
On my return from time with my parents for my annual summer visit in the early 2000s I finally connected the dots to realize that my unquenchable thirst and dry mouth were not solely from living at 5000 feet in the arid climate near the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Eating desserts and vinegary foods, it turned out, was making my mouth dry and making me extra thirsty. Thus began my almost 20 year journey with severe food intolerances that became so limiting I spent 2 years unable to eat practically anything but one kind of meat (boiled, no less).
It wasn’t the food itself or a healthy way of eating in particular that solved my problem, although changing my diet did help me greatly with a wide array of symptoms.
This is about how I tackled and eventually overcame severe food intolerances in November 2018. It’s part of my story that’s been too taboo to expose and that I’ve been unable to share before: how I’ve been healing my complex PTSD and ACREs (adverse childhood relationship experiences) and the enormous, under-appreciated effects these have on long-term health.
This is also part of how I’ve approached my disabling chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), which is a disease with no known cure, no quick fixes, and no single path of healing that works for everyone (Like everything else on my blog, this post and approach apply to working with any symptom, chronic illness or mental health condition, including depression and anxiety).
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Introduction
As many of you well know, I use trauma perspectives to make sense of my symptoms and see them as linked to a nervous system caught in states of relative freeze, fight and flight. This view has been helping me recover.
Of note, I have tested these views with many approaches over the years, including a special focus on trauma therapies of all kinds. I have not sought medical treatment very often. This is for a number of reasons: 1)I’m a person whose labs were almost always normal and whose body became intolerant to all manner of medications, supplements, probiotics and more along this journey and whose symptoms either weren’t helped or worsened with medical and other treatment. 2) I’m a former family physician who could assess whether I was getting into trouble or needed medical attention as I tested things out. 3) I had a primary care physician and other health care professionals I could consult when needed. 4) I was trying approaches that seemed to have more comprehensive ways of making sense of my symptoms, including acupuncture, ayurveda, chinese and ayurvedic herbs, cransiosacral therapy, homoepathy, Mayan massage, functional medicine, a medical intuitive, and beyond. I took a different path than many might need to take. Many of you, however, will be familiar with the general outline of what I’ve had to do, because this is what you’ve had to do as well, regardless of which chronic disease you may have.
The list of what I ended up having trouble with as my severe food intolerances worsened included the following:
- All Carbs: bread, pasta, cereal, grains, legumes, granola, all desserts, gluten and gluten-free, all sugar +
- Corn
- Vinegars such as salad dressings & ketchup
- Fruit
- Nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, bell peppers…)
- Spices
- Nuts
- Ferments (such as sour cream, sauerkraut)
- Shellfish
- Eggs (found on testing)
- Mushrooms (found on testing)
- Red Meat
- Vegetables
Cleaning my Fence is The Metaphor

I accompany this post with images of our small white picket fence, which serves as a metaphor for the tools I’ve needed for healing. The pictures reveal the underlying trauma-related solutions that eventually helped me overcome my severe food intolerances.
This journey took much (much) longer and much (much) more effort and trial and error than I ever thought it could, although I didn’t even really know if my suspicions that trauma was an underlying driver of symptoms would turn out to be true or useful.
I share this story with some excitement because it might give some of you hope, encouragement and new tools to keep trusting these trauma perspectives too.
1. Symptoms Level 1: No Carbs

My first response to the realization that the occasional slice of cake, apple pie and other desserts was contributing to my symptoms of uncomfortable mouth dryness was to start limiting these foods. Including eating less of my mom’s home-made vinegared “Ketchup” I’d grown up with and that heightened the enjoyment of meals with meat and potatoes. Even though I didn’t consume a great deal of these foods, it was still disappointing. Will-powering my way through this was challenging because I have had a sweet tooth all my life. So at first I simply started to eat desserts less often, such as on weekends or special occasions like birthdays.
Treatment 1: Limiting Certain Foods

This first “treatment approach” was like spraying off my fence with a strong stream of water. I first removed the wire fencing I’d placed on it so that my clematis and climbing rose had somewhere to attach. The strong spray helped remove some of the accumulated dirt with relative ease.
2. Symptoms Level 2: Dry Mouth +

Over the following 10 to 12 years, my symptoms of dryness got worse and began to affect other body systems. I started to realize through trial and error that these foods made some of my other, not clearly related symptoms, worse too:
- Dry mouth, tongue, sinuses and thirst 24 hours a day
- Dry eyes
- Worsening of llfelong dry skin
- Restless legs
- Bloating with an out-of-proportionately-large belly
Dryness. The night after I’d eat something acidic or carby, my sinuses would get stuffy and I’d have trouble breathing with my mouth closed. This interfered with my already poor sleep.
Restless legs. The sensation in my legs of rising, uncomfortable energy that felt like it had nowhere to go could happen at any time of the day. Mostly, though, it woke me up in the middle of the night when I’d eaten acidic foods the day before. The restlessness would persist for a few hours. Cold water didn’t help much. Making sure I took my evening walk often reduced the risk or intensity at least a little. I wasn’t interested in trying to find a medication for treatment as I felt there was an underlying driver that I preferred to address. A meditation practice of being with this experience without moving or reacting to it never worked either. I would manage to stay with it sometimes for more than an hour but the sensation would become too unbearable to stick with.
As a result of the worsening symptoms, I was motivated to limit what I started to call “acidic” foods more seriously while I continued my trauma therapies and multiple, ongoing other approaches.
I therefore restricted an increasingly number of other “acidic foods,” including bread, pasta, and grains, as well as salad dressings and anything that contained vinegar. I had to stop eating fruit for the same reasons.
Treatment 2: LImiting More Foods

