My Story
Chrillogs (Your Stories)
My Chronic Illness & Trauma Connection Series
3 Guides to The Blog
Each of these guides provides an overview of the blog in different ways.
Sneaky Tips That Help You Heal
Fact Sheets
Support During Covid
Key Topics
Discovering the Trauma Connection
This series describes how I discovered the large body of research showing the chronic illness and trauma connection. The science spans many different disciplines and began decades ago. I never heard of any of this in my medical training even though the science is strong and the findings increasingly clear. I share examples of how I began to realize that events in my own life, which I had always thought were normal, actually fit into different categories of adversity. Like most of us, I hadn’t realized just how subtle trauma can be that affects long-term health. You’ll also find a few of these posts incorporated into ebooks 4 and 5 and elsewhere.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS)
The research is demonstrating that this illness is real, not psychological and not in your head. It represents a physiology caught in a survival state of hibernation and freeze.
Dearest Goooooood Morning from South Africa Johannesburg……
I am always in search of answers that make sense or trying to …….
These books will help me tremendously……Ile be greedy to ask if maybe youve got something lying around concerning all types of disorder behaviors ………
Its amazing that people still provide these information and doesnt keep it to themselves….
Really i am in favour for this…
Thank you…
Hi TJaart in Johannesburg!
What I’ve found in my 15 years of research so far is that trauma appears to increase risk for pretty much all health problems – even when it’s behavior related, including OCD, truancy / acting out / self-harming, addictions, becoming intensely introverted etc.
You can test out the theory by replacing the chronic illnesses I mention with the specific behavior disorder(s) you’re curious about. And if you have a specific one you’re especially interested in I invite you to write back or email me.
I’d love to hear if any of the things I mention are meaningful to you.
Here’s also the abstract for an interesting scientific article (I can email you the pdf if you’d like to read it).
I’d be interested in the pdf of that article please.
Thank you so much for posting all this information!
Hi S Nicoletta,
So sorry – but I’m not sure which PDF you mean as there are many pdfs on this free ebooks page. The good news is that you should be able to download whichever PDF you want by entering your email address in the space below the ebook picture you want. Let me know if you’re having problems and if so which ebook so I can fix it. Thanks!
Hi Veronique. I am very excited for all the findings about chronic illness and trauma.
It is something that I have been very interested for long time too.
I have downloaded the books and looking forward to share with you my interest
Welcome Francisca! I hope you get some good information from my ebooks and look forward to the conversation :-).
Hello Veronique,
I have had Type 1 diabetes for over 30 years (my son was diagnosed last year). I have been on a long journey that has thankfully led me to the links between trauma and chronic illness. I am currently in my second year of SEP training and intend to set up a practice that will offer support to others with chronic illnesses from the trauma/nervous system perspective. Your work is such an inspiration to me. A heart felt THANK YOU.
Warmly Marloes.
Hi Marloes,
So wonderful to hear from you and that you are finding the trauma / t1d / chronic disease connection so helpful on these multiple levels – to the point of training in SE (I so love SE!!) and in your personal health journey too. There’s nothing like speaking from direct experience. Thanks so much for your heart felt love, it means the world to me to hear.
Hello,
I dislike using this forum for a bug notice but I don’t see any other way to contact you. Essentially, the first link (Book 1) download in mobi format worked exceedingly well. I connected my Kindle, using the USB charging cord, and the file was automatically delivered. Sadly, the link for Book 4 brought me to a .pdf file with each button. Since I started my own blog about a year ago I have had to learn much more than I ever wanted to about computer coding and hosting, the inner workings of email (and GMail in particular), and the arcane ins and outs of WordPress. FWIW, it should be a simple fix to change the link. ;)
I read your Cell Danger Response article and the piece on Health Rising but only now downloaded all 4 of the published ebooks. I am looking forward to reading them early in the morning before brain fog comes on little cat feet. (I’m certain you’d believe I had to first verify I recalled the poem correctly–I hadn’t–then went back to the search page twice because I couldn’t hold all the correct wording in my head.) ;))
Thank you for curating all this information and making it available.
Hi Mary Ellen,
Thank you so very much for letting me know of this glitch – I have fixed it and the kindle option now gives you a mobi file. Let me know if you have any additional problems (my contact page is a bit lost there isn’t it?! It’s at the very bottom of my “About” menu item, but this worked really well – thanks again!
thanks for making this content available for free. Very much appreciated. x
Thanks Gudrun – so glad it’s helpful!!
