The trauma and nervous system perspective is the most powerful lens I’ve found for making sense of chronic illness.
It explains why symptoms are not in our heads, not our fault, and what we can do about it. I’ve learned through my own disabling illness and gradual improvement.
I was a family doctor and assistant professor and I left medicine because I felt I was causing harm.
After retraining as a somatic trauma therapist I found research that 70% to 90% of risk for chronic illness is not genetic. And that trauma affects risk by stimulating nervous system perceptions of threat, cell danger responses, and affects gene function through epigenetics. When I found my first trigger causing a flare-up in my own illness I knew this was real.
I look at 8 categories of adversity as one step in beginning to make sense of symptoms and approaches to healing.
Context & Tips for Healing
Subscribe to get my blog posts on the chronic illness and trauma connection and get my free ebook:
- 16 Tools support healing chronic illness
- Calm your nervous system in simple ways
- Accessible tools – most are free
- Counteract threat perceptions
- Help identify triggers for flares
- How to listen to your intuition as a guide
- With examples of how I use these tools with my gradually improving disabling illness
The research validates the role of trauma in chronic illnesses of all kinds
Learn about trauma in a gentle way. I write about how it affects risk for chronic illnesses of all kinds:
- autoimmune such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and multiple sclerosis
- diseases of insulin resistance such as prediabetes and type 2 diabetes, and even Parkinson’s
- asthma
- chronic fatigue syndrome and symptoms linked to freeze and “dorsal vagal” states
Learn from fellow journeyers with chronic illness who share their stories in their Chrillogs.
See an example of somatically oriented trauma therapy and what it can look like in this post and video of Cesar Milan helping a dog, Kane, heal from symptoms after a traumatic event. Learn how this can apply to your own healing process with trauma therapies (you can find a therapist on this page).
Welcome.
Sign up to receive blog posts with tips, the science and support for healing chronic illness through a trauma lens.
What You Can Do
Free eBooks, Fact Sheets
Download any of my 40+ free ebooks in pdf (and some in kindle). These include the science for different illnesses, examples of working with symptoms, fact sheets to give your doctor.
Get Your Adversity Score
Surveys on this blog include the ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) 10 item survey and expand it to explore your score for “Missing ACEs” such as attachment and babyhood events.
Chronic Illness Consults
Consults offer tips and insights for next steps whether you are new or experienced. Strategize on a particular symptom, explore how to identify triggers, consider new avenues.
How Adversity Influences our Biology
The science is catching up to what we know from personal experience: Trauma affects our biology, our physiology, our bodies and our minds. These effects are not psychological or due to “negative thinking.”
Cell Danger Response
Adversity and support influence threat responses in our mitochondria. Cell danger responses can get stuck in fight, flight or freeze to cause symptoms. Our cells can also recover.
Epigenetics
Life experiences in babyhood, childhood, adulthood and past generations turn our genes on and off through epigenetics, to offer the possibility for reversibility.
The Nervous System
Life events weaken or strengthen survival pathways. Nervous systems are “plastic” and can shift, even if they get caught in survival responses that influence chronic illness.
Types of Trauma and Adversity
Environmental factors such as trauma are not only important risk factors for chronic illness, they may be necessary to activate genes that affect risk. This means we have opportunities and tools for prevention as well as for healing. Below are links to blog posts describing categories of Adverse Experiences. These shape health over years, decades and generations. It may help explain why we got sick – and show us where to focus to improve our health.
Reader Comments
“… I found this article/ blog so enlightening! It has certainly helped me to come to terms with my chronic illness, Lupus. It is really good to get some quantitative data mixed in. See post and comment.
Fay
Lupus” I have always believed my CFS was due to trauma but I am just a patient … I particularly loved a sentence of yours where you stated symptoms are defenses to protect you. I still have a long way to go and am now old at 71 but the science of it all this thrills me. See post and comment.
Nia
ME/CFS” This article. …. mind blown. It makes so much sense. I went through a five year period of intense chronic stress before my body started quitting on me. Trauma….. you just opened my eyes. Thank you so much! See post and comment.