Restricting more foods helped with my symptoms. Taking certain foods out of one’s diet is enough for some people to be fully healthy. One friend of mine, for example, stopped eating avocados for a number of years because they caused a reaction. She’s since been able to resume eating them without problems. She had and has also done non trauma-therapy related work that supports her health over the years.
Like using water to spray down my fence, however, I learned that limiting my foods didn’t help remove the underlying problem such as the caked-on grime and the dark spots.
3. Symptoms Level 3: Worsening Constipation +

In the next 3 to 5 years acidic foods began to worsen other growing symptoms that seemed to be linked to my disabling chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). My symptoms of fatigue had actually started to improve in 2010 and I was walking 30 minutes twice a day, drinking lots of water and no longer bed ridden. But other symptoms were arising that seemed to have a mind or driver of their own:
Interstitial cystitis (IC). At first, a very occasional urinary tract infection resolved with antibiotics (even as these caused yeast infections). I then began to have bouts of bladder pain with tests that were negative for bacteria. I was given a diagnosis of IC. Eating too many acidic foods could now also to trigger these symptoms of IC.
Constipation. I had irregular bowel movements for most of my adult life without concerns or problems. Over time, however, frequency gradually decreased. At my worst around 2014, I spent a year with constipation so severe I had fecal impaction, in which I was unable to have a spontaneous BM despite drinking a great deal of water, using no medications, exercising fairly well for a person with ME/CFS, and eating a healthy diet high in fiber. I suspected my constipation was related to my chronic fatigue syndrome and a body caught in a nervous system state of hibernation and freeze. I will someday write about this as a separate post.
Hemorrhoids. Around 2011, the combination of constipation, a spicy therapeutic ayurvedic diet and herbs, and a single baked potato took me over a new threshold and I developed hemorrhoids that were quite severe for about 3 years (yes, they resolved even as my constipation worsened as they are not entirely linked). On occasion, I had intense pain that limited my movements when they became thrombosed. I learned that all of the foods in the group known as nightshades were now causing me problems, as well as corn, nuts, shellfish and legumes such as red or black beans. Common nightshades include tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, potatoes, and many spices, as I just learned while finding a link for this post. Hemorrhoids will also be a topic for a separate post.
Treatment 3: Autoimmune Paleo Diet

The worsening of my symptoms in 2013 caused me a significant amount of physical and psychological stress and worry. Online one day, I found a way of eating called the GAPS Diet (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) that resonated. It was meat and broth based, eliminated all carbs, described leaky gut syndrome as a potential source of many of the symptoms I was experiencing, had a clear plan, including detoxing with baths and juicing, and helped founder Natashia Campbell’s son (and many others since) recover from autism. After 10 years of a gentle but ineffective approach, I got the book, rearranged my cupboards, purchased a 20 gallon stock pot for making broth and a case of large mason jars for storing it, then started the new diet a week later. Because my intolerances were so severe, I couldn’t eat everything on her list, but I could eat the base plan. With all my restrictions, what I could eat turned out to be what is often referred to as the Autoimmune Paleo Diet (AIP).
There’s nothing like the presence of scary, excruciating, life altering symptoms to motivate you to do whatever it takes. I had crossed a new line.
Doing a major dietary change like Autoimmune Paleo was like adding a powerful new tool for cleaning my fence. Putting on rubber gloves, scrubbing with a brush, and digging in more deeply made a big improvement in my symptoms.
4. Symptoms Level 4: Not Even Vegetables?!

After an initial well-recognized adaptation period with some headaches and nausea over the first 30 days, the GAPS diet began to calm everything down. Although my constipation and frequency did not change dramatically, my fecal impaction resolved. The symptoms of IC, which were infrequent, decreased further. My symptoms of dry mouth, eyes and skin improved significantly, and so did my restless legs.
I also lost weight and it felt empowering. I felt better and loved my new slimmer body.
But I was still intolerant of all carbs and vinegars and nightshades.
2.5 years into the GAPS diet, my weight loss progressed and I started to look like someone who is chronically ill. I wasn’t sure it was healthy anymore. Then I started getting restless legs again when I ate the sweeter vegetables such as cabbage.
I wondered if I was reacting to carbs I had never realized existed in green vegetables, or to something else.
To my dismay, my already severe food intolerances were worsening.
I had never been able to increase my foods from the base GAPS diet. And I had been unable to tolerate any of the probiotics she recommended, including tiny doses of home-made sauerkraut or sour cream, which caused such severe increases in dryness and restless legs that it wasn’t worth it.
It was looking like I was going to have to add a slew of vegetables to my already lengthy list of foods I had to avoid.
When I started bloating again with this way of eating, just as it had been for over 2 years, and then feeling full for days on end even when I should have been hungry, I decided I needed to change gears again.
Treatment 4: Zero Carb Way of Eating

