Connection Between Trauma and Autoimmune Disorders

The Washington Post has run a fascinating article that confirms an intuition that Bessel VanderKolk articulates in his book, The Body Keeps the Score. His idea was that trauma, especially unprocessed trauma, is the root cause of the vast majority of autoimmune disorders. Since that time, I had come to perceive the relationship as well but found myself reluctant to articulate it because it often implied issues where people preferred to not see them.

Here's the link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/06/01/schizophrenia-autoimmune-lupus-psychiatry/

The article describes a woman who had a healthy life pattern until some private life trauma occurred in college (presumably familial or sexual given the preference for privacy). Following this event, she went into a catatonic state where the mental health professionals determined that she was schizophrenic and sent her off to a mental health facility. For the next 20 years, she was basically unresponsive until a doctor wanted to get to the root of why her condition had not changed. They did a deep dive and discovered that her immune system was in overdrive and seemed to be causing her condition. They followed up with a six month cocktail of steroids and immunosuppressants and - bam! - she awakened back to her self. The article presents another example with a 10 year awakening.

From my view, it appears that when trauma occurs - which is daily for all of us - there are some traumas which are so overwhelming that they are not processed. These memories and feelings are set into their own allocated mental/physical space. This process consumes energy and this segregation is held until the person has adequate internal or external resources to process. (I have earlier posted about tribal rituals that allowed post-battle warriors to be reprocessed into community and within themselves.) If these events are not processed, the energies are allocated to such an extent that some people reach a frozen state - part of the fight, flight, freeze, or f*** system. The immune system seems to play a role in helping with the frozen state.

This pattern is potentially treatable as a cocktail of drugs allows for the ability to then process the trauma event which is triggering to immune system response. As a good friend of mine says, "the body talks, meditation heals." Unprocessed trauma takes a huge toll and medicine allows a healing space for doing the work of processing the meaning of a trauma.

Cause of Autism? Daycare generated ENT issues?

One of the major mysteries of my adult life has been the emergence and acceleration of cases of autism. When I first heard about autism, I asked why I had never heard of it and was told that it had always existed but we simply did not identify the defining characteristics as part of something called autism. But then autism truly started to rapidly show up and then within our family. My question was always, "what causes this and why is it accelerating?"

My theoretical answers had always been in the sphere of something new - typically around the increased consumption of sugary beverages or television screens. But a recent study published in BMJ Open suggests that preschoolers with common ear, nose, and throat (ENT) issues may be at risk of autism or high levels of autism traits. The research, which tracked over 10,000 children from birth, suggests that early identification and treatment of ENT conditions may identify and alter the development of autism.

By coincidence, I had dinner with an ENT doctor a couple of days after the publication of this article. He stated that he was not surprised by this possibility. He derided the slack approach of pediatricians who say "the child will grow out of it." In a beautifully Spinozist conceptualization, he stated, "No, the child will not grow out of it; instead the child will grow into something else." He stated that by plugging up the ability for a child to clearly hear during an important developmental period, it was likely that  brain development was altered.

On a related issue, I was amