I’ve been seeing a decent amount of information circulating as of late in the health realm regarding the link between unresolved trauma and chronic illness. You might consider the two to be entirely separate entities in their essence, and, technically, they are. When trauma of any sort exists in the body for an extended duration of time, unresolved, it can, in fact, trigger the development of chronic illness, and this is significant as hell in terms of understanding where chronic illness stems from in some cases.
I’ve been through several traumatic events in my own life, and I’m now at a point, with my own health, in which I recognize that I arguably developed chronic illness because of my own untended trauma. I did not receive adequate mental health help after experiencing these traumatic as fuck events, and I’m certain that this directly coincides with my health going to shit in the past few years.
If you don’t believe me, consider the following information from psychologytoday.com.
“It’s estimated that 12 to 25 percent of people who experience life-threatening illness develop medically-induced PTSD (Edmondson, 2014). We know that health consequences of PTSD include diminished mental and physical quality of life. Of particular note is that PTSD produces neurobiological alterations — including higher inflammation levels — that negatively affect health (Koenen & Galea, 2015). PTSD also can affect adherence to medical treatment, as people who use avoidance tactics to manage PTSD symptoms are less likely to take their medication, implement lifestyle changes, and see their doctors for follow-up visits (Edmondson, 2014).
“Most traumas come from the external environment: a natural disaster, an attacker, a war. Medical trauma comes from within. Our bodies are the source of danger, and, as such, it can seem that a safe haven is not available to us (Edmondson, 2014). Shock, disbelief, terror, heightened anxiety about the future, and disillusionment in the medical establishment are prevalent (Cordova, Riba & Spiegel, 2017). Perhaps most salient is the changed understanding of our own vulnerability to pain, suffering and death. Our previous worldview — in which the world and our place in it were things we understood — has been shattered by illness, and our perception of safety has been altered irrevocably (Edmondston, 2014),” the web page states.
I won’t delve into the specifics of my own trauma in this post, but believe me when I say that the link between trauma and chronic illness is astounding in its nature.
Photo by Marcel Strauß on Unsplash
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