The Link Between Childhood Trauma And Chronic Pain

I remember when Georgie Oldfield, the founder of the online recovery programme SIRPA, told me that I was suffering from stress induced symptoms, when I was in the height of my pain journey. I unconsciously caused self induced stress through my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and ultimately my personality. I would never have known, or become aware that my physical pain was being caused by my emotional pain until I started educating myself and seeking support.?I had read Dr Sarno’s book, Healing Back Pain, however this mind/body connection was now going into more detail, as I kept researching and educating myself.

The physical symptoms that are felt are still real, and not imagined. The emotions trigger the amygdala, which stores emotional memories, and processes fear, and a threat. It’s like a domino effect that then causes a response from the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which is the unconscious part of the nervous system. The ANS is split between the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which is the ‘fight or flight’, and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which is to do with the rest and digest response, and immobilisation (dorsal vagal system).

I started to become aware that I had an adverse childhood experience (ACE), which occurs in children aged between 0 - 18 years old.

The majority of these fall within:

• Abuse – emotional, physical, sexual
• Neglect – emotional, physical
• Dysfunction at home such as parent separation/divorce, mental illness, substance abuse, violence and death

I fell into the category where my mother suffers a mental illness. I remember witnessing her mental breakdown at my grandparents house aged 6/7 years old, and hurriedly being ushered into another room. I didn’t know what it was like to have a mother that told me off, took charge, and took us out. My mother is beautiful, radiant, intelligent, warm, and loving. She has given me more than I could repay with her deep compassion and authenticity. Unfortunately she suffered from depression, which led to schizophrenia, and she became dependant on a medical system that failed her. She was prescribed anti-depressants by her GP for over 10 years that did nothing to relieve her mental anguish, when she required support from a psychiatrist, and a different approach. She was shunned from the very system that needed to care and support her, to support us as a family. I now understand why my nervous system became so heightened, and what triggers caused an increase in my anxiety. The pain actually gave me an awareness that was much more in depth than I ever knew.

Nobody knew outside of my household what was going on behind closed doors as a child. My teachers, close friends were all in the dark. Nobody ever asked me, and I certainly was not going to disclose such details. I fitted into school, and became a chameleon, and masked my internal emotional turmoil, and stress very well through larking around, not really focussing myself on my education. ?I felt shame, humiliation, and embarrassment of opening myself up to being exposed, for ?fear of people seeing me as some kind of victim, and becoming vulnerable, and weak. In my mind if they saw the real me, that would have left me exposed.

A recent article in Psychology Today, discussed the hidden dangers of being nice, pleasing others, which is a leading cause of chronic illness. Gabor Mate, a physician, who has an interest in childhood trauma, and the impact on physical and mental health, noticed that people with chronic illness had personality traits, such as concern for the emotional needs of others, and ignoring their own needs, supressing anger, not to disappoint, which were just a few to mention. I knew I fell into some of these personality traits, and now I understood why. Once I had accepted that my emotions were the root cause of my pain, I understood what I needed to do to take action.

3 takeaways:

1. If you have suffered a childhood trauma, and you find it difficult to speak to anyone, start writing these emotions down, so that it eases your nervous system.
2. Notice when you have a flare up of pain, whether you are going through a difficult time in your life. Create a timeline from your childhood to the present moment of any events you can think of may help ease your pain, or become aware of the trigger.
3. Do one thing that will help ease your emotional pain such as meeting a friend for a coffee, or watching something funny to uplift you.