it. At one time, I’d been with a boyfriend and we’d been (I thought) quite happily enjoying our day together when he got a phone call which made him very cross indeed. After the phone call, he went from being perfectly lovely to absolutely unapproachable, and me—being me—wanted him to feel good again, so I went to hug him.
He backed off and threw me away. Not in a physical assaulting kind of way, but my advances were dismissed quite fervently; to the point that I wasn’t allowed anywhere near him. It scared me. It caused my belly to do that roiling, churning thing and I absolutely KNEW this was my gut responding. If this happened today I would have no qualms in walking away. I wouldn’t care how much explaining or cajoling or pleading with me to understand how angry the Vodaphone person had made him, I would NOT be with him.
The same boyfriend upset my daughter once. We’d been trying to find a certain shop that sold a certain thing and en route, she’d spotted a sign which had her father’s name above it. Naturally she stopped, pointed it out and I joined her in remarking on it. The boyfriend hadn’t got time for all this nonsense; he didn’t give a sh*t whose name was above the door, we had to keep moving. She was (understandably, at 12 years old) distraught and I was right on her side. My gut was right on her side. I wanted to leave there and then and never see him again, I would not remain with someone who could be so insensitive. Once again, though, through explanations, more cajoling, pleading to recognise his side of the story, I explained to my screaming gut that I had to be more tolerant; we were a couple; couples compromise, this was all part of being together.
Things such as these happened a great deal during the years I remained with this person and even though on four occasions I had the courage (sometimes exhaustion of there being no other recourse) to end the relationship, I was talked round. I was convinced it was my fault because of the way I responded to certain things; I was too sensitive; I was elaborating; I was making mountains out of molehills, over-reacting. I needed to understand that everyone went through stuff like this and came out stronger; after all, wasn’t that the basis of a good relationship; overcoming silly issues like these?
No.
Is precisely what I should—could—have said. NO. I don’t want to be with someone who feels it necessary to explain away my gut reactions. My gut is telling me something because it’s trying to protect me. What you’re actually doing is furthering my doubts about even having one at all; you’re telling me that what I’m feeling is irrelevant and—silly, even—how DARE YOU. This makes you no better than my uneducated, unfeeling parents.
It actually makes you a dick.
That’s what I wish I’d said.
That’s what I’d say now.
That still, small voice which nudges you into questioning something? Don’t dismiss it. Listen to it. It’s trying to impart a special kind of wisdom which is there only for you. If it says “are you sure this piece of elastic will hold me as I plummet fifty thousand feet down into that canyon?” Untie yourself, say Thanks, but No Thanks. Go and have a piece of cake, a cup of coffee and enjoy the scenery instead. Nobody will think anything less of you.
Debs J Cooper 