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Chronic Illness Trauma Studies

How Adversity Shapes Health & Why It's Not In Your Head

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Bio and Events Veronique Mead MD, MA, SEP, PPNP Chronic Illness Trauma Studies

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Veronique Mead MD MA Chronic Illness Trauma Studies

Update for 2023 – Taking a Break

I took a break from blogging in 2022 and am continuing this break into 2023 – Learn more here.

About Me and My Blog

I never knew trauma could be so subtle and widespread. That adversity and trauma was a risk factor for chronic illnesses of all kinds. Nor that it meant there were tools that can support health and healing as well as prevention. I share the research here that I wish I’d learned as a doctor. It explains how and why trauma influences health, why effects are not in your head and why it’s not a life sentence.

Table of Contents

  • Update for 2023 – Taking a Break
  • About Me and My Blog
  • My Story
  • Trauma and Other Chronic Illnesses
  • Why It’s Not in Your Head
  • Talks
    • See my Media page for more talks, podcasts, interviews…:
  • Connect With Me
  • Education & Training
  • My Journey to Blogging
  • Tools for Healing
  • Publications
  • Disclaimer
  • Learn More

My Story

What I learned, shared in my story of chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). How I learned about trauma I never realized I’d experienced (like most people, I just thought it was normal).

My personal stories about chronic fatigue, IBS, asthma, interstitial cystitis, severe food intolerances, prediabetes and weight gain. Working to heal using trauma therapies and trauma perspectives has lead to gradual improvement over the past 10 years.

Trauma and Other Chronic Illnesses

Type 1 diabetes (relevant for autoimmune diseases)

Type 2 diabetes (relevant for metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance)

Asthma (Gillian’s story, unexpected risk factors, and a cure)

Chronic fatigue (a body caught in freeze-like hibernation)

Rheumatoid arthritis (an autoimmune disease with examples of triggers)

Why It’s Not in Your Head

Introduction to epigenetics; the nervous system, brain plasticity, “pruning” and brain development; traumatic stress, epidemiology, and embryology; adverse babyhood experiences (ABEs); adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and more. Here are my favorite books and my free ebooks.


Talks

See my Media page for more talks, podcasts, interviews…:

Healing the Freeze Response at the Trauma Mind Body Super Conference

9 Paradigm Shifts in Chronic Illness, PTSD and Complex PTSD Avaiya University

Healing Childhood Trauma Summit  Avaiya University

Connect With Me

FOLLOW ME on FACEBOOK (this is where I am the most active with postings)

CONNECT WITH ME on LINKED IN

SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL

FOLLOW ME on PINTEREST



Education & Training

What I’ve learned about trauma and healing informs every aspect of my life from working with my health as well as flare ups and triggers, to my relationships, self care, and the value of mindfulness in everyday life, and more.

  • 2000 to now: Integrating Research on Trauma and Risk for Chronic Illness
  • 2006-2008 SEP: Training – Somatic Experiencing Practitioner
  • 2005-2007 PPNP Training – Prenatal and Perinatal Professional (Myrna Martin)
  • 2003-2009: Private Practice: Somatic Trauma Therapist (Chronic Illness)
  • 2003 MA Somatic Psychology – Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado
  • 2001 Training – Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (Trauma Module)
  • 1995-1998 Assistant Professor – New Hampshire-Dartmouth Family Practice Residency Program; family medicine, obstetrics and full spectrum care;
  • 1993-1995 Locum Tenens (short term substitute in clinical practices, USA)
  • 1993 Family Physician – UNM in Albuquerque Family Practice Residency
  • 1990 MD – McMaster Univ Medical School, Ontario, Canada – “lifelong learners“
  • 1986 BA Cross Cultural Studies & Pre Med – Antioch – “learning by doing”

My Journey to Blogging

When I was little, my Dad encouraged me to try things out in person to see if I liked them or not. I volunteered with the local vet when I was 11 and realized that this career choice wouldn’t work because my allergies to animals were so severe they caused my asthma to act up. I became a doctor instead.

Medicine

I majored in cross-cultural studies & premed for a BA at Antioch college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where the focus was also on experiential learning.

I found a medical school with a similar emphasis on learning by doing, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, whose mission is “to create life-long learners.” This style of learning has served me greatly in the exploration of my health and looking into factors that may have contributed to, and continue to perpetuate, my fatigue.

I attended the University of New Mexico for my Family Practice Residency, having spent my early years in Santa Fe. It has a medical student program and philosophy like McMaster’s.

After completing my medical training, I traveled the country doing short stints as a temp doc (locum tenens). I tested out different environments such as private, independent outpatient practices in Michigan and Rhode-Island, hospital-based clinics in Maine, the Indian Health Service in North Dakota, and an isolated clinic in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was fascinating. I loved being in new places. And it was also incredibly stressful as a newly minted physician who was still wet behind the ears.

