Your body is the best defense against identifying a LVM or someone who could potentially hurt you physically/emotionally/mentally. Listening and trusting your gut will save you from many harmful situations and is extremely beneficial in both your dating life and building legitimate friendships.

Think about all the times in your past where you were seeing someone and something didn't feel right. You couldn't be your authentic self. Your care-free personality and positivity couldn't radiate throughout the room. Your once chipper voice turns cold, callous, and short. You were extremely hesitant to be emotionally vulnerable and share parts of yourself that went deeper than surface level.

It's like something in your brain shut off your ability to talk/think correctly because your brain did not want you to disclose your vulnerabilities to that person so they can't use that information as ammunition against you.

This reigns especially true when you have sleepovers together, and you can't seem to get to sleep.

I've personally been there. As much as I tried to go to sleep, my body refused to let me. I was physically exhausted, but my body was alerting me that something was not right. My body was telling me that the person sleeping next to me is not good for me, and will absolutely try to harm me in some way. My body did not want to engage in the most vulnerable thing to do next to another human, and that was to fall asleep. This was early on in the relationship too when things seem fine and dandy and the LVM and toxic behavior didn't rear it's ugly head.

In this instance, my gut was absolutely right about this individual. Not only was he a LVM in HVM clothing, but he was cruel, condescending, and a textbook narcissist. The entire situation was terrible for my psyche, and my body knew it.

Never try to ignore your body or your gut feeling because your best defense against toxic people is yourself.