This time what caught my attention was one man’s story of recovery from a life-threatening autoimmune liver disease and this woman’s story of weight loss. They were eating Zero Carb (and nearly ZC). I’ve always felt better and had better energy when I eat meat and protein-dense meals. And now I was having symptoms from vegetables.
So I switched to Zero Carb.
ZC is a meat only diet with no plant based foods of any kind (no olive oil, no herbs, no coconut oil, no vegetables etc) and no calorie restrictions. There’s no counting of ketones either, just the recommendation to “eat meat and drink water.” While many are skeptical or worry about this being too severe of a keto diet, or that it might cause problems by limiting certain micro-ingredients, there are studies of entire populations being in optimal health with this way of eating, such as Eskimo populations in Alaska and Icelanders. I found two ZC facebook support groups that were more open-minded, nonjudgemental, informative and spacious regarding the time, process and individual paths needed for healing than I’d ever encountered. Many admins and leaders in the groups had been eating this way for 8, 10 or 50 years. They were in the best health they’d ever been, had normal labs, and had either lost weight as their primary goal or stabilized or reversed type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases.
I started eating meat for my 3 meals every day. I’d always needed a dense, supper-like meal for breakfast so this was appealing to me and got my day off to a great start.
Previously I’d learned that my symptoms were sensitive to red meat so I excluded this even though it was most Zero Carbers favorite and easiest go-to food. I found salmon expensive and too intense of a flavor to eat very often. Although I loved pork and pork belly on GAPS, I found it uninteresting and dry without vegetables. And I had learned from an acupuncturist and personal experience that boiling was easiest for my system to process and digest.
So I ate boiled chicken three times a day for 2 years. Remarkably, while it was sometimes hard to refrain from cheating, my symptoms continued to motivate me and I was (rarely) bored. I also appreciated the ease that comes with not having to figure out meals each day.
Within the first 30 days I gained some energy. It was the first time any way of eating had ever positively affected my energy levels.
I started having easier, softer BMs. After some time, the frequency occasionally improved too. And I discovered that increasing my fat intake often helped with constipation too.
My mood stabilized and my stress levels went down as all my symptoms improved again. I regained the weight I had lost. My feelings of hunger were satisfied for hours after each meal. My belly stayed larger than normal but I rarely had pain, cramps or bloating anymore. I got to focus on other things with my health, healing and life.

Going Zero Carb made a big difference in my symptoms but it was ultimately still like using the brush: not actually effective in removing the highly visible, problematic dark spots that stained most of the fence. I ended up needing do something different to overcome my severe food intolerances.
5. Symptom Phase 5: The Rumbling Volcano

My physical symptoms stabilized and calmed for 2 years on Zero Carb.
It was my mental will power and something more subtle that started to slip after 4 years of eating in such restricted ways.
I’d actually been incredibly motivated about eating so extremely “clean” because it made such a difference in my health and how I felt.
In the 4 years of eating in these ways I had cheated less than a dozen times. One of those times had been to eat an apple. I’d picked it from the tree I’d planted in my front yard more than a decade earlier. A Cortland apple, like the ones in my grandmother’s orchard. I’d planned to just take a bite, enjoy the flavor and juices without swallowing, and then actually spit it out. Instead, I had munched on and just kept going. It had been the most delicious experience. Another time a few years later was to eat one of the ripe local peaches a friend had given David to bring home. These had been worth the resulting symptoms, even as they were not something I could do on a regular basis.
Although it was a hassle, I had been able to make ZC and GAPS work when I travelled such as to visit family, by cooking my own meals (with my mom’s help at times too) and often sticking simply to chicken. On the occasional restaurant date with David, I’d ordered fish or chicken, or burgers without sides or bun or accompaniments.
But it was the sweets that called to me most. Even though most people I read about lose their sugar cravings, often within 30 days or even less after shifting their diets, mine decreased but never went away (there are suggestions this relates to yeast activity in the body). My sweet tooth stimulated a level of rising frustration from all the containment.
I started to chafe at the bit.
Something in the chafing and containment began to feel familiar.
It felt similar to the experiences I’ve had being limited and contained by disabling fatigue for 20 years.
And despite the efficacy of ZC, I still had all the same severe food intolerances.
Treatment 5: Trauma Therapy

During what would turn out to be the last 6 months of time on Zero Carb, I found myself starting to act out a little. An unconscious process was taking form outside of any decision or my ability to control.
Such as having some of the chicken marsala that I’d made when friends came to visit. And then some of the trifle for dessert.
I’d wake up the next morning feeling like I’d been run over by a truck. But oh my, it was so worth it again.
I couldn’t push it without risking a return to my severe symptoms, so I managed to stay careful and keep a lid on with will power as best I could. Until the next urge would arise, unbidden.
I had occasionally taken time off from my 15+ years of trauma therapy, but after a particularly challenging and eye-opening event in April 2018, I did another series of sessions. In retrospect as I write this post, I realize that event was probably what triggered this new onset of rebellion against my helpful, possibly life-saving, but nonetheless incredibly limiting and containing tools I was using to reel in my symptoms. Even as I kept plugging away at the slow-to-change trauma-related bits and pieces with mindfulness and other practices I used both in and outside of therapy.

Working from a trauma perspective was akin to shifting to a “Magic Eraser” as my new tool for cleaning the fence.
Like working with my health, cleaning this fence has been taking much more effort than I anticipated. But it’s still less than when I first tried it 4 years ago after moving into the condo and finding that the brush and water didn’t work, even with heavy duty Dr. Bronner’s soap that succeeds with every other task I’ve ever tried.
These little white sponge erasers that a friend recommended are working wonders. Rather tiring wonders, but wonders nonetheless. I’m pacing myself just as I have to do on this healing journey, because using this little miracle to wipe off the deep black spots actually takes a great deal of physical pressure and scrubbing. I’ve had to do just a section at a time most days, and then rest for a couple days before doing another.
And that’s okay, ’cause seeing it be effective makes it doable and worthwhile.
6. Symptom Phase 6: Taking New Action

