When the Body Throws a Tantrum

Our bodies don’t throw tantrums for no reason

More than ever, both in my therapy practice and out, I hear about people experiencing chronic pain, dizziness, upset stomach, migraines, fatigue, and many other chronic symptoms without any medical explanation. For many, it can be a difficult and hopeless journey to not know what is going on with their bodies, especially after medical exams show normal results. They’re often left with no answers, unexplainable chronic symptoms, and more unresolved emotions. Not to mention, the countless physical therapy sessions, copays, and medications. Sadly, we live in a world where doctors will prescribe antidepressants or other medications to treat physical symptoms without a diagnosis. People are often left feeling hopeless, sad, scared, and angry, especially when treatments don’t work and the pain persists. What do you do when the people who are supposed to tell you what’s wrong cannot find a single medical explanation?

Oxford Languages defines somatization as “the product of recurrent and multiple medical symptoms with no discernible organic cause.” Could it be true that the body can ache with no discernible organic cause? I think that’s bull. Our bodies do not throw tantrums for no reason. Often our body is trying to tell us something about hidden emotional pain.

Suppressed emotional experiences don’t just disappear: They remain in our bodies

Our bodies have stopped being ours in this capitalist society where we have overworked our minds, hearts, and bodies. We’re working longer hours and pushing through, which can suppress our emotional experiences. However, our bodies weren’t made to override these emotional experiences. Our entire bodies have felt every single painful experience and the ones we suppress don’t just disappear. They remain in our bodies—in our muscles, organs, and nervous system—until our bodies signal there is a problem by acting out physical symptoms and pain.

Physical suffering is the body’s way of telling us something, including emotional pain

While antidepressants, which are frequently prescribed when doctors rule out medical issues, can provide relief to some degree, this approach doesn’t get to the root cause of what your body is trying to tell you. The body is constantly communicating with us. Pain is the way that the body speaks to us, telling us something is harmful, needs attention, or should be stopped. For instance, when you are sick, pain slows you down to force you to take a day off to take care of yourself or seek medical attention. Likewise, the pain from an injury lets you know that what happened was harmful and should be addressed. 

Emotional pain is not only just as real as physical pain but is also communicated physically. We act out or somatize what we do not allow ourselves to feel. For instance, maybe talking about your mom makes you feel nauseated because she made you feel similarly when you were a kid, a feeling you never allowed yourself to fully process. 

When the body throws a tantrum, listening to the pain helps us discover what is contributing to that pain 

When the body throws a tantrum, it’s time to slow down and connect to the physical and emotional pain by listening, talking about, and feeling all of it. This runs counter to our immediate impulse to relate negatively to tantrums or ignore them. When kids throw a tantrum, especially in public, people often feel embarrassed or guilt-trip the parents while the parents are feeling overwhelmed and annoyed. With both kids and our bodies, tantrums feel too needy and out of control. It seems easier to just ignore them, but ignorance denies the emotions and needs that the tantrum is yelling for.

Instead, listening and connecting to our pain can help us discover what or who has contributed to the pain. There's something childlike about tantrums that can point to your body acting out as a way to look into your childhood. For example, individuals can feel physically ill before, during, or after going back home to spend the holidays with their parents. This may imply that they had an unwell, mean, or critical parent(s) growing up that made them feel unwell. The thought of being around them again caused somatic symptoms. Once we find what is contributing to the pain, we can begin to receive relief and make meaning from it. 

You don’t have to listen and get close to the pain alone. Most people with somatic pain have done most of the process of figuring out what is happening by themselves. Therapy is a place where someone can help you listen to your body and the pain and learn from it. I usually start by asking a patient about their story, which gives them agency to begin wherever they want, as well as name their physical symptoms while expressing their emotional experiences. Sometimes patients express that a particular part of their story causes them to feel physical pain at that moment. In response, we pause the story to explore what emotions are coming up, what it’s like to feel them, and explore where in their body and the physical world it’s coming from. By focusing on the physical pain, we’re able to go back and look at when in the story the pain started. 

Understandably, some might see their pain as a disruption in their lives, but disruptions are a clue that something is not working. Disruption is a necessary ingredient for transformation and growth. Relating to the pain as something we can learn from, rather than something punitive, gives us a key piece to the puzzle of our physical and emotional health.