Heartburn

19 Aug, 2025

For the past nearly 15 years, I've encountered something in between a severe heartburn reaction and a full blown panic attack most times when I've had alcohol and in a growing number of other situations. For a long time, I fixated on it medically. At first, I thought it was only heartburn but then as it got stranger and picked up in frequency, my doctor and I started thinking it might be hypoglycemic episodes. This seemed especially plausible when I found that it could be solved by ingesting a snack (which at first I did with a Cliff bar, but started learning that sometimes other simple sugars could work.) We had me pick up a glucose monitor and take readings mid-episode only to learn that my glucose was fully within a healthy / non-escalated range.

I can't for the life of me remember which essay, but Ross Gay describes a shockingly similar experience in the Book of Delights. He describes a long period of time in his life (maybe a year? Maybe years?) in which he'd throw up nearly every day and could only stop it by eating something sweet as soon as he'd feel the feeling come on. No doctor ever figured out why it was happening, and it eventually disappeared. I had never read anyone recount something that felt so similar to this mystery.

I'm of course honored to share some version of a weird body quirk with Ross Gay, but I suspect that this particular somatic experience runs deeper than just "weird body quirk that one day disappears." What started as "fixating on it medically" has transitioned into "curious about it emotionally." I find myself paying regard to it differently. The familiar sensations still enter me into a panic, but I at least have the self awareness to know that I am not broken (medically) and nothing is "wrong" with my body. I also know that this is my body's way of communicating something to me. I am trying to listen even if I can't understand what I'm listening for yet.

I'm taking this somatic approach after years and years of tests indicating that I am completely fine as my nervous system slowly escalates the symptoms. What started as an alcohol induced panic has become panic attacks with no alcohol present at all. These have included: throwing up, disregulated body temperature complete with chattering teeth and cold sweats, and a racing heart. Each time I learn that a symptom is not medically troubling, my body creates a new sensation. This past year at the height of stress I was going through, my body created migraines, eczema, low back pain, and other issues, none of which I'd ever really experienced before.

The "curious about it emotionally" approach has opened me up to the reality that my body is innovative. Doctor Sarno of Healing Back Pain fame would say that my body is attempting to protect me by distracting me from my hard emotions with pain and inflammation so I focus there instead. I think this is likely, though I'd add another layer on top of just "my body distracting me." I find that the longer I move against what my soft animal self ¹ wants and needs the more my body finds new ways to tell me that something is not right. Sometimes anxiety, pain and panic feel like distractions and sometimes they feel like clear signs towards focus.

Recently, I was on retreat with my good friends and we decided to work on a zine with the prompt of "Digestions." Because of my long and fraught relationship with heartburn, I wanted to capture some of the ways that heartburn is part of the way that I digest my inner and outer world. Heartburn simultaneously signals to me when I need to make my choices more aligned with my authentic self, while also keeping me from fully letting in the world. I made a collage poem where the base "source text" is a whiteout poem made from a Mayo Clinic article about heartburn. The text of the whiteout poem reads:

burning discomfort After the muscle tightens If the muscles relax the area, may allow for more sensitive experience the protective mechanism of the gut is a burning sensation directly under the ribcage. This is a feeling of fullness in the Heart

Here's the full collage spread for our zine: