Interoceptive Unreliability

I stopped trusting how I felt.

Not because sensation disappeared. It didn’t.
It arrived on time, with confidence. It simply stopped corresponding to anything real.

Hunger arrived without need. Eating sometimes sharpened the agitation; sometimes it dulled it. Fatigue appeared at rest and dissolved under strain. Stillness amplified discomfort. Pressure steadied me. Relief, when it came, felt borrowed — as if routed through the wrong system.

The signals were persuasive. That was the danger.

I would wake depleted, then clarify under urgency. Sit down to recover and feel something unnamed bloom — not fear, not distress, just an insistence without a referent. Calm tasks unsettled me. Demanding ones aligned me. The mapping inverted, quietly, completely.

This wasn’t anxiety. Anxiety has a target.
This was misreporting.

The body spoke fluently and falsely.

I learned to override instinct. To eat without hunger. To rest without tiredness. To move through heaviness because movement, paradoxically, made things quieter. From the outside, this looked like discipline. Inside, it felt like piloting with corrupted instruments — gauges active, readings unreliable.

Pain, when it surfaced, carried no authority. Comfort couldn’t be trusted either. Even pleasure felt delayed, filtered, as if approval had to clear an internal review board before arriving.

What unsettled me most was the functionality. Nothing failed hard enough to demand intervention. Sensation continued. Action continued. Between them, responsibility dissolved.

I wasn’t ignoring my body.

I was auditing it.

No signal was accepted on first report. Everything required confirmation. Escalation. Proof. By the time clarity arrived, whatever the body had been trying to say was already obsolete.

The danger wasn’t discomfort.

It was epistemic.

When the body can no longer report itself accurately, care becomes speculation. Timing erodes. Intervention arrives late, or not at all. You don’t push through pain — you push through misinformation.

Nothing dramatic happened.

The system kept working.

Just not truthfully.

––

These stories aren’t rare.
They are counted by the organs that remember. Each strain, each skipped signal, each tremor ignored — all tallied in quiet vigilance.

Most decline begins in silence — a cough dismissed, a breath shortened, a muscle that tires without warning. The body speaks first in whispers, then in tremors, before it can speak no more.

This is not a story of cure.
It is a story of listening. Of noticing, attending, moving with care — is not weakness. It is survival. Daily attention and respect for the body’s signals are the acknowledgments your organs have been demanding. 

Listening is awareness, not diagnosis.

––– Pause Here –––


If this feels familiar, you’re not alone.
Most illness doesn’t start with a bang.
It starts when silence becomes habit.

Lingzhi isn’t a miracle.
It’s a habit.
A quiet, daily way to care for the body —
before silence becomes suffering.

Advisory

These stories are educational and reflective. They are not medical diagnoses. Individuals experiencing symptoms or existing conditions should consult a qualified healthcare professional.

Lingzhi is a traditional food, long used to support balance and general well-being.
It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Individuals with existing medical conditions or those taking medication should consult a qualified healthcare professional before use. 



#InteroceptiveUnreliability #SubHealthStories #InvisibleIllness #EmbodiedAwareness #PreventBeforeChronic #BlackLabelStories