I wonder if you would indicate if you have tried DNRS, or if you believe that it is possible to reverse the trauma-associated wired neuropathway/s damaging triggering affect of this “Freeze” or of the Fight or flight response that gets “Stuck”, by neuroplasticity retraining and remapping this “learned” physiological triggered freeze response that is causing these disorders that are contributing to the reoccurring hibernation states, specifically with the use of DNRS type neuroplasticity retraining?
I am consciously aware of several childhood emotional and physical trauma events, which I have had emotional and behavioral therapy for over the years. And a year ago, I underwent a productive and insightful Past-Life or Gestational Regression Session with a Therapist, where I indeed discovered some gestational issues of traumatic events that had occurred, that of course my conscious mind did not remember, but which came out in triggerings that I had related when I was exposed around life threatening incidents dealing with young children who I was treating for traumatic injuries presenting to the ER. I worked in ER trauma triage for 15 years. (That is traumatic in itself!)
Also, what of the prognosis probability of any recovery, if you add in to this equation the factor of genomics performed, which indicates I possess a “morbid” level toward MS and CFS, and also toward Narcolepsy, and Mold illness. It was carried to me, and to two half-sisters (out of 4) by mtdna. My mother and two generations of mtdna before her, by their known medical history, have had some forms of “auto-immune” illness with lifetime severe symptoms, and died in their mid-60’s, due to multi-organ system chronic illnesses (minus those organs that were not surgically removed along the years of illnesses.) One of two of my mothers sisters has been diagnosed with CF as well.
If I have this strong genetic propensity to have this freeze/hibernation genetic defect, WILL DNRS even work? Will anything??? How can I over-write this genetic coding ???? Or will it just keep reverting back to this genetic determined and preferred state?
I recognize and have experienced this “Stuck” mode several times after traumatic events in my childhood and early adolescence, and adulthood, but they eventually resolved enough to allow me to function, though with very sluggish levels of metabolism and energy.
My body once again came into a screeching halt, after receiving western alopathic treatment methodologies using the CDC standard protocols for treating 2 Tick Borne Infections with co-infections, EBV. This triple antibiotic therapy with Pepsin, and Omeprosal protocol wrecked my immune system and destroyed the balance of my already weakened microbiome after just 3 days into the 14 day protocol. but there were previous events before this one. About 3 months before this incident, I had required a root canal treated w antibiotic trx, and then I was hospitalized due to a positive H Pylori diagnoses after an emergency endoscopy, because my lower abdomen and stomach was in tonic seizure, clenched tight like a board. I had not being able to eat nor nor was I having normal parastalsis of my entire GI system for two days; Combine these three events and you have a Perfect Storm of sorts, that thus began this progression of downward spiraling, and now after 2 1/2 years of this storm event occurring and dealing with a very slow recovery in attempts to restore my immune system and reverse the process of injury and get back out of this state of my immune system continuing to falsely trigger a “protective” freeze mode, where it believes everything I ingest, or inhale, or place on me topically, is going to harm me, to anything that I come in contact with.
I have been unable to get my body out of this “STUCK” in freeze response for 2 1/2 years now.
Four weeks ago, I was rear-ended in a MVA that was travelling at high speed, and the traumatic concussion , whiplash, physical injuries, and pain of two lumbar fractures and 2 cervical disc bulges, and the ongoing emotional trauma and stress of dealing with the vehicle and accident incidentals, the dr. visits alone; ALL of this once again has triggered my brain to SHUT down my ancillary organs to a crawl metabolism to conserve and protect it? This is a learned response! my thyroid has shut down now, and my list of symptoms is getting worse, day by day.
I am unable to tolerate the analgesics, and I am NOT sleeping due to the pain of lying recumbent and also the return of nightmares.
Any suggestions? My doctors are clueless where to even start. If it is not in their standard toolbox of obvious, I will have to lead them to the evidence and suggest possible treatment, whatever it takes to get me in the right treatment path, or hands, or else I am not going to make it through this bout.
Dear K,
You ask important questions we all really want an answer to. What seems to be true from individuals who work from a nervous system perspective using all kinds of different tools (including DNRS from a few people I’ve talked to), is that it is possible to heal the effects of trauma and to reduce or resolve many kinds of symptoms.
