False Alarms: The Link between Autonomic Dysfunction and Mental Health
- Louise Gentry
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
My name is Louise, and I am a student at King’s College London, studying an MSc in Psychology & Neuroscience of the Mind-Body Interface – a course I was drawn to precisely because of the journey you are about to read. Years of navigating a body that was misunderstood by the medical system, and inevitably missed by me, sparked a deep curiosity about the relationship between the physical and psychological experience. I now have the privilege to study that relationship formally, because I believe that science and lived experience should inform one another.
I was in my early teens when my body began raising alarms – over and over again – alarms no one else could hear.
My heart would pound, my vision would dim, and the constant fatigue would ensure that I lay in my bed, as standing upright felt like an endurance test rather than a neutral position. I did not feel anxious before these episodes began. Fear came later and remained, purely as a response to what my body was doing, not as a direct cause of it.
Still, the explanation offered to me was always the same: anxiety.
Knowing It Wasn’t Psychological in Origin
Years passed, and I reached early adulthood. This was the time when I began to look for answers independently. What I experienced didn’t align with what I understood and knew anxiety to be, with these episodes occurring even when I was calm, distracted, or simply standing still. There was no catastrophic thought or emotional trigger – just a sudden and overwhelming physiological shift.
I began researching my symptoms because I trusted my own intuition and, most importantly, my own body. I listened to my body well enough to recognise that something physiological, not psychological, was faulty.
That research led me to a term that finally described my reality: Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), the most common form of dysautonomia (a group of disorders characterized by dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary functions like heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, and temperature) . The listed symptoms were all too familiar. The tachycardia (increased heart rate) and palpitations upon standing, dizziness, tremors, nausea, and near-syncope (a sensation one is about to fainting). For the first time my symptoms made sense. I was now faced with an important yet difficult task: self-advocacy.
The Missing Link: A Connective Tissue Disorder
In my early twenties, it was discovered, again through self-advocacy, that the autonomic dysfunction I had been experiencing was secondary to a connective tissue disorder: Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS). (Connective tissue disorders are conditions that cause inflammation or weakness in the body’s structural tissues—such as skin, joints, bones, and fat).
Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) is not a single condition. There are 13 recognised subtypes of EDS, each with distinct genetic causes and presentation. These range from the Classical type, which is associated with skin fragility and abnormal scarring, to the rarer Vascular type, which carries the risk of arterial rupture. The most common subtype – and the one that affects me is hEDS, which currently has no confirmed genetic marker. This diagnostic complexity is one reason the condition is so frequently missed or dismissed.
EDS affects the body’s connective tissue, tissue that is found all over the body – a structural framework that supports blood vessels, joints, and organs. When that framework is “floppy” or unstable, circulation becomes inefficient – leading to blood pooling in the lower extremities, depriving the brain of oxygen. Thus, the autonomic nervous system is forced to compensate.
In my body, that compensation looked like tachycardia, dizziness, a sense of impending doom, followed by pre-syncope.
Not panic.
Not imagination.
But a nervous system struggling to regulate itself.
Stress As An Amplifier, Not A Cause
Stress and emotional upset do worsen my symptoms. That overlap is real, but it remains consistently misunderstood.
Stress did not directly cause my condition. It amplified a nervous system that was already dysregulated.
When the autonomic nervous system is compromised, it cannot differentiate between emotional and physical stressors – they activate the same pathways. This does not make the symptoms psychological – it makes them physiological responses to overload.
Dismissed When Evidence Was Visible
One of the most defining moments in my journey happened in A&E / Emergency Room. I presented with a heart rate of 185 beats per minute, a symptom measurable, visible and very scary. My heart rate was monitored for around three hours. Yet, instead of being further investigated, I was encouraged to speak to the mental health team.
I knew, with absolute clarity, that this would not help. Not because mental health care lacks value – but because my distress was not rooted in thought patterns or emotional dysregulation. It was rooted in circulation, posture, and an inadequate autonomic nervous system.
The dismissal of my symptoms felt like it was easier to attribute them to mental health, than to understand.
Reclaiming Trust in My Body
Understanding the link between Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and autonomic dysfunction didn’t cure me—but it gave me back something vital: trust.
I stopped seeing my body as dramatic or irrational. I learned that the alarms were not false because I was weak, but because the systems meant to regulate me were compromised.
Knowledge didn’t erase my symptoms. But it replaced shame with context and gave me clarity to address my symptoms with medication and conservative practices – targeting physiology through increased fluid intake, compression wear, and heart rate monitoring.
A Call for Integration, Not Assumption
Mental health matters. But it should never be used as a shortcut when physical explanations are complex, overlapping, or poorly understood.
We need healthcare that integrates mind and body without collapsing one into the other. We need more clinicians who listen when patients say, “This doesn’t feel like anxiety.” And we need space for lived experience to be treated as evidence, not an inconvenience.
Because sometimes the alarm isn’t warning us about imagined danger. Sometimes it’s telling us that the system designed to keep us upright and safe is malfunctioning—and this deserves to be taken seriously.
I am still learning — both about my conditions and about the science behind them. But I no longer need a clinician to validate what I know about my own body. If any part of this resonates with you, I hope it gives you the same permission it took me years to give myself: to trust the alarm.
