How chronic survival stress exhausts your system and what true recovery requires
If you have spent years adapting, pleasing others and surviving, this will take its toll not only on your psyche, but also in your body.
Many people with codependency think that their struggles are mainly psychological: difficulty setting boundaries, fear of commitment, low self-esteem. But beneath this pattern lies something deeper.
Codependency is a form of chronic stress.
And prolonged stress dysregulates everything, your nervous system, your hormones, your immune response, and eventually… your health.
This isn’t vague or ‘mind-body’ fluff.
This is physiological reality.
Codependency isn’t a behavioural problem, it lives in your body
If you grew up in an environment where safety was conditional, your body learned to adapt.
You constantly scan the other person.
You adjust yourself before conflict even arises.
You hold tension because relaxation doesn’t feel safe.
What happens then?
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Your nervous system stays stuck in fight-or-flight (sympathetic dominance)
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Your body produces excess stress hormones like cortisol
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Your brain stays hypervigilant, even when there’s no real threat
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Your system loses the ability to recover or rest
And over time, your whole body starts to burn out.
And you feel it.
Common physical symptoms of codependency
Long-term stress caused by codependency can manifest itself in the body in all kinds of ways.
Many people only recognise these symptoms as part of the pattern at a late stage.
- Chronic fatigue – You can no longer really relax, no matter how long you sleep
- Hormonal imbalance – Irregular menstrual cycle, PMS, thyroid problems
- Stomach and intestinal complaints – Irritable bowel syndrome, bloating, nausea
- Brain fog & difficulty focusing – Your brain becomes overstimulated by constant alertness
- Low resistance – Regularly ill, prone to inflammation or autoimmune complaints
- Muscle tension and physical pain – Especially in the neck, shoulders, back or abdomen
This is no coincidence.
This is your body saying, ‘I've been living in survival mode for too long.’
How a narcissistic relationship wrecks your nervous system
A relationship with a narcissist isn’t just emotionally draining.
It’s chronically traumatising, especially for your nervous system.
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Gaslighting – Your reality is constantly twisted → leading to confusion, fear, and hypervigilance
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Push-pull dynamics – You become addicted to emotional highs and lows → resulting in hormonal chaos
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Silent treatment & threats – Your body experiences abandonment as a life-threatening danger
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Unpredictability – Your system learns that relaxation is unsafe
This isn’t just painful.
It’s physiological devastation.
Why you cannot “think” or “talk” your way out of it
Your body cannot outthink you.
Recovery does not start with understanding, but with feeling and regulating.
Your nervous system only learns safety through experience, not through analysis.
That is why I work with the body itself in my programme:
- Breathing techniques – including vagus activation to get out of stress mode
- Tension release & somatic exercises – so that built-up tension can be released
- Grounding & body awareness – to come back to the here and now
Why you can’t just “think” or “talk” your way out of it
You can’t outthink your body.
Healing doesn’t begin with insight, it begins with regulation and felt safety.
Your nervous system learns safety through experience, not analysis.
That’s why, in my 16-week Codependency Recovery Programme, we work directly with the body:
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Breathwork & vagus nerve stimulation – To shift out of survival mode
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Tension release & somatic exercises – To gently discharge stored survival energy
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Grounding & body awareness – To return to the here and now, where healing can begin
Why your body protests and what it truly needs
If your body has been signalling fatigue, tension or pain for years, that’s not random.
Your body keeps the score.
That doesn’t mean you’re broken, but it does mean your system has learned to live in overdrive.
Your body is trying to tell you:
You don’t have to hold this anymore.
You are safe enough now… to soften.
Back to connection, physically, emotionally, and energetically
Codependency is not a character flaw.
It’s a survival strategy.
But what once kept you safe, is now keeping you stuck, sick, and depleted.
Your body doesn’t have to carry your past any longer.
You’re allowed to choose a new truth, one where your body is no longer a storehouse for tension, but a compass that guides you into connection, strength, and calm.
In my 16-week Codependency Recovery Programme, we work step by step on physical repair, energetic integration, and deep nervous system regulation — so your body no longer carries survival, but becomes a safe and powerful home for who you truly are.