Initiating Events that Helped me get Back to a Regular Way of Eating
In April 2018, David and I had a 4-day visit from my father. It was the first time we’d spent so much time alone together without other family members around since I’d become an adult.
I was shocked to discover that there was barely a relationship or connection between us. He said hello when I picked him up at the bus station, was friendly and in a good mood as he’s always been. He then proceeded to talk for the rest of his visit. There was an occasional question about me, or us, or our life. Then, within a few sentences, it was back to him, his ideas and his recent adventures.
What is important to emphasize here is that the full realization of how this was actually a disconnected relationship came because I experienced David’s reactions. Like me, David is a somatic trauma therapist. He is also a a child and family therapist and works with adults in healing complex PTSD. And what he observed was a father who had made the effort to come a long way to visit but who expressed no interest, caring, nurturing, warmth, support or curiosity towards his daughter. The ways Dad was relating to me evoked strong feelings of protectiveness in David. It also made him so sad and so angry at my father that he found it difficult to not say or do something.
But I wasn’t ready for David to speak out to my Dad.
I did, however, see that David’s feelings came from his love for me.
And it woke me up.
It took me some days to begin to really see what was happening with more differentiated, clear eyes.
What I started to recognize and feel, stemming also from my own training as well as decades of therapy and working to heal old attachment wounds, was that I was taking care of my Dad. That I was doing all the listening, uhuh-ing, appreciating, reflecting, exploring, regulating, question-asking and supporting.
And that it was a one-way street.
I’d known I did this for many years, but had never realized the depth of it nor seen it so starkly. Nor had I recognized the extent to which I had learned to immobilize myself as a way to stop reaching for connection that was not actually available. I had not quite seen the degree to which I held in my emotions, both as a child and in the present. Including my feelings of longing for emotional connection, my fears that real connection would not be there if I tried, the profound grief at the loss and lack, and the anger and frustration when there was no seeming interest in me and who I was.
The result has been a freeze response. A nervous system pattern of survival that has suppressed further efforts and additional “trying” as a way to protect itself from overwhelm.
I now understand this to be an important contribution to the freeze state that gradually spread to encompass my general physiology, evolving into decades of disabling chronic fatigue.
Without the buffer of other family members – and with the added witness of a loving partner who was not familiar with the well-accepted, condoned, normalized ways of interacting in my family system, my caretaking pattern – and my father’s inability to connect emotionally – became highly visible.
Over the days of the visit and the months that followed, I began to recognize the extent to which I’d done this caretaking thing my entire life. Making my Dad (and other family members) more comfortable, easing his unrecognized anxiety, supporting his possible and unrecognized loneliness or need for connection, helping to regulate his unresolved and unrecognized trauma, freeze and complex PTSD, and doing it unconsciously. All so that I might be as comfortable (and able to survive) as possible too.
7. Normalizing Emotional Neglect

The influences of emotional neglect from our adult caregivers is what I refer to as an adverse childhood relationship experience (ACRE). It’s what I suspect is among the most profound and underestimated contributors to risk for chronic illness and other effects of trauma, in our own lives and across generations and cultures: The absence of love and nurturing care, safety and support.
ACREs are important because children typically spend their first 18 years or more in the care of adults. As a result, misattunements, lack or losses of connection, failures of support and repair take place over a period of many years. They come from the people we imprint on and who we are genetically programmed to care about and need the most. The ones who we depend on for our very survival. The ones we are designed to learn from as we develop the capacity to regulate our emotions and physiologies, and learn about connection with.
A lack of emotional connection and support therefore has deep and long-lasting influences on the development of all systems: nervous, immune, respiratory, gastrointestinal, emotional, psychological, cellular, epigenetic, and beyond. These are intrinsic reasons for why it’s not psychological.
Adverse childhood relationship experiences, however, tend to go unrecognized because what we experience in each of our own unique families gets normalized.
Normalizing is an unconscious defense mechanism that enables children to survive difficult and even life-threatening experiences with the adults on whom their lives depend (see SNL Darrell Hammond’s documentary Cracked Up for a gentle, spaciously titrated example of how even severe physical abuse can be normalized and forgotten as part of a child’s mechanism for survival).
To state it another way, emotional neglect is a form of trauma that is among the most invisible of them all because it is the absence of something all children are supposed to experience, rather than presence of something overt.
ACREs also typically become a form of multigenerational trauma. Because these difficult experiences happen to children every day when their parents have unresolved trauma that makes it hard for them to feel, let alone regulate, their own emotions. Because if one has difficulty accessing, feeling and regulating their own deep or difficult feelings, it is difficult to help co-regulate for another, such as for their child.
Treatment 6: Reawakening The Fight Response

During The Visit, feelings of rage begun to bubble up for me.
I debated whether to say anything about this attachment pattern with my Dad (or to let David speak up). But I had noticed this pattern long before in which I did all the listening. Talking to him about it a few years earlier had not changed anything. And this time, it was so much worse.
It hadn’t seemed that big a deal in some ways. So what if I did some extra listening? I wasn’t being abused. My Dad wasn’t intentionally trying to cause me harm or pain. I told myself that he was doing the best he could. What was the big deal? But my symptoms were starting to worsen during or after some of these one-way conversations, including anger and then an “outburst” of hemorrhoids within hours after one of these phone calls. They were speaking for a part of me that was suppressed and had had to hold it all in.
Despite this, I made the decision to keep my thoughts, feelings and words to myself. After years of consciously and unconsciously wishing, hoping and believing that maybe he could or would change, I’d come to accept it more fully for what it was: If change was going to happen, it was going to have to happen in me.
In addition – and I suspect many of you have had this very thought process – it didn’t feel worth the trouble. Why raise a ruckus? Why rock the boat? Why challenge someone about a behavior they don’t see or have never expressed a capacity or willingness to consider, own, or look at?
On top of it all, why risk being perceived as the difficult one? Or as a whiny wimp about something that looked like no big deal?
Besides, I didn’t live with him anymore. I was an adult, with my own life. My survival was no longer dependent on my Dad.
I decided to continue to work through my internalized patterns and threat responses to the best of my ability.
An Aha Moment in Trauma Therapy

So I worked some more on my nice girl, good girl, appeasing girl, quiet girl, frozen-because-it’s-not-possible-to-fight-or-flee-my-way-through-this-behavior-from-my-Dad-on-whom-my-life-once-depended-girl patterns in therapy.
Made room for the rage. Gave it a voice in a safe place. Acknowledged that my adverse childhood relationship experiences (complex PTSD) were stronger and had clearer origins than I’d been able to identify in the past.
I did this too because I love my Dad, who had also given me important gifts in other ways.

