The Body Keeps the Score: ADHD, Chronic Tension, and Fibromyalgia

The accumulation of years of unexpressed anxiety and sensory overload as chronic pain and illness in the body.

The Physical Bill of Hidden Emotions

Somatic experts emphasize somatization—the conversion of emotional distress into physical symptoms. ADHD and Autistic individuals push their nervous systems to the limit every day to adapt to their environments (Sympathetic Overdrive). Even when not facing a physical threat, the amygdala keeps them in "Fight or Flight" mode 24/7.

While an individual may mentally feel "fine," their body stores the burden of trauma related to exclusion and constant masking. As noted in Bessel van der Kolk's *The Body Keeps the Score*, unexplained chronic pain and conditions like Fibromyalgia are often the "physicalized collapse" of these individuals.