Trauma Care Practitioner Stacey Uhrig of the Flip Your Mindset Podcast shares her RA story (rheumatoid arthritis) with me on her own podcast in this chrillog. Chrillog is a term I created for “chronic illness web logs” where people share their stories of living with a chronic illness from a trauma perspective.
Stacey talks about being diagnosed at 48 years of age during the Covid pandemic. She shares a trauma-informed process that has helped her heal, including a moment when an epiphany changed everything.
She also discusses her symptoms of Raynaud’s syndrome, endometriosis that was missed for years, and at the end, about debilitating anxiety that has resolved.
Watch the excerpt or the full podcast below.
You’ll find a timeline for the podcast at the bottom of this post.
In this chrillog Stacey shares her experiences with severe symmetrical joint pain and extreme fatigue that were diagnosed as seronegative rheumatoid arthritis in 2021. She writes about it in a summary of her RA story on her substack, it’s Episode 151. About 30% of individuals with RA are seronegative, which means that bodies have not developed measurable biomarkers such as to rheumatoid factor or Anti-Citronellinated Protein Antibody (ACPA). It is more common to be seronegative in the first year of RA.
I met Stacey a few months ago when she invited me to her podcast to talk about chronic illness and the role of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and other forms of adversity. In that podcast I learned that Stacey had had personal experience with RA. Here’s our first podcast.
We recorded today’s podcast specifically to talk about Stacey’s RA story from a trauma-informed lens. These experiences focus on the kind of subtle, “missing ACEs” that Stacey describes as the
Mist of Dysfunction” … that chronic, pervasive, and unseen stress that you can’t quite put your finger on, but that soaks into every part of your childhood, making you feel unseen or alone. To survive it, we develop what I call “brilliant adaptations”—coping mechanisms that take a massive toll on our nervous system.
Stacey’s RA Story: Reducing Symptom Frequency, Duration & Intensity
The process of addressing trauma as an approach that supports healing chronic illness can take time and may be lifelong as we work with the residual impacts on our beliefs and way of being. Stacey describes it in this way:
My goal isn’t total elimination of symptoms, but a “decrease of frequency, duration, and intensity”. And on that front, I have found profound success.
My body was holding a story it needed me to hear. By finally stopping to listen, I was able to help it heal.
Watch our Full Podcast for Stacey’s RA Story
Resources
Below you will find the transcript for this podcast that you can download for free, and links: for support and what you can do, including if the idea that trauma may play a role in your own symptoms or chronic illness is new; to Stacey Uhrig and her podcast Flip Your Mindset; to research findings about trauma as a risk factor for autoimmune disease; to topics we mentioned in the podcast; and a timeline for the podcast.
What You Can Do
Fact sheet to inform your doctor: Autoimmune disease and trauma FACT SHEET also helpful to share with, family and friends; presenting the research on trauma as a risk factor for autoimmune disease
16 tools that support healing: free downloadable list
Consult with Veronique or Stacey for more context, insights and ideas on the chronic illness journey, the process, triggers, where to start
Free Pain Assessment Tool developed by Dragon Claw, a patient advocacy group for people with autoimmune diseases “MPaCT — My Pain assessment Communication Tool” as a better and more effective way to describe pain symptoms to your health professionals
Follow Stacey for an upcoming course starting Oct 1, 2025 “The Calm Code” – A guide to HEAL anxiety from within
Research on Autoimmune Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Trauma
Autoimmune disease and trauma FACT SHEET to inform your doctor, family and friends summarizing the research on trauma as a risk factor for autoimmune disease: free downloadable PDF
the biological process associated with developing autoimmune disease can begin many years before onset and may begin early in life (see this blog post)
Coming Soon: The podcast where Stacey interviewed me on ACEs+
Our first podcast, conducted before this one where I learned that Stacey has a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, discusses the concept that treating health symptoms without understanding the role of trauma is, as Stacey describes it, “like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound.”
Timeline
Introduction
4:25 When were you diagnosed?
7:30 minutes: Onset of symptoms
13:42 How did you get heard by your doctor?
20:00 ACEs, knowing about ACEs and my ACE score: helped with treatment
21:32 Not being heard by doctors is a reenactment of childhood experiences
25:00 I said to my doctor, “What do you know about ACEs?”
27:12 The 10 ACEs
32:50 Higher CRP initially with treatment: a trauma healing perspective
34:15 The epiphany
40:05 Emotional Neglect: Not being seen as a child
43:29 The Mist of Dysfunction: the unseen ACEs
44:30 Positive ACEs can make a difference: did you have any?
50:08 ACREs: Adverse childhood relationship experiences and complex PTSD
57:50 Symptoms linked to adaptive responses
1:00 Healing trauma changes your chemistry and epigenetics
1:07:40 Where are you now with symptoms?
1:11:11 Final thoughts: Stacey’s book, upcoming course The Calm Code Oct 1
1:13 Anxiety, Stacey’s experience, what anxiety really is and the courseThe Evidence for Trauma as a Risk Factor
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