There is also research showing that trauma therapies can reverse changes that turn some genes on or off (epigenetics) and that healing the effects of trauma can even reverse diseases such as asthma in kids.
The challenge is also what you describe so well – what about the effects of multigenerational trauma and our own exposures throughout life that can add up with time? And how far can we really turn back such effects on our genes and nervous systems to turn off stuck states of freeze or fight or flight?
I would say that you are already way ahead of the bell curve with how much you know – about your family history, about yourself and your own history, and about how events can trigger symptoms; as well as the kind of work you’ve already been doing and have had some successes with. This is huge.
I think there are many ways of chipping away at all of these effects and that your ideas are excellent.
You can also add additional tools if you haven’t already (see my post on 10 tools if you haven’t seen it yet) because it appears that the more we can do to decrease the “stress load” on our cells and bodies, the more capacity we can give our nervous systems and our bodies so they have more possibilities for shifting out of stuck states and back towards greater health. So that could mean dietary changes that decrease inflammation, exercise of any kind that you can tolerate, mindfulness practices (which you are already suggest being familiar with given how much you are tracking) and the like.
At this early stage of knowledge about this way of working with health and healing, what we know is that this view is a big and powerful way of thinking about our genes, experiences and symptoms. It’s also true that we don’t know how far these approaches and hard work can take us. I’d say try it and see how it feels (DNRS and other things that appeal to you and make sense to you). Try them, and keep plugging away. Some things will feel right, others will not seem like a good fit and you’ll keep finding new things as you keep growing, healing and evolving.
In my own experience, I have had to keep at it to get ahead of the symptoms that got triggered. And it has taken many years. I have also seen that each session and each thing I try plants another seed that supports more healing. It also helps me address the new things that happen too. My own journey has been much slower than I ever expected and that may be the nature of this work for some of us. Yet it may also be one of the few things that may be helpful and so we keep at it.
You are a pioneer and you are blazing a trail for yourself and also for the rest of us. You sound to me like you are on a good track with your thoughts even as you are working with these latest significant events and symptoms. Hang in there. Keep trusting yourself, your instincts, and this knowledge. Keep plugging away at it. Keep remembering that this is about a body’s response to threat. What you know can help you maintain some differentiation and a quiet(er) place inside yourself that knows you are in the present and that knows when you are safe and that knows that those events are over. Even if it’s a small part, that’s a part of you that will keep guiding and supporting you to keep healing.
Wishing you all the very best on this major journey and offering you huge words of encouragement for all that you are doing!!!
warmest best wishes, Veronique
Greetings from Canada, Véronique,
Thank you for your generosity in sharing the free download summary of medical history. Thanks to your kindness, I will be better prepared for an upcoming medical appointment.
I know that your kindness and generosity will generate good karma and I am pleased to know that good things will be coming your way.
Thanks again!
Thanks! So glad it is helpful. We can use all the tools we can find to be as prepared as possible for those appointments!
Thank you for this amazing resource. I am a bioynamic Breath and trauma release therapist an this website provides a wealth of resources both for myself and my clients to gain understanding. Thank you so much for the hard work with this.
It’s great to meet you Mark and thanks so much for taking the time to let me know. I’m so glad my site can serve as such a helpful resource!
Dear Veronique,
I am looking for the link between trauma and cancer. Which article or book do you advise/propose?
Thank you ij advance
Warm regards,
Jacco
Hi Jacco,
I haven’t focused on cancer, however the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) studies show an increased risk from 10 types of trauma. ACEs are the tip of the trauma iceberg and suggest that many other or even all kinds of trauma may influence risk as well. Take a look at my blog posts on ACEs overview , which will cover some of the highlights on ACEs and link to resources and my other blog posts. The ACE fact sheet summarizes ACE studies and findings and I think includes cancer in the All Effects version (compared with the Chronic Illness version). The original ACE study from 1998 includes cancer. I hope that helps.
Hi, Vironique
Greetings from Dublin. I just watched your video at the Trauma super conference. I am just blown away by the wealth of information you presented in such a simplistic manner. Thanks for all this amazing resource here. You are so kind to share all this! I am a play therapist, so all this study on trauma related to ACE, the freeze aspect are so relevant and useful
Thanks once again.
Regards
Papia
And greetings back to you Papia!!
I’m so glad the information felt both detailed and simply presented. Hurray :-) How wonderful that you are a play therapist – is this with adults as well as children? What a great resource and yes, I could imagine you see freeze in all kinds of forms and formats and that play is an amazingly powerful way to support the whole process!
