When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress

by Gabor Maté

Perhaps her body was doing what her mind could not: throwing off the relentless expectation that had been first imposed on the child and now was self-imposed in the adult—placing others above herself.

“When we have been prevented from learning how to say no,” I wrote, “our bodies may end up saying it for us.”

Repression—dissociating emotions from awareness and relegating them to the unconscious realm—disorganizes and confuses our physiological defences so that in some people these defences go awry, becoming the destroyers of health rather than its protectors.