Then something shifted in a particular EMDR session in November as my birthday approached.
As I worked with the rage a spontaneous impulse arose.
I felt my anger.
I realized that what I needed was a “fence.”
I needed a boundary.
This boundary wasn’t because I was still trying to change my Dad.
It was about me and what I needed for myself.
It was about Self Care.
It was about what my system needed so I could continue to heal. To not work this from my freeze response but to instead make a clear statement as a form of self protection so that my body and physiology knew that I would take care of it and keep something threatening out.
So that I could lead my own life outside the shadows of freeze.
Treatment 7: An Unexpected Solution of Speaking Up

So I set up a phone conversation with my Dad by email. And appreciated when he was willing to do so.
Anger, clarity and self-respect helped me hold my boundary during the talk that we had. They helped me hold the line when my father had trouble seeing or believing he’d done anything wrong or to deserve what I described as a problematic way of relating to me.
My feelings served a purpose. They helped me not crumble, not lose my belief in myself, and keep coming back to the truth of my experience.
I was engaging my social nervous system, my “Smart” vagus. Using words and clarity to create safety for my system in subtle ways.
7. Severe Food Intolerances No Longer

5 days after my conversation with my Dad, I had a hunkering for Mexican food.
I’d had these desires on occasion over the years with my severe food intolerances but had never followed through because of a deep knowing that my capacity was too low.
This time, something was different.
The lava had started to flow.
It was like reaching for something that might pinch but that probably wouldn’t bite.
David, who’d found it unappealing to eat out much without me, came too.
I ate every last bite of my 3 cheese-filled corn enchiladas in red chilli sauce topped with a dollop of sour cream and sides of refried beans and rice.
At Thanksgiving a few weeks later I had turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce, veggies, and at least two helpings of apple and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.
When I went to visit my family in December I ate my clean meals in the morning and for lunch, and then had my mom’s donuts and everything else she had on the table for supper. I even got to relish her cinnamon buns, fresh out of the oven.
My symptoms have not completely resolved in the 2 years since setting that boundary but have softened significantly. I now eat everything. I still eat pretty cleanly for many of my meals, still listen to my body, and slow down a bit when I need to. But I eat anything and everything and no longer have severe or scary kick back from my body.
8. Speaking Up is Hard

When I was with my family in December 2018, Dad said he was going to join me for my morning walks. This was new. My response (which took me the night to figure out), came with a condition: “Only if it’s going to be a two-way conversation.”
I got to express what I’d been feeling and how I saw the links to my chronic fatigue during these walks.
My years of work also helped me have some curiosity.
At one point after explaining the importance of emotions I asked him, “Was there room for any emotions when you grew up?” His answer was an immediate and emphatic, “No way!”
When my Dad looked animated at another moment I asked how this was for him, and he said it was an interesting (maybe implying “real”) conversation, different from much of what happens in our family gatherings.
So there were moments of truth and hints of connection and feeling heard.
It was good that we were able to go there.
What ultimately happened from these conversations with my Dad was they helped me begin to shift internally. Even as it didn’t change anything significant that I’m aware of in the way we relate. Neither of us proposed a joint walk or conversation during my 2019 visit, for example. A few recent conversations took me back to freeze for a period after one and deep anger for multiple days after another.
I recognize that I am not perfect either. That I’ve learned – and run – these very same patterns of doing all the talking sometimes with others too. And how it’s taken me a long time and hard work to begin to change this in me. That it’s taken me time to accept this within myself so I can better accept it in Dad.
But I’m still affected by it.
So I need to set more boundaries in order to not abandon myself and so that my symptoms don’t have to run fight or freeze responses instead.
9. Breaking Taboos

After years of internal debate, I am breaking the taboo about speaking of risk factors from my childhood and family. Staying silent isn’t working for me, even as I’m still trying to figure this out because there is no clear way to work with or heal this and no right way either.
One of the great gifts from these experiences with my Dad is that they have given me more clarity on what I consider to be the most invisible and under-appreciated risk factor for chronic illness: Adverse childhood relationship experiencers (ACREs). This is subtle territory and many of us have found ACREs and complex PTSD particularly tricky to understand and challenging to navigate.
I’ve felt some guilt while writing this post. Had some symptom spikes and activation of fear, fight, and freeze. I’ve felt protective of my father, not wanting to hurt him to share my experience. And because I appreciate other things he has done for me and other qualities he has.
I’ve also felt empowered as I’ve worked on what to say. My symptoms have gone up and then softened back down again. And I’ve had David’s support all along the way, which has helped make this difficult process easier. His presence has been a form of repair as I continue to learn what it feels like to have meaningful, reliable, loving connection. This is a huge aspect of how I am healing.
And so, I am shifting my allegiance. Becoming less protective of family and more honoring of myself. More supportive of my continued healing. And giving myself permission to highlight this all-too-easy-to-dismiss impact of emotional neglect. To validating its role as a risk factor for the millions who live with chronic illness, those who love them, and the professionals who want to help.
Speaking of this out loud and not wanting to try anymore has made me sad.
It also feels like progress.
My body feels a lightening of the load.
All is good.
So here it is. I present to you my shiny clean fence. Because I have something precious and tender and important to say. So important, in fact, that it has become my life’s work.

