Just finished reading Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal by Donna Jackson Nakazawa and really wanted to share it - it's the best read since Pete Walker! I can finally see how 'Adverse Childhood Events' (CPTSD) really do cause physical damage it all makes sense.
So CPTSD changes the brain and that then changes chemicals, hormones, etc etc which in turn affects even the way genes express themselves and DNA acts. So many of us end up with very real illnesses caused by the past.
If anyone is struggling with getting the connection between the mind/body link then this book is a must. It also gives hope on the healing front too.
There are a couple of articles on the web she wrote which explain the science briefly and also I've included a link to the major study that the book is based on, including the questionnaire you can do to see if it may apply to you. Hope it's all useful for you guys.
Link to the research study on Adverse Childhood Events which includes the questionnaire:
http://www.acestudy.org/home
2 links to the quick explanations of the study /book by Donna Jackson Nakazawa.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-last-best-cure/201508/7-ways-childhood-adversity-changes-your-brain
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-last-best-cure/201508/8-ways-recover-post-childhood-adversity-syndrome
And lastly the book:
'Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal' again by Donna Jackson Nakazawa.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Childhood-Disrupted-Biography-Becomes-Biology/dp/1476748357
Interesting , thanks for sharing.
It really is unbelievable (and downright scary) how trauma affects us so completely, not just psychologically but physiologically and neurologically. It's a good reminder that we're not just healing our hearts, but the whole of our selves. :yes:
Thanks for the resources SweetSixty, nice to be reminded and to have more helpful info in that regard. :hug:
Thanks for this. Must check it out. I'm riddled with health problems which I categorically know are linked to past trauma.
Myself, I have Multiple Sclerosis, clinical depression, CPTSD (diagnosed), arthritis, epilepsy to just name the main issues. Wheelchair bound most of the time too! I think that speaks volumes!
Thanks I need to follow up and read more on this.
Hey Sweet Sixty - I just went shopping for a rollator (walker) yesterday and am feeling much, much older and worn down than my 59 years. I have severe osteoarthritis in both knees and ongoing lower back pain that I only really started to grasp the significance of once I began to recover from CPTSD.
It's the craziest thing. I was so in my head and battling all the emotional and cognitive stuff, I did not really see the physical deterioration, just managed it as we moved from place to place (my H was military), and never looked ahead to what would happen if I did not get on top of it. How did this happen?
C.P.T.S.D. ...... that's what happened. :pissed:
So here I am having gotten through the worst of my CPTSD to a place where I am moving forward, clear headed and not battling demons on a daily basis. Except sadly I can't actually move forward very well anymore. :'(
Glass half full - I am clear headed enough now that my GP and I are doing all the things we need to to get on top of this including appts to discuss surgery and in the short term getting a good walker, physio, etc.
Onward (with a little help from my wheeled friend).
QuoteSo here I am having gotten through the worst of my CPTSD to a place where I am moving forward, clear headed and not battling demons on a daily basis. Except sadly I can't actually move forward very well anymore. :'(
my hope is that as the physiological effects of being in constant arousal start to fade, the pains and autoimmune stuff will slowly improve. Kizzie, dear heart, you are amazing; you have come so far with the cptsd, i really believe your body is going to follow. as you say, "onward, with a little help" :hug:
Kizzie I know exactly what you mean and how you feel. I am waiting for an appointment for my right knee replacement whilst the left one is getting worse too. I have severe arthritis in the bottom of my spine, beyond my age according to my GP, which is exacerbated by walking with the damaged knees. I use a rollator too except when there is any more than a short distance to cover like shopping or walking in which case it's the scooter or wheelchair.
I had MS symptoms for 18 years before diagnosis, that's why I talked about schema therapy in another post. My unrelenting standards and perfectionism brought on by my CPTSD drove me to carry on working when most would have given up. I worked as a University Lecturer and Consultant, I raised 4 children and completed a PhD in those years. Whilst many doctors dismissed my symptoms as 'all in my head, etc.
It was only when I was finally diagnosed with MS, that I met my T through the MS team and she recognised CPTSD symptoms in me. Eureka I'm on my way to not living constantly with guilt, fear and shame BUT after retiring early at 58 only 2 years ago. I can barely walk and every day is a constant battle of symptoms and pain!
It would be so easy to just give up as the depression and suicide ideation which haunted me pre diagnosis nearly sent me driving off the road at the nearest tree on many occasions. I am eternally thankful to my T and my wonderful hubbie for keeping me here. But life is now a physical struggle.
