The Rage You Swallow Turns Into Autoimmune Disease

I Am Made of Gluten-Free Spite and Unprocessed Fury

Let’s get one thing clear: my body has beef with bread. Not just a little intolerance. Not just a cheeky bloat. Full-blown, antibodies-on-alert, don’t-you-dare-look-at-that-brioche kind of beef. I have celiac disease, which means gluten and I are mortal enemies, and every time I so much as sniff a crouton, my immune system throws a tantrum like it’s auditioning for a soap opera.

But here’s the kicker: the longer I’ve lived with this, the more I’ve noticed a pattern. Every time I ignore my emotions, every time I repress my rage, every time I swallow the words I should have screamed? My body keeps the score. And it turns out the scoreboard looks a lot like chronic inflammation, fatigue, and yet another trigger food added to the ever-growing No List.

I collect dietary restrictions the way other people collect vinyl – obscure, expensive, and no one else gets it.. Ginger? Off the list. Cinnamon? Banned. Oats? Absolutely not, even if they’re labelled gluten-free. I can’t help but wonder: is it just biology, or is my body protesting the years of pain I never got to express? Because babe, I’ve swallowed more than just gluten. I’ve swallowed disappointment, betrayal, grief, rage, and every societal expectation handed to me with a smile and a side of gaslighting.

Silent Women and Screaming Bodies

Here’s what they don’t teach you in health class: repressing your emotions might be the most toxic thing you do all day. Especially for people socialised to be polite, agreeable, and non-threatening. We’ve been trained to sit pretty and stay quiet while our nervous systems scream in Morse code. And let me tell you, the body will get its message across. Even if it has to burn everything down from the inside out.

More and more studies are proving what many of us already suspected: chronic stress, trauma, and emotional suppression are deeply linked to autoimmune conditions. When you’re constantly stuck in fight-or-freeze, your immune system gets confused. It starts attacking things it shouldn’t. Like your thyroid. Or your joints. Or your ability to eat toast without becoming a puffy, sobbing mess.

I didn’t just wake up one day and become sensitive to half the food pyramid. It happened slowly, like erosion. Years of unspoken rage and broken trust, of staying small and being palatable. Of crying in bathrooms and pretending I’m fine. It’s no surprise my immune system eventually said, “If you won’t speak up for us, we’ll do it ourselves. Loudly. With hives.”

Don’t Tell Me to Just Meditate, Jennifer

Let me be clear. I’m not saying you can rage your way out of celiac disease. I’m not tossing my medical diagnosis into the witchy wind and blaming my small intestine’s collapse on Mercury in retrograde. What I am saying is that our bodies are more than machines. They’re archives. They hold onto the things we never processed. And that kind of storage gets expensive.

Every time someone tells me to just try yoga or drink more celery juice, I want to scream. Not because those things aren’t helpful (they are, especially if you like celery and being bendy), but because they don’t address the root. You can’t stretch your way out of trauma. You can’t downward-dog your way out of a lifetime of unmet needs and repressed emotion. You have to feel it. You have to get angry.

The trick is letting the anger move through you. Not at people. Not at yourself. But out of your body, so it stops being stored in your tissues like it’s paying rent. Rage is not the enemy. It’s information. It’s sacred. It’s a flare gun from your soul saying, “Something here needs attention.” And when we listen? That’s when healing gets a fighting chance.

Emotional Exorcism As Exercise

I used to be terrified of anger. Not other people’s, but mine. I didn’t want to be the difficult one. The ungrateful one. The one who complains too much or takes up too much space. So I turned every sharp edge inward. I got quieter, sweeter, smaller. Until my body started raging on my behalf.

Now I cry. Loudly. I scream in the shower. I punch pillows like I’m getting paid. I write letters I’ll never send. And you know what? I feel better. Not cured. Not magically inflammation-free. But better. Because the alternative is pretending nothing hurts while my immune system taps out and starts flipping tables.