Related Posts
ACREs I: Intro to Adverse Childhood Relationship Experiences (ACREs)
ACREs III: My ME/CFS Story and Origins of Triggers, Flares and more
Adverse Multigenerational Experiences (AMEs) in my Family
Healing Adverse Multigenerational Experiences with Family Constellations
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS): A State of Freeze That’s Not in Your Head
11 Tools For Healing using Trauma and Nervous System Perspectives
Thanks for making the invisible visible! Looking back, I see it now….WOW!
Marilyn, It’s quite amazing when we start to see some of these things – I’m so glad it helps!!
Incredibile heart warming and detailed telling of your experience and healing journey. ACREs are incredibly treacherous because, as you rightly point out, people tend to normalise what relationships happen in a family and become defensive of parents…
Once we come to truly recognise and accept that it is not about blame, speaking up becomes easier and the body can feel truly heard.
It is such a beautiful and brave thing to have done as I believe many people are affected, to varied degrees, by similar experiences. Thank you.
Ottavia,
So glad it felt heart warming! I had to wait for many years until I could write without blaming as well as with compassion that was not overriding how I felt. So many nuances here – thanks for your comment xoxo
Thank you, Veronique. I am so grateful to have “found” you. It is going to take me awhile to read through and digest what I have found here. I am 73 years old and have struggled with food intolerances, fatigue, and never being able to completely rid my body of candida symptoms. It has only been in the past maybe 5 years that I have realized that I have spent most the last 70 years not really fully present – kind of gently dissociated. I spent years in therapy, but it was yoga that actually helped me begin to gain some self-awareness. I have learned over these years that my body has a strong need for animal protein (more than what is often recommended), plenty of vegetables, and limited carbs. The concept of developing better boundaries is fascinating and something I need to develop. Interesting to think of this in relation to leaky gut syndrome.
Hi Diane,
I love how the things that support or help us are so different for each of us. Yoga for you, how wonderful. And that place of gentle dissociation is so life-saving, until maybe it’s not any more.
I’m curious about those of us who need more animal protein and less carbs. I’m currently working with having gained maybe 20 or 30 pounds, partly while on Zero Carb and then afterwards. What I find intriguing is that it doesn’t feel like it’s about calories or low exercise or carbs. Rather, I wonder if it’s another phase of freeze / dissociation, perhaps what people with obesity or type 2 diabetes cope with. And the research finds that prenatal stress is a risk factor for insulin resistance, obesity and type 2 diabetes. My mother experienced prenatal stress. So I keep staying curious as best I can to see how I can keep working with this from trauma and non blaming perspectives. Including ongoing exploration of anything else I may need to do about boundaries and how best to keep working with these things that need me to take action.
Thanks for writing and I love that you can take your time to take this in and digest it at your speed :-) xoxo
Hi, Veronique, thanks for your reply. I have been wondering about the connection between early childhood trauma and Type 2 Diabetes. I could be there if I weren’t very careful about carbs (which I love, of course). My mother died of cancer when I was 2, and that was followed by an abusive stepmother. Once in awhile she’d take us our for hot fudge sundaes, and within an hour of the “treat,” I’d be an emotional mess, crying over the slightest thing. She always said I was responding to “the excitement,” but I think I was already sensitive to sugar, something in my body was not working properly along with the dissociation/freeze.
Hi Diane,
Yes, there are clear links between what I have coined “adverse babyhood experiences” (ABEs) and type 2 diabetes (which has what may be a precursor phase that might be linked to what you describe or to hypoglycemic events). Also between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and type 2 diabetes – which specifically reference abuse and the loss of a parent.
I wonder if it has to do with a body stuck in freeze or a flight/flight component of the cycle that, for some of us, involves how sugar is used and stored since it is a critical part of the fight/flight and maybe freeze cycles.
I am doing a presentation for an upcoming summit on Type 2 Diabetes with Avaiya University and will be talking about the trauma connection. It will air, for free, from January 19th through the 28th. My talk, if it’s of interest, will air for 24 hours on one of those dates as yet to be determined. I’m also planning on writing a blog post on T2D.
Interesting to chew on this with you!
:-)
Your sharing is precious to me! The fence metaphor is great. I am in therapy for complex PTSD with a trauma specialist who does EMDR. The EMDR has not worked at all and with her and I now meet virtually weekly and have done so since Sept of 2019. Back in the 1990’s I dealt with fibroymyalgia and prior to that numerous aches and pains and intestinal surgeries that did nothing. If I had the therapy I now have my 2 colon resections in the 1970’s would not have been needed. I would like to hear more as to your complex PTSD and how you are recovering. After over 60 years (I am in my early 70’s) of hiding childhood rapes (and I had very loving parents who knew nothing of it), I feel such slow change. Is it worth it? How have you overcome the contamination so you can even do things like mindfulness? I have a hubby who has been unresponsive for 4 years with progressive dementia and in great memory care. Caregiving did result in stress-induced myocardiopathy in 2016. Some guilt with being an RN not able to care for my hubby then. Thanks for the deep sharing!
Dear Jane,
It felt so good to share the fence metaphor and to have overtly visible before and after pictures of something typically so invisible :-).
I’m so sorry to hear all you are going through and have been through. I didn’t name this in the post but I don’t think it’s EMDR specifically – I see it as working from trauma perspectives in whatever way that is, and with a therapist who has enough awareness and skill to facilitate this process in clear, open-minded, non-blaming processes (which itself helps heal the old complex PTSD patterns we have).
