Diaries of a Twenty-Six-Year Old Girl

Until recently, I experienced persistent difficulty with eating.

I could swallow liquids without issue
and eat normally in the morning—
yet certain foods, what I came to recognize as “trigger foods,”
felt nearly impossible to swallow.

It would happen suddenly.

My throat would tighten,
and swallowing no longer felt natural.

In its place came fear—
the kind that makes your body freeze.

The fear of choking made eating feel unsafe.

And the more I feared it,
the harder it became.

It was a cycle of anxiety
I didn’t know how to break.

I thought something was wrong with me.

I had GERD,
I had experienced heartburn—

so I assumed this had to be physical.

But every test,
every check-up,
told me I was fine.

Eventually, I realized—

this wasn’t just physical.

This was my body
trying to communicate something
I hadn’t fully processed.

As a child,
I learned to hold myself together
to feel safe—emotionally and physically.

And my body adapted.

My jaw tightened.
My neck tensed.
My throat stayed guarded.

Over time,
that tension became automatic.

Even when I wasn’t aware of stress,
my body still held it.

Always slightly braced.

There’s a deep connection
between the body and the nervous system.

And mine had learned
to stay in a quiet state of alert—

as if something was always about to go wrong.

So my throat stayed tight.

It wasn’t a disease.

It was a protective response.

A body that had learned
to guard itself
even when it no longer needed to.

So I started teaching my body
something new.

That it was safe.

Breathing in slowly,
holding,
and exhaling even slower—

imagining my throat softening
instead of tightening,
my muscles expanding
instead of contracting.

And little by little,
my body began to listen.

And food stopped feeling like something to fear.