Rage doesn’t have to be violent or messy. It can be cathartic. Cleansing. Healing. It can be a journal entry, a playlist full of angry girl rock, a rage dance in your living room with no bra and bad lighting. You don’t owe anyone poise or composure when your body is falling apart. Sometimes the most radical act of self-care is letting yourself be furious.

Your Body Isn’t Betraying You. It’s Begging You to Listen.

I know it’s tempting to think your body is the villain. Especially when it feels like it’s working against you. But babe, your body isn’t broken. It’s a bloody miracle. It’s been holding onto all the things you weren’t safe enough to feel. It’s been protecting you the only way it knows how. And now it’s asking for something different.

It wants softness. It wants honesty. It wants you to stop pretending that you’re fine when you’re not. It wants you to scream into the void if that’s what it takes to get the weight off your chest. Because carrying around swallowed rage is heavy. And one day, your body will tap out and say, “We can’t keep doing this.”

So if your joints ache, your gut is wrecked, your hair is falling out, or your skin is throwing tantrums, don’t just reach for the supplements. Reach for the story underneath it. Ask yourself what you’ve been holding in. Ask what needs to be screamed, written, released. Because darling, your health isn’t just about food and medicine. It’s about truth.

The rage you swallow doesn’t disappear. It festers. It inflames. But when you give it air? When you name it, feel it, honour it? That’s when it finally stops devouring you from the inside.

So I’m going to rage, baby. Loudly. Messily. Gluten-free-ly. Preferably in red lipstick and a robe. Lulu watching from the bed. Body listening at last.

You Are Not Entitled to an Answer – Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity

In this episode of Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity, we're unpacking why you are not entitled to an answer. Specifically, we're talking about the strange little corner of modern dating where a few days of app chat somehow becomes an emotional contract, and suddenly a man you've never met believes your silence requires a formal explanation, a debrief, and possibly a follow-up meeting with management.I have two stories for you. One man who talked almost exclusively about himself, ignored the fact that I was sick, and then followed up a week later asking whether I'd reconsidered his "request for clarification". And another who became offended because I didn't respond to his selfie within two hours while I was lying in a dark room with a migraine. Sir. Please be serious.Because here's the thing. Before you've met someone, you do not owe them unlimited access to your time, attention, reassurance, or emotional labour. You don't have to justify why the vibes changed. You don't need a reason they'll consider reasonable. You are allowed to disengage because something felt off, because you changed your mind, because you met someone else, or because you're in your luteal phase and frankly the entire world can wait.Today we're talking about the difference between ghosting and simply disengaging, why demanding closure can become a boundary violation, the exhausting expectation that women should manage men's feelings for them, and why you do not need to JADE, justify, argue, defend, or explain, when you've already decided you're done. Let's get into it.Key Takeaways:A few days of chatting does not create a debt. Matching on an app, exchanging messages, or talking on the phone does not give someone a claim on your attention. Until you've actually built a connection, you are allowed to walk away without submitting supporting documentation.Closure is not something another person can demand from you. Asking once is one thing. Continuing to push after someone has clearly disengaged is not persistence or emotional maturity. It's refusing to accept the answer you've already been given.You do not need to JADE. You don't have to justify, argue, defend, or explain why you're no longer interested. The reason doesn't have to be good enough for him. It just has to be yours.Pre-date silence and post-date silence are not the same thing. If you've never met, disengaging is part of app dating. Once you've shared an actual date or developed a genuine connection, a simple goodbye becomes basic courtesy. Nobody needs a dissertation, but acknowledging another human being matters.Sometimes they don't miss you. They miss the audience. Someone can seem interested while actually being interested in having your attention. Real connection requires curiosity about you. If the only time they become deeply engaged is when you're leaving, pay attention to that.For more visit ⁠BryJaimea.com⁠ or follow over on IG ⁠@BryJaimea

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