Metabolic Dues

I thought I was good at restraint.

That was the word people used. Disciplined. It followed me like a compliment that required upkeep.

I ate in a way that didn’t interrupt the day. Meals chosen for how little they asked of me. Food that left no residue—no smell on the hands, no pause in the afternoon, no softness in the edges of thought.

Hunger, when it appeared, was treated like static. Something to be ignored until it quieted itself. It usually did.

The first thing to go wasn’t energy. It was patience.

I became sharp in small, efficient ways. Interruptions irritated me more than they deserved. Questions felt like obstacles instead of invitations. I told myself this was focus—proof I was operating at a higher resolution.

People responded well to it. They mistook the tension for authority. I did too.

By late afternoon my hands sometimes trembled—not visibly, not enough to embarrass me. Just enough that I noticed. I would curl them under the table, press thumb to finger, feel the faint buzz subside.

I never wondered why. I wondered why others didn’t seem to push themselves as hard.

Evenings collapsed strangely. Not tiredness—something hollower. A sensation like being partially unplugged. I would sit down and feel the room drift half a second out of sync with my body.

I blamed screens. Then stress. Then age, vaguely, without conviction.

I learned to manage it with routines. Coffee timed precisely. Meals postponed until they felt earned. I took pride in how long I could go without needing anything.

My body adapted. That was the mistake.

It learned how to function on delay. How to smooth the peaks and troughs so the performance stayed convincing. How to keep the lights on in the front rooms while quietly dimming the rest.

There were moments—brief, unrepeatable—when something inside me surged without warning. Heat behind the eyes. A sudden, unreasonable urgency. A feeling that I needed something immediately, though I couldn’t have named what.

I would stand in the kitchen, cupboard open, staring. Not craving. Not choosing. Just paused, as if the instructions had been misplaced.

Those moments passed quickly. Too quickly to respect.

I remained competent. Reliable. Admired, even.

That’s what made it dangerous.

The cost didn’t arrive as collapse. It arrived as narrowing.

My thinking lost its generosity. My emotions flattened into usefulness. Joy became muted—not gone, just thinned, like colour left in the sun too long.

I stopped trusting ease. Any sense of fullness—physical or otherwise—felt suspicious. I began to prefer the edge. The controlled tightness. The feeling of being slightly unfinished.

One night, standing alone, I felt a wave of exhaustion so complete it frightened me. Not the kind sleep fixes. The kind that feels structural.

For the first time, a thought surfaced that I had carefully avoided for years:

What if this isn’t discipline? What if this is debt?

Not metaphorical debt. Something quieter. Accrued. Deferred.

I realised then how often I had overridden signals because they were inconvenient to my self-image. How often I had congratulated myself for endurance when the body was negotiating for balance. How the very behaviours that earned approval had trained me not to notice the early cost.

There was no villain. No single choice to undo.

Just a long series of days where I chose to feel less— and called it control.

The body never protested. It cooperated.

That was the warning I missed.

By the time I understood what had been happening, it wasn’t a revelation. It was recognition.

I hadn’t been ignoring my body. I had been teaching it to survive without me.

And it learned too well.

––

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. 

MetabolicDues #SubHealthStories #MetabolicDrift #InvisibleIllness #PreventBeforeChronic #EmbodiedHealth #HealthWithoutSymptoms