The Secrets You’ve Been Carrying in Your Stomach:How Buried Memories and Trauma Shape IBS Symptoms

There are stories you’ve never told.

Not because you didn’t want to—but because there was no safe place to put them.So your body held them for you.

For many women, IBS isn’t just a “sensitive stomach.”It is the physical expression of years of swallowed feelings, ignored instincts, and emotional wounds that never had language.Your gut—the most primal part of you—becomes the keeper of secrets no one ever asked you to share.

And like all things held too long, it eventually begins to ache.

Your Stomach Has Been Protecting You

Every time you were told:

“Don’t talk about that.”

“You’re too sensitive.”

“Just let it go.”

“That didn’t happen.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

…your gut kept the record.

It tightened.

It braced.

It stored what your world could not hold.

The stomach becomes the container for fear, for shame, for confusion, for grief, for the anger you were punished for expressing.

And over time, that container overflows.

IBS Is Often the Body’s Cry for Truth

IBS is a messenger, not a malfunction.

Women with IBS have consistently been shown to have higher rates of trauma, emotional neglect, and childhood stress.And sometimes, the trauma is deeply personal—sexual abuse, manipulation, coercion, or violations of the body.

The Statistics We Rarely Speak Out Loud

According to CDC and national surveys:

• 1 in 3 women have experienced some form of sexual violence in their lifetime.

• 1 in 4 girls are sexually abused before the age of 18.

• Women who experience sexual abuse are twice as likely to develop chronic gastrointestinal symptoms, including IBS.

• Childhood sexual abuse is present in up to 40–60% of women with severe chronic IBS, depending on the study.

  
  

These numbers are heavy.

But so are the stories behind them.

Your gut didn’t just “overreact.”

It adapted to protect you—tightening to survive, twisting to cope, cramping to hold memories no child or adult should ever carry alone.

The Unspoken Story Lives in the Nervous System

What you couldn’t say…your gut said for you.

That’s because the gut is wired directly into the emotional centers of the brain:

• The vagus nerve carries emotional signals to your digestive system.

• Chronic fear freezes digestion.

• Suppressed anger tightens the gut muscles.

• Unprocessed trauma dysregulates the entire gut–brain axis.

  
  

So when you think about the stomach issues that have followed you for years—the bloating, the urgency, the pain, the unpredictability—it’s not weakness.

It’s memory.

Your body never forgot what happened, even when you tried to.

The Stories That Trigger Symptoms

1. The secrets you were forced to keep

The unwanted touch.The confusing encounters.The shame that didn’t belong to you.

2. The emotions you had to swallow

“Be strong.”“Don’t upset anyone.”“Don’t tell.”“Don’t feel.”

3. The roles you were assigned too young

Caretaker.Peacekeeper.Mediator.The “mature” one.The one who must endure.

4. The betrayal your body remembered

When someone who was supposed to protect you… didn’t.

Your Body Isn’t Betraying You—It’s Trying to Free You

IBS is often the body asking:

“Can I stop carrying this alone?”

Pain becomes the beginning of truth-telling.Symptoms become a compass pointing back to the place where you began to split from yourself.

And healing isn’t about reliving the trauma—it’s about finally letting the body release what it has held for far too long.

You deserve a life where your stomach doesn’t always feel like a battlefield.

Where you don’t confuse danger with discomfort.

Where you can trust your gut because it no longer has to scream to be heard.

Your Story Matters Here

Hear Her Heal was created so women like you never have to carry their stories silently again.

With Love and Compassion

Dr. Su