Why you feel physically sick after divorce

Nobody warns you that the end of a long marriage presents like an illness. Women describe it the same way over and over: I thought I was dying. I thought I had something seriously wrong. What was wrong was shock, and shock is a physical event, not just an emotional one.

What it actually looks like

Food stops being interesting, or becomes the only thing that is. Sleep splits in two: you fall asleep from exhaustion and wake at three with your heart already going. Your hands tremble when you sign something. You lose your train of thought mid-sentence, in public, and stand there hoping nobody noticed.

Some women go the other way and cannot stop. Cleaning at midnight, reorganising cupboards, walking for hours. Both are the same system doing the same job: trying to burn off a level of alarm the body was never built to carry for weeks.

Why your body is doing this

Your nervous system registered the loss of the structure your whole adult life was built on, and it did that before your mind caught up. It is now running the same programme it would run in any emergency: hypervigilance, appetite shutdown, broken sleep. It is not a malfunction. It is an ancient system doing its one job with the only tools it has.

Which means the way through is physical first. Not because your feelings do not matter, but because a body in alarm cannot process feelings. It can only survive them.

The short list that actually helps

• Eat at set times whether you are hungry or not. Small, plain, on a plate.
• Get daylight in the first hour of the morning. It does more for night sleep than anything you do at night.
• Walk every day, even badly. Movement metabolises the alarm chemistry.
• Keep one evening routine and do not negotiate with it.
• Tell your doctor what is happening, especially if you are not sleeping at all.

The one symptom you should not sit with

Most of this is miserable and normal. One thing is not: if you are having thoughts of harming yourself, or you feel unsafe, that is not shock and it is not something to push through alone. Tell your doctor, or call a crisis line where you live, the same day. That symptom is a medical issue, and it is treatable.

Nothing here is medical advice. If your body is doing something that frightens you, see your doctor.

For the wider picture, read the signs of a grey divorce or how long this stage lasts.