Is it worth it you ask? Such an important question. Offering my own personal view, I think yes. In that staying numb from the survival states of freeze might be better and easier for some, but can come at major cost, such as chronic illness and other symptoms. As you say – had you known and been able to heal some of the past, you might not have needed those surgeries.
What I’ve found was that once I started seeing the patterns, I could no longer “unsee” them. And that was also part of why I simply continued.
It’s indeed a long process. And it’s that much harder when our partner is going through something or is unavailable…. And so we have all kinds of difficult things that make it all potentially harder.
But every little positive or helpful or resourcing thing we do plants more seeds. These seeds and their beneficial effects add up over time. Maybe they help prevent some unknown thing in the future. Or slow the speed of worsening of something. Or simply make it easier to be in our bodies, in our lives, in our relationships as they are, with what these aspects of us and others have experienced.
I keep uisng the 11 tools I refer to. And when I speak of mindfulness I’m not talking mindfulness meditation but simply nonjudging (as much as I can) observation and awareness, throughout each day, of how I’m feeling, of beauty in the moment, or how my heart rate just spiked after a comment or something on the news. And I use that information to adjust accordingly – less news, stopping for a minute on my walk to take in the unusual little group of different varieties of birds all in the pine tree, the need to say something to a parent etc…. And that’s really the big thing I’m doing these days. It helps me keep compassion for myself too.
Ultimately, I have no true end goal as I don’t really know where this will all take me, but for me I find it empowering to know that there are things I can keep doing, to the best of my ability as I can, that support myself and my healing, regardless of where it will eventually take me.
I hope that helps. Thanks for deep sharing back!!
Dear Veronique,
Such courage to write this. I too am finding that putting my own needs first is working wonders.
Much
Love
Cathy
Yay – Here’s to Wonders Cathy!!!
thank you so much for giving voice to what cannot be expressed
You are so welcome – I’m so glad the effort is helpful Alessandra!
Wow. I feel like I just read about my journey. I did get to have a conversation or two with my father before he passed away, which was healing, but I still deal with the freeze response as I develop more food sensitivities. I haven’t had access to any trauma recovery therapies… learning as much as I can on my own. I am sure there is anger, rage, and chronic throat issues due to the inability to speak up. Despite all that I have written (and published), despite how many symptoms have vanished, I still have chronic fatigue and numerous food sensitivities. I recently listened to an interview between Robert Smith on Faster EFT and a woman whose environmental and food sensitivities cleared up after getting this type of therapy. Another woman told me about hers clearing up after DNRS therapy. Medicare (and related Advantage plans) don’t pay for any of the therapies that supposedly help. Thus, I just read about them and hope my brain can figure it all out. I look forward to reading your future posts.
Hi Renee,
I’m glad to hear you were able to have some healing. And it’s amazing how deep this can run for some of us that there are more layers, even when we write and publish and work on it!
I am not fully recovered either. This stuff is lifelong work…some in therapy, much of it out.
Before my shift happened I heard a series of serendipitous stories from or indirectly about 2 (or maybe 3?) people whose food sensitivities had cleared up – one with DNRS too, and another with I don’t know what. I think it planted seeds for my own system.
If it’s at all helpful (and I realize it may not be your path) I have a list of books with exercises to try or explore on your own if that feels helpful. It can be hard and not quite the right fit (or too little or too much) to do it that way, but in case it’s supportive here’s the post.
Our brains can use all kinds of things in support of healing – may yours continue, in whatever way shows up!
Thanks for sharing xoxo
Hi Veronique, I can relate totally to expressing instead of suppressing, self-care through boundaries – been through a lot of this already, and especially since I first discovered your work in 2018. I’m 67 and was starting to feel better: my digestion was working, I could eat more variety of foods, fatigue still up and down, but felt optimistic. And then along came 2020 and lockdowns, world chaos and confusion. The feelings of being suppressed, unsafe, unseen, abandoned, unimportant, have whooshed back up to the surface and my digestion is a mess. I can hardly eat. I just want peace, love and harmony for everyone in the world! I’m walking in nature, sitting in the sun when it shines, having good quality contact with kindred spirits, meditating, staying conscious of letting go, listening and dancing to music, breathing, taking taurine for anxiety, cautiously speaking out but it feels dangerous to express my views right now. My digestive system and energy suffer as a result. Thank you so much for being there, I am so grateful. I have passed on your work to other enlightened spirits who are conscious of the link between trauma and health.
Oh Carolyn,
2020 has indeed added such a load for so many of us and increased the symptoms we’re working with (and the need to intensify the tools we need to for working with them!!!). I wonder if 2020 is an expression of so much unresolved trauma around the world, including here in the US. So glad to hear of all your terrific resources and that you have kindred spirits in your life – AND that you could speak out here in this way.
I’m touched that I can contribute in some way. It’s lovely to meet you on this journey that makes us part of a special tribe :-).
xoxo
