29/03/2024
✨ 𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐰𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 ✨
Maybe the problem isn’t illness, but that we have lost wholeness? By WE I mean my culture. Western European Scandinavian Christian. In a broader sense called WASPs.
I appreciate the teachings of Bessel van der Ḱolk and Gabor Maté on how emotional health and physical health interplay.
In 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙮𝙩𝙝 𝙤𝙛 𝙉𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙡 Maté describes his imprinted trauma as a European jew born during World War 2. Him, an infant. His mother, trying to protect him. His whole family, attempting to escape the ongoing holocaust.
And I think about the privilege of growing up in a family not scarred by deep trauma. Being born in a safe country with functioning public services. Growing up with a roof over our heads, food on the table. Maybe even with a loving family around us.
Some children have the support of parents with financial means. I did. Compared to most people in the world, we were rich.
As a middle class white kid from a rich country, I could explore the world exactly as I wanted. Though being a girl came with both privilege and danger. The unwanted sexual advances started before I was 15 and continued until I was close to 30. I didn’t realize before in 2017 exactly how much those experiences have shaped me. Mostly it taught me to hide my joy and femininity. Showing joy and femininity led to unwanted, possibly dangerous, attention.
What would it be like growing up as a white man in an upper middle class family? Sometimes I wonder how different life could have been in a different body.
Both van der Kolk and Maté land at the conclusion that trauma imprints psychological scars that can lead to physical illness. It’s a highly believable theory - though probably impossible to prove.
Having seen different versions of these theories flow through the fringes of medical discussions and gradually becoming mainstream for 20+ years, I have opinions.
They are probably right. Adverse Childhood Experiences, generational trauma and various other kinds of trauma leave imprints on us. They may create vulnerabilities in our epigenetic makeup, switching on genes meant to ensure survival. It’s also natural to believe that trauma switches on a constant low level stress that can be harmful for our health in a myriad of ways.
The bio-psycho-social medical paradigm holds that a human being is more than a body. Our psyche, our social connections and relations also affect our health. BPS is a natural development of medical theory.
The problem is: Finding psychosomatic causality does not - yet - offer a cure.
You may have endured childhood trauma, or be imprinted with the generational trauma of your ancestors. These things may lead to a vulnerability towards developing many different types of illness.
You may have experienced sexual violence. This may have changed your nervous system to a state of hypervigilance, and increased your likelihood of developing medically unexplained symptoms.
But once the psychological trauma has become physical - it is there.
A manifested health problem is biological.
To what degree can we change the biological body through psychological processes, once illness is manifest?
𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠?
And if you have a clear opinion, what is your opinion based on? Do you form this opinion based on personal experience, stories told by others, education, or just an inner knowing? Have you experienced severe chronic illness yourself?
💜 - Anna Fryxelius
Patient advocate & writer
(PS: Feel free to share this post with your friends, I hope it will inspire a good discussion)
