THE GUT BETWEEN US – PART 5

A LIFETIME OF GUT-BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS

“WHERE THE GUT WAS NEVER LOVED, THE HEART NEVER TRUSTS.”

Most people think gut issues are about food.

Gas, constipation, bloating, acidity, IBS.

But what if we told you — the gut is not just digesting food, but also relationship memory?

And when the mother–child bond was weak, detached, or rushed,

the child grows up with a gut that can’t relax,

and a heart that doesn’t fully trust.

EMOTIONAL TRAUMA WRITTEN IN DIGESTION

The child who never felt safe in the arms of the mother...

The one who cried and wasn’t picked up...

The one who was bottle-fed, sleep-trained, or raised by gadgets...

That child’s nervous system never settled.

And if the nervous system stays on high alert,

the gut stays inflamed, tense, underfed, or overloaded.

As the child grows:

Trust issues emerge

Friendships feel unsafe

Authority feels threatening

Emotional vulnerability is avoided

Attention-seeking or withdrawal becomes habitual

And silently,

the gut mirrors every one of these patterns.

“Before the mind says ‘I’m not safe,’ the gut has already curled inwards.”

FROM INFANT DISCONNECTION TO ADULT DETACHMENT

Modern families in India now experience a silent epidemic:

Grown-up children ghosting parents

Parents complaining their adult children don’t “talk properly”

Lifelong coldness between mothers and daughters

Adult sons who only return home out of guilt

A complete breakdown in emotional communication

But all of this began not with rebellion —

but with a missing gut foundation.

If the baby was not breastfed, held, co-regulated, or emotionally mirrored —

then even as an adult, they will not feel “at home” around their parents.

“The mother you could not digest becomes the mother you avoid.”

EMOTIONAL STIFFNESS = GUT RIGIDITY

A child who had to suppress their needs early on

will likely become:

Emotionally cold

Passive-aggressive

Overly logical

Socially anxious

Addicted to performance

Their gut will reflect these same traits:

Constipation

Ulcers

Bloating

Food intolerances

IBS

The gut doesn’t forget.

It holds your unshed tears.

It stores your fear of love.

It cramps during confrontation.

It bloats during guilt.

It shuts down during intimacy.

“A tight gut creates a tight life.”

THE MOTHER–CHILD WOUND HIDES IN DISEASE

In modern India, doctors are seeing more and more of these gut-linked emotional issues:

Young women with PCOD, acne, and bloating

Men with erectile dysfunction and ulcers

Teens with IBS, anxiety, and sugar addiction

Mothers with migraines and constipation

Elderly people with piles and loneliness

Many of these people were never abused.

But they were never truly held either.

Never fully seen. Never mirrored.

Never given that natural, warm, rhythmic, microbial-rich nurturing that the gut depends on.

“You were not unloved.

You were untouched.

And your gut recorded the silence.”

EMOTIONAL ILLITERACY PASSES THROUGH THE INTESTINES

If a child’s gut didn’t get its full development,

they will grow up unable to process:

Conflict

Emotional nuance

Grief

Vulnerability

Honest affection

Their own needs

This creates fragile marriages.

Cold parenthood.

Control issues.

Addictions.

A society full of adults who know how to earn, obey, impress — but not how to be held.

“We now have generations with six-pack abs, but hollow guts.”

CONCLUSION: THE RELATIONSHIP DIDN’T FAIL — THE GUT NEVER FELT SAFE

The tragedy is not that mother and child don’t love each other.

The tragedy is that they never felt each other at the gut level.

And when the gut has never felt love,

every conversation becomes negotiation.

Every hug feels awkward.

Every silence feels loaded.

Every reunion feels like a burden.

This is not culture.

This is not fate.

This is unhealed microbial hunger.

“You cannot rebuild the heart

until you regrow the gut.”

“And the gut will never grow

until love is made real again — through presence, not performance.”