Is Trauma Affecting Your Health?

Today I wanted to introduce a topic that I really believe could be the missing healing link for a lot of the chronic pain and illness conditions I see regularly in my practice. If you are one of many who says or at least privately feels, “I have done everything; meditation, yoga, specialists, diets, bodywork, supplements, (fill in the blank), and I’m just not seeing the improvement I want. I don’t understand.” Or you might be saying, “I work so hard at just maintaining a base level of health. Does it really have to take this much?” As discouraging as these feelings can be, it doesn’t mean that you are a lost cause or there is no hope for your healing. 

As some of you know, I have been studying and am now certified in a somatic therapy called Transforming Touch®. This is a somatic therapy that addresses developmental trauma. Now as intimidating as the word “trauma” can be, I don’t just mean the overt trauma (abuse, neglect, abandonment, accidents/falls, surgeries) that we often ascribe to the word. Developmental trauma addresses ruptures in connection that happened early on in life when the nervous system was in its most rapid developmental stage. During this time, connection and presence with another dependable, available caretaker are so vital for a growing being. If this doesn’t happen, the implications on physical health as well as psychological health are staggering.

There is a gold standard large-scale study called the ACE study conducted by Kaiser Permanente which tracked individuals who had experienced developmental trauma growing up. Those with a “high ACE score” (which not only includes abuse and neglect, but also the loss of parents, divorce, and exposure to emotionally unavailable caretakers) demonstrated markedly higher rates of phsycial disease and chronic illness, as well as psychological imbalances including depression. Consider these statistics:

• Women with signs of developmental trauma can be up to 80% more likely to be ill or hospitalized with a range of autoimmune diseases (the higher the ACE score the higher the likelihood of having an autoimmune disease)
• A higher ACE score shortens a person’s life span (in many cases significantly)
• Children who have a parent die, face emotional or physical abuse, experience childhood neglect, or witness severe marital problems between parents are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, cancer, lung disease, diabetes. headaches, and autoimmune disorders including multiple sclerosis and lupus.
• Those with signs of develpmental trauma have a sixfold increase chance of developing chronic fatigue syndrome.
• Those who lose a parent in childhood have triple the risk of depression as adults.
• Children who parents divorce are twice as likely to suffer a stroke at some point in their life.
• Signs of developmental trauma lead to increased inflammatory and cellular aging markers in the body that can have a life long effect.

I realized I needed to know much more about trauma in order to help those folks coming through my doors who were trying everything and still suffering. Those with developmental trauma tend to work harder, effort more, just to maintain some level of mental/emotional balance and/or physical health.

It is almost a feeling of being on a small ship on a choppy sea that never dies down. You have to constantly put the sails up and down, maneuver this way and that just to stay upright. You look over and see calm seas with boats on them sailing away in the sunset and wonder why it is they have that experience and you have this one. Learning about developmental trauma can help you recognize why you effort so much and how to effort less.

That is I think the most simplified way to put it. As you heal on this foundational level. life gets easier and you not only feel better, you develop a new, more compassionate relationship with yourself. I share this not to scare you, but to illustrate how unbelievably impactful this is to our physical and mental well-being. So if you are one of those people who is suffering from a chronic condition, this really could be a huge factor in what you are working with. Take heart, there are ways to address and heal developmental trauma. Stay tuned for further posts on small steps you can take to begin to heal trauma and feel better…💛.