Hi, I saw your interview on the super trauma online conference. I’ve had several episodes of burnout, and accompanying depression and anxiety. My last started November 2017 and I’m now working half time and am half time on medical leave. It seems that burnout as a subject is not in fashion at the moment, but I recognize myself in many symptoms from trauma. I tend to be wired and tired, and in periods very exhausted (maybe this would be called chronic fatigue in the US but in my country we have an “exhaustion syndrome” term for medical leave, which earlier was called burnout. If I do too much one day I’ll be very tired after.
I’m wondering if you might say something about how your work and explanatory model might apply to burnout? I certainly feel frozen at times, like I can’t get out of bed, not just because of being tired but something else too. And I’ve felt for a long time as if my nervous system is “tightly wired”, like it’s buzzing. Thanks, Emma
Hi Emma,
I would see burnout as being very likely a trauma symptom due to a threat response that has gotten stuck and is causing symptoms.
I imagine that an exhaustion syndrome would be on a continuum somewhere with chronic fatigue and that they may all have contributions from a freeze response – or possibly from too much of a stress response.
I’d be curious about your job as a first question – was there particular stress in that environment? From an employer, colleagues, the collegial or non-collegial nature of relationships or the witness of trauma or exposure to it (common in many health care settings, police and fire fighters, rescue personnel, emergency operators who speak to people during traumatic times etc)? I would then wonder about other events happening during that time that could contribute (caregiving a loved one, loss of a loved one, surgery, a fall, an accident etc).
I would wonder about other types of potential adversity that could have predisposed a threat response to strengthen over time within y our cells or nervous system and that got amplified during this burnout phase at work.
Two blog posts of potential interest are one on chronic fatigue that describes the threat response in both the nervous system (polyvagal) and cell danger response perspectives and that might apply to you as a way of making sense of your symptoms. The other is purely on the cell danger response.
Hi Veronique,
I just finished your first e-book. Very interesting. I would really like to read more, but none of the free e-books seem to available for downloading right now? It’s 10/24/20. I have tried 3 different web browsers, so I don’t think it’s me?
I saw you on the trauma conference recently, and was really glad that you were included. Your talk was the best one I watched! And I really appreciate that you have so much free and very informative content.
Thanks, Robin
Hi Robin,
So glad you liked my talk and that the ebook felt so interesting.
Thanks for checking in about the issue – I’m in the middle of transferring my website to another hosting service for better speed and that is likely why you’re having problems. It should be good to go by Monday 10/26/20 unless this ends up being an unforeseen problem with the transfer. I’ll check into it but if you still have problems then will you let me know?
warmly,
Veronique
Hello Dr V – finding your information has been the missing piece for me as I knew there had to be a physiological connection with ME and the ANS and the mitochondria and you have explained that so well, it’s finally a light switch for me thank you as I knew there was more on a biological level and I couldn’t believe or feel it was just in my brain! You discuss a bi directional relationship between the ANS and the CD-R response , they use the same pathway, CD-R is regulated by ANS. So My question is what are your thoughts on vagus nerve stimulators? could this regulate the vagus nerve and in turn then have a positive effect on the CD-R allowing for some biological healing. I’d be grateful for your thoughts. Thank you for helping us heal ?
Hi Donna,
You are SO welcome! Here’s to finding those missing pieces!!
Great question. Naviaux, who has proposed the CDR theory, indicates that some of the actions of cells can happen on their own without nervous system involvement. I wonder if that’s part of why it can take so many tools or time for so many of us on our healing journeys.
That said, some people find tools that stimulate vagal tone really helpful and I suspect it could absolutely positively impact everything and anything that coordinates and interacts with our nervous systems, including all kinds of cellular functions and very likely the CDR at least in some cases (although this is a guess as I’m not a biochemist or physiologist etc).
For others, vagal stim can be like any other treatment in that it might a) not work or b) cause worsening of symptoms or c) work at first and then not work later. One reason for this comes from my trauma trainings, which suggest that if you try to “remove” or treat a symptom, you are also attempting to remove or decrease the survival response underneath it and this can lead the nervous system to INCREASE it’s threat /survival response / CDR. I therefore find it helpful to try anything new in a gentle way, in small “doses” and just see how it feels and how it goes. Let me / us know how it goes if you try it out!!
Veronique xoxo