Chronic Illness and Childhood Trauma

For a good portion of my life I lived in trauma. I was no longer experiencing this childhood trauma, but I very much made my home there.  The way I saw the world, the way I participated in it, the way I attracted to me the very same kind of “trauma” over and over again reflected my inner world.   This inner world creates the illusion of the outside . I am  a walking  camera , my ears, eyes, mouth, hands, nose from birth is taking pictures constantly and stampin them into neural pathways, roads in my brain.  And somehow , the very same things kept happening to me.  I was stuck on these roads, and I kept walking them. On this road ,I kept meeting people and events that proved to me that this was the only road I could take.  They proved to me that this was the only road I deserved to take. They proved to me that this was life and anger and sadness dictates it.

Battered, bruised and almost lifeless I got sick. Very. I picked up chronic lyme disease, mold illness (CIRS), mast cell activation syndrome and breast cancer (localized).

In my illnesses ,I lived through the trauma over and over.  When my brain was affected by these illnesses (low level inflammation that occurs) the traumas became a movie screen I watched daily. They became thoughts I flew away with. I remember when first getting sick,  I would constantly ask about one particular symptom. “I fly away with my thoughts, I have a thought , follow it and sometimes cant come back from it.” Sometimes, these thoughts were nothing big, sometimes they were trauma. Always it was scary to have to shake myself back to the present moment.  Of course therapists concluded a diagnosis in the DSM , seems logical. No one ,however, looked at my brain.

These thoughts, and memories were being held in my brain of course, my amygdala, hippocampus were “on fire”. Physically, toxins created low level inflammation there, and thus I would be overflown with memories. I saw a bit deeper into this. There had to be a correlation between childhood trauma and chronic illness such as this. A bit further, how ironic, I thought, that I acquired illnesses that weren’t fully believed or understood and based on physical toxicity.  “Are you sure these illnesses exist or maybe God has set this up , laughing up there in the sky , to kick my ass into understanding toxicity was going to kill me”, I asked my doctor many times.

In August of 2017, after my trip to Peru to “save my life” with Ayahuasca, which I talk about here, I returned home, opened the door to my families home, looked at my mom on the couch and quickly stepped back in fear. There was a dark grey aura all around her and for some reason I was petrified. Before, everyone thinks I have completely lost it and given into what is considered “woo”, it can be explained scientifically. I was experiencing metabolic encephalopathy. I had very high levels of ammonia in my body and brain. Ayahuasca and kambo had killed lyme causing a buildup of ammonia, from the shedding of exotoxins. You can read about that here.  I developed light and sound sensitivity and even began hallucinating.  However, I like to look at things from all sides. This day was the beginning of the end for me, an end to living in toxicity and beginning to heal . But, first I would have to walk a bit further into the fire.

*By the way I am not saying my mom is the cause of all of this. Childhood trauma came from variou places.

I began researching the link between trauma and chronic illness.

 PTSD is a good example of this theory in action. Common causes for PTSD are often some of the same events recognized in the ACE questionnaire — abuse, neglect, accidents or other disasters, war, and more. Areas of the brain change, both in structure and function. Parts of the brain most affected in PTSD include the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These areas manage memories, emotions, stress, and fear. When they malfunction, this increases the occurrence of flashbacks and hypervigilance, putting your brain on high alert to sense for danger.For children, the stress of experiencing trauma causes very similar changes to those seen in PTSD. Trauma can switch the body’s stress response system into high gear for the rest of the child’s life.In turn, the increased inflammation from the heightened stress responses may cause or trigger autoimmune diseasesTrusted Source and other conditions.

I am healing by using the dynamic neural retraining system. I talk about that here and here . I have of course tried various treatments for the body to heal. They only got me so far.  A chronic state of illness feels very much like a chronic state of trauma. The “woo” in me want to say that these illnesses were only a manifestation of the toxicity I was raised with. Please do not confuse this with blame, I am way past that. Retraining the brain which I talk about here, and here and here, consists of a script. A script to change the one written through trauma physical and emotional. It also consists of  past meditations and future visualizations – out loud.   Theory is if you flood the body with good chemicals from happy moments the nervous system calms down. The inflammation decreases. This overworked limbic system which is still sending messages of sickness long after the acute illness will release and the body can heal itself.The process has not been a purely physical one. At first I could not access any good memories. None. I was on that road where they didn’t exist. Why? Surely, I have had good memories.When stuck in a state of survival (chronic) the trauma loop is in charge and the only thing that plays over and over. It is evidence for the state to begin with.  This emotional trauma loop will continue to play . The limbic system is in charge and keeps sending the same messages , essentially to keep one safe. That is its job. It has not yet learned that the emotional danger is over. The  limbic system stays stuck in that trauma of initial illness.   It is evidence for the state to begin with. There is no time for good memories when stuck in a primitive mechanism of  the brain. It is too busy trying to survive . It is ruled by fear and is irrational, but it keeps us alive. I believe, a chronic state (physical or emotional and often they are the same) is the limbic system continuously trying to keep us alive.More limbic system fun If I was exposed to mold which my body could not handle for example, one would think that after the initial exposure I would be better, I would be able to handle environments with mold. If I had a tick bite, after initial bite, one would think that the body can clear it. I would be able to fight this infection and move on with my life. This is not what happens for many. The limbic system stays stuck in that trauma of initial illness.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3968319/

I only know this as I have used neural retraining to heal. I expected it to help my body but each day I see more and more good memories. I see them on my walks, I see them in conversations, I see them.  And laugh.  Each day my body reclaims activities it could not do before. I rode a bike for the first time in ten years the other day. My balance had been affected. It was one more physical victory which led to good emotions, leading to more emotional victores.

I “collect “memories now. I see things that spark a memory such as the tree growing in brooklyn (with sneakers as its fruit 🙂 ) and photograph it. It brings me back to actual good times. If it is not a good time, I can change it. I can change a memory in order to make it good. My brain does not know the difference. I “collect” futures as well. And everything is changing.  I am getting unstuck. I am helping my limbic system get unstuck from physical illness and emotional trauma.  My brain is almost no longer stuck in a rut. If someone had asked me 5 years ago if I could fo this, I would have said absolutely not, actually my limbic system said it all the time. This is the road were on and there is no other way.

Thankfully, it was wrong.

http:/https://youtu.be/jcrWPo_s6EE