So I really feel for you Kizzie, stay positive and hope like me that although physical ailments may not go we can control them a little more with a better path forward (no pun intended lol)
Sending hugs, you do an amazing job here x
Thanks so much SweetSixty and Arpy, I needed a virtual boost :yes: Sorry SS, I didn't mean to take this thread sideways, it just seemed like the exact time and place to talk about all this physical stuff as I added a rollator into my life. Gah! (I did find a slick, modern looking one which may help me not to feel quite so ancient ;D)
I am so sorry to hear about the pain you are in, and that you have MS. Do you think the CPTSD contributed? I knew my knees and back were getting worse, but in terms of priorities they weren't at the top of my list - EFs, drinking to numb myself, surviving were. I guess when we have CPTSD it is so consuming we end up having to triage, deal with the life threatening things first and leave the rest.
I am happy to be "out of the storm" don't get me wrong, but now that I am I see and feel how devastating this disorder has been in ways I hadn't realized before. It's a very hard pill to swallow. I'm not giving up though, no way after all the emotional/cognitive work to get and keep a grip on this blasted CPTSD!
Hi Kizzie,
In answer to your question, If you get chance look at the book I recommended above or even just read the articles about the book I shared links for. The subtitle "How your biography becomes you biology" said it all for me. In it she explains how CPTSD affects our systems so completely. Why we are then prone to autoimmune illnesses (like MS) and why it is so many more women than men are affected by both CPTSD and autoimmune disease, which includes arthritis BTW.
I'm glad you have a groovy new rollator, mines a bit old fashioned but my walking sticks are designer!! My grandson keeps threatening to put flames down the side of my scooter too!
If you want to chat please message me as my back and knees are my main pain too. I have an osteopath who also has MS and who treats me regularly. She helps my pain using Cranial Sacrial Therapy to treat the 'body state' as she calls it as she believes that the mind and body are one.
Speak soon xx
Thanks for the offer SS, I will take you up on that :thumbup:
I know I'm jumping on the thread a little late - but I also just finished reading the book Childhood Disrupted and cannot recommend it enough!!! I think it was even more powerful to me than Pete Walker's CPTSD book because the connection between my childhood and my psych problems made sense... but this connection to mysterious physical ailments has rocked my world.
I'm only 32 and have struggled with neglected health issues all my life... but a couple of years ago things started getting worse with severe back pain... and then about 6 months ago I broke out into hives all over my body and now suffer from severe joint pain. I've seen about a million doctors at this point who seemed to all shrug and say they're not sure what's wrong... (which makes me feel like they're suggesting it's all in my head). I have always been a workaholic - since the day I turned 14 and got working papers - drowning myself in ungodly amounts of work has always been the way I run from my intrusive thoughts... it's always been my drug of choice... but a month ago the pain became so overwhelming that I had to suddenly take leave from work. Still no answers although a rheumatologist thinks I should be evaluated for fibro... I'm very lucky to have an incredible psychiatrist, husband and job which has allowed me to truly hit rock bottom in the last month and still have something to gaze up at...
all this to say - reading this book made me feel less crazy... which, honestly, is often the number one thing I crave. I immediately had my husband start reading it as well and I think it changed how he viewed my physical health too. For anyone reading this thread that's read the book - my ACE Score is 7 and I'm going to start a separate thread about it to see if anyone wants to chat.
Ok - whew... that was a big vent for me... thanks for reading my ramblings... This has just been such a terrifying/depressing month for me and this book made me feel less at fault for it all...
vent anytime :) We are all here to learn and help each other. Sounds like the book really hit home for you. That's awesome that you found it.
That's it, I'm ordering the book lol. I have been really struggling with health issues and an inner critic who keeps blaming me so need to reinforce that I am not at fault. Good luck Phoenix with sorting out your symptoms and thanks again SweetSixty for bringing these resources to our attention :hug:
Sorry I've only just seen this last response, it's not been a good month
I'm still working on it every day too and this book was another breakthrough.
I'm 60 and very angry I lost most of my life and my health to this. It's soul destroying. Sorry but I'm not having a positive day today. :sadno:
Sorry your day isn't going well. Maybe it's this time of year, too stressful and triggering. Just hang on and hopefully a new year will bring better days.
