When Your Body Feels Like a Traitor

Tonight everyone’s talking about The Traitors — betrayal, deception, secrets. But watching it, I couldn’t help thinking about a very different kind of betrayal — one that happens quietly, inside your own body.

When I was diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (POI), it felt like my body had turned against me. One moment I was living in the rhythm I’d always known — full of plans, energy, and expectation — and then suddenly, everything shifted. My hormones crashed, my fertility vanished, and my reflection felt like someone else’s. My body — the one I’d trusted for three decades — had gone rogue.

It wasn’t just physical. The emotional betrayal cut deeper. The exhaustion that made simple tasks feel impossible. The brain fog that crept in mid-conversation. The hot flushes that arrived like sudden confessions I couldn’t control. It felt like my body was playing a game I hadn’t signed up for — keeping secrets, making moves I didn’t understand.

For a long time, I carried that anger quietly. I blamed myself for not noticing the clues sooner. I replayed every missed period, every sleepless night, like episodes of a mystery I should have solved. But the truth is, POI isn’t a betrayal — it’s biology. My body wasn’t my enemy; it was trying to tell me something was wrong. I just didn’t yet know the language to listen.

With time — and support — I’ve started to rebuild that trust. Through HRT, therapy, community, and connection, I’ve learned that healing starts when you stop seeing your body as a traitor and start seeing it as a survivor. It’s been through something huge, and it’s still showing up for me — even if in a different way.

So tonight, as we all point fingers at the “traitors” on screen, I’m thinking about forgiveness — for my body, for my past self, and for the parts of me that are still learning to trust again.

Because maybe the real twist is this:

Your body was never the traitor. It was just trying to protect you the only way it knew how.