I then settled down as full-time faculty in a small, community-based residency training program that was just getting started, in Concord, New Hampshire.  I delivered babies, taught residents and medical students, bought my first house, and made good friends. Ultimately, though, I realized that I needed to leave medicine.

Somatic Psychology

After leaving medicine in 1998, I took a year off to gather myself and regroup. I realized that I could become more like my role model, Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, who works with the relationship between mind and body. My health got worse despite slowing down and de-stressing. I went back to school and retrained as a somatic psychotherapist. What I learned has helped me make sense of my symptoms. I got a Master’s degree at Naropa University and did specialty training in working with trauma, bonding and attachment. It was mind-opening. My fatigue continued to worsen for a few more years, despite intense,  dedicated work with my “stuff.”  In 2009 I became unable to maintain even my small, part-time, adapted-to-my-health-and-needs private practice. I stopped working and after a year, started improving. I am much better now, including having given my first talk at a conference. Here’s my story.

Research For a New Paradigm of Disease

My research has taken the form of scouring the literature and medical databases. I’ve been at it for over 20 years. There’s so much supportive science now that I can’t keep up. It’s a very good sign. I’ve put together new ways of making sense of  chronic illness; and finding commonalities between chronic illnesses (chronic fatigue syndrome ME/CFS, MS, diabetes (both type 1 and 2), RA, Inflammatory bowel disease, Lupus, and asthma, among others). I’ve also been using myself as a case study, examining and working with my symptoms and their relationships to past and present life events. I have over 12,000 articles in my research database at this point. I’ve read most of the abstracts if not all the articles. I share these throughout my blog to validate just how much is changing in our understanding of disease.


Tools for Healing

Here are my thoughts on who to approach healing and tools for healing.

Therapies for Healing Trauma (with links to find a therapist)


Publications

Journal Article 2020: Veronique Mead 2020). Adverse babyhood experiences (ABEs) increase risk for infant and maternal morbidity and mortality, and chronic illness. You download a free copy on this ABEs Resources Page published in the Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health.

Book Chapter 2007: Veronique Mead (2007). Timing, Bonding, and Trauma: Applications from experience-dependent maturation and traumatic stress provide insights for understanding environmental origins of disease. Advances in Psychology Research. A. M. Columbus, Nova Science Publishers. 49: 1-80.

Journal Article 2004: Veronique Mead (2004). “A new model for understanding the role of environmental factors in the origins of chronic illness: a case study of type 1 diabetes mellitus.” Med Hypotheses 63(6): 1035-1046.

Master’s Thesis 2003:  Veronique Mead (2003). Somatic psychology theory and the origins of chronic illness: a case study of type 1 diabetes. Somatic Psychology. Boulder (CO), Naropa University: 427 p.


Disclaimer

Although I’ve worked as a doctor and a psychotherapist, the information contained in this blog is presented for general education and informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

The model, although presented with support from the literature and personal experience, is only a theory. Take what feels like a good fit for you, discuss it with your health care provider(s), and let the rest go.

Here’s the full disclaimer, which I’ve tried to make as short and readable as possible.

Learn More

The Chronic Illness Trauma Connection (My Free Ebooks & Downloads)

Chronic Illness Recovery: Books for Understanding And Healing Trauma

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I love hearing from you. I read and review every comment before publishing it to make it visible to everyone. Your stories and insights make the writing and running of my blog so worthwhile. Although your email is required, it is not made public. You can use any name you wish. How do you work with your health? What has helped as you've become an expert in your own right? Does understanding the science of trauma make your journey any easier? Is there anything you need or wish I wrote about more?

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About Me

Hello! I'm Veronique Mead. On my blog I look at how chronic illness may be a natural response to one or more overwhelming experiences of threat. While this includes infections and toxins, I specialize in the role of psychological and physical trauma. Because the research - still overlooked and underestimated by medicine - has knocked my socks off.

 

Symptoms, it is turning out, may not be caused by mistakes our bodies are making but because our nervous systems have gotten stuck in states of fight, flight or freeze. Our bodies are our best friends and risk everything to help us survive. We are designed to recover or at least begin to heal from the effects of those survival strategies. I never knew any of this as a family physician or assistant professor. And it’s not in your head.

 

I've been testing these ideas with my own disabling disease for the past 20 years (I am much improved and get a little better every year). I share the research, challenges, why some things that seem so logical do not work for everyone (or make things worse), as well as my favorite 11 tools. This is so you can explore what might help you stabilize, improve or possibly even begin to reverse underlying drivers of your chronic illness too. For an overview with links to my most important posts, start here.

Awarded Top 100 Chronic Illness Blogs

#WEGO Patient Leader 2019 Finalist

#WEGOHealthAwards 2019 Patient Leader Finalist for Best in Show Blog Chronic Illness Trauma Studies Veronique Mead MD, MA

I and we - it feels so much like a WE - were among 6000 nominees for 15 categories of patient leader awards and one of 5 finalists for Best in Show Blog at the #WEGOHealthAwards. Learn more here.

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