BIG :hug: Sweet Sixty. I will turn 60 in 2016 so I can relate to finding out about CPTSD later in life and being angry over how much I have lost. If it's any help I used (and use) that anger to keep my distance from my PD FOO lest the guilt I am so well trained in creeps back in (difficult when my M is 86 and failing), and to go after what I need to to recover (e.g., I got a prescription for cannabis that really helps with the pain of my OA which I didn't quite notice creeping up on me because the majority of time I was just trying to survive emotionally).
This Christmas was hard in that I realized after an EF and some abandonment depression that I have not been as present with my H and S because of my CPTSD for fear of losing them. That makes me really angry as I don't think I understood that as clearly as I did this Christmas. But I can't go back, I can't get those moments when I could have been so much more connected except for the weight of trauma constantly inserting its presence in all areas of my life.
I am determined to use that anger to be more present now and in the future, it's all I can do. It's hard and sad and totally unfair though I know. Perhaps by sharing here it will defuel some of that or at least direct it toward making things better now that we do know what we're up against :hug:
Just bumping this thread because it's a good and important one! My ACE score is 7 too and I think my only saving grace right now is that my FOO gm was melodramatic about her health so I've been pretty concerned about what's going on physically with me since my early 20s.
Funnily enough it was in 2015 that I discovered Bessel Van Der Kolk and started to piece together that trauma was also in my body and not just in my mind and that foods I was eating was having a big impact on my mood as well as body. I'm just starting to piece together what's actually going on in terms of disrupted methylation cycles, genetics, and trauma. The hope for me is that by working with the epigenetic changes that might have occurred, I can minimize the way trauma is impacting my physical self. The methylation cycle is responsible for physiological and neurological changes, creating neurotransmitters etc and can have lasting effects on mood, mind in the same way an SSRI does. Given the complexity of the chemical pathways though and other genes that come into play downstream, it's not a simple one size fits all solution.
I also don't think that all our mood states etc necessarily relate back to the trauma itself we experienced not to discredit or minimize what anyone else has experienced, these are just my own thoughts. We are given an epigenetic blueprint when we are born (cf Mark Wolynn - It Doesn't Start With You) that has all the inherited trauma which came before us. So, we may already be inheriting faulty methylation pathways at birth and to this we add continued trauma, likely exposure to chemicals etc, gender and any positive mitigating influences. Infections and viruses can also create chronic inflammation (as does stress) which then create cytokines/histamines that can cross the blood brain barrier. Nutrition also plays a big factor as well. In a neglectful and/or NPD household, the child's nutritional and/or health needs might not be the first priority. So, we as children, might already be in a "deficient" state when we're experiencing the trauma and maybe this also impacts our understanding of it, relation to people etc? To me, it's the continuing interaction between the physical and psychological which lead to certain outcomes as these two things "work off of each other" as in the graph below.
Tracing this back to a single gene or one thing is problematic as it seems the studies are hard to replicate across larger groups apparently. For instance there are 10 (?) studies linking bipolar disorder to different clusters of genes each time, similar but not exactly the same.
This is an interesting study on the eipgenetic effects of childhood trauma:
The Biological Effects of Childhood Trauma
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3968319/
This is a bit long, and maybe should start another thread but can see the relation between the two.
Got reading this old thread, and bingo!
Quote from: Kizzie on October 17, 2015, 08:23:31 PMIt's the craziest thing. I was so in my head and battling all the emotional and cognitive stuff, I did not really see the physical deterioration, just managed it ... and never looked ahead to what would happen if I did not get on top of it. How did this happen?
C.P.T.S.D. ...... that's what happened. :pissed:
So here I am having gotten through the worst of my CPTSD to a place where I am moving forward, clear headed and not battling demons on a daily basis. Except sadly I can't actually move forward very well anymore. :'(
I'm only 53 and having trouble with my knees, though I've had trouble with my feet almost all my life. So it's a wake-up call for me to pay more attention to my physical not just the emotional. I had a GP appt today where I got a referral to a orthopedic doc and made another longer appt with said GP who has additional training in skin problems, of which I have a few. So at least I am beginning to get on with this sort of stuff. During inpatient stay too, but since I got home - physiotherapy exercises? Not so much. But again, I know
that very well too. Doing things regularly is very difficult for me, practising, keeping going - very difficult. Mixed up with cptsd. Even if I join some low-level exercise class, I stop going after a while. The fact that I've registered for it and spent money doesn't help at all. Yesterday I sheltered somewhere during a heavy shower, had nothing to do but wait around so I did a few leg exercises. At home I always have things to do so am mostly 'on the run' from any kind of exercises.
Thanks for those links
sweetsixty, I'll be checking them out.