Wow Veronique! Great post! I identify with much of what you say. My tendency these days when my digestion goes sideways (I’ve been limited to the introductory part of the GAPS diet for years now) is to search for the food source. Now I’m more likely to see an emotional driver too and more often than not, it’s the central and most powerful driver to my digestive distress even though it can take a while for me to see it clearly. I resonated with you mentioning the support that David gave you as an alternative way of relating to men compared to your father. I’m having similar experiences these days with women (and mother) and the healthy relationships are a huge source of support for me. I recently saw the way I try to “entertain” my mother in the hope that at least she’ll pay me some attention, won’t die of depression or some other cause and perhaps (as a really distant long shot) the emotional needs I constantly crave will finally get met… never happens but the pattern has been very subtle and difficult to see clearly. Add to that an overprotective (of my mother) military father (in competition with me over our connection with her) and it gets tricky (and dangerous in my mind) to express the anger I feel when my needs aren’t even considered and my pain dismissed or discounted. Fortunately, I’m getting alot of practice experiencing and transforming my hurt and anger with my mother these days (she has to do the legwork for grocery shopping because I can’t walk a block without running the risk of losing the contents of my bowels into my pants :-( When she gets my request wrong or improvises, my narcissistic infant rage can get stirred up (and quickly repressed). It can take a while for me to see the hurt and then transform it). Recently I had an experience with a male therapist (I’ve been avoiding females because I’ve gone into various forms of freeze response with them. Finding good male therapists to replace them hasn’t been easy. ) who triggered memories of my fathers’ favorite mantra “Shape up or ship out” by stating some pretty standard male ego statements at my expense. So I thought “I never got to explore “shipping out” with my Dad so maybe now is my chance!” So that’s what I’m doing. I’m leaving him behind (and my pattern of entertaining my mother). I want to see if I can connect with more good sources of maternal nurturing (that don’t have a rotweiler guarding them! or that need me to entertain them as payment) and improve my ability to mother myself (see: Miten’s “Mother Inside” for a a great song on this topic https://hooktube.com/watch?v=rnLp0F8bX88). Hopefully my digestion will improve.
Thanks for this post. I identify strongly with it. Thanks for sharing your success with me. Yes, good fences make good neighbours (and better relationships with family).
Hugs to you! (((Veronique)))
Garth
Hi Garth – there are so many ways to identify with this, regardless of our chronic illness and conditions eh?! And so many survival strategies we’ve had to run.
So glad it felt helpful and it sounds like you continue to work this really intensively, including observing those things we’d never expect from the medical perspective (such as the emotional triggers of a symptom when it’s so easy to think it’s the food…and it can take a while for me to see a trigger clearly too as it did just a few days ago when I was having stomach pain on my morning walk, which is highly unusual. I gave it space, slowed to the pace etc… and then got some clarity when talking to David on getting home. And it resolved, hurrah).
Such complexity here to continue to sift through and work with. Wishing you well with these next steps you’re working with!!
PS – LOVED that song… the pacing, his words, countenance, the acoustics! Thx for sharing xoxo
Dear Veronique,
there is so much here, I wish I had more time to write, I think I will follow up with an email when I have more time. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate ypu writing this all up and knowing you as I do :-)
Big hugs
Penny
Thanks so much Penny!! Big hugs back!
Dear Veronique-
Thank you so much for sharing your story about family and all the health methods you’ve tried.
I’ve been on my trauma healing journey for over 6 years and am an SEP. I have an autoimmune condition that is relatively mild but as I heal, I find that I struggle more with food intolerances, weight gain, etc. I believe it was my trauma journey that actually brought forth the food intolerances etc. in a bigger more noticeable way. It’s like it was all simmering under the surface and I set it free when I started the real healing.
Talk about frustrating! I feel a lot better emotionally but am frustrated with the many food intolerances and stuck weight gain. I’ve had this intuitive feeling that there is more healing waiting beneath the surface and until I get there, my body won’t change.
So, I continue to do my work and seek out support. I agree that ACREs are a very important piece of the healing puzzle. Personally I feel a deep well of energy wanting to be expressed. But for now, it’s too bomb-like and scary.
Just wanted to thank you for sharing more specifically about your healing journey. Warm wishes. ❤️
Hi Katie,
Yes, Yes and Yes to all that you say. Frustrating indeed!! And yes to energy that brews underneath but can seem to need greater capacity before it can fully emerge. I found that emotions were the first to improve, then the physical. And then, for me, there’s been a whole other set of deeper, more difficult emotional layers. With more of the physical still to improve.
I’ve wondered about the weight gain and food intolerances in myself too. The intolerances got worse even as my energy levels were improving and as I was doing trauma healing work over the years. It was the reverse of how many develop a chronic condition out of the blue – it seemed that the good seeds I was planting needed time and it was only after a certain tipping point that the healing could take a leap and help something shift towards the positive after a lot of symptom worsening first.
Take a look at my second comment response to Diane (I find it a little hard to read in my blog’s new format but should be findable). I reference weight gain and curiosity about how it might reflect another level of freeze. Interestingly, I was chubby as a teen and lost the body fat in my 20s around the year I started developing my first symptoms of chronic fatigue. Perhaps a trade of one symptom for another as we hear about in SE?
V xoxo
Thank you for your reply. I also read your convo above with Diane. All really interesting and helpful.
This trauma work is such a puzzle. I do feel ACRES (love your acronyms, they are so useful) are a huge part of the complexity of processes happening within our body and brain. I’m not a scientist like you and can easily get lost and a bit stuck because the scientific aspects zone me out! But I am always wondering about all of this for both myself and my clients.
Thank you, thank you for your clear explanations to help the non-scientifics like me!
Warm regards, Katie
Katie – you and so many of us (wondering about all this for ourselves and our clients)! which is, I think, a huge help for our clients!
And you’re so welcome – I’m so so glad my explanations feel clear! Perhaps because I’ve been trying to get clear myself and can’t really write a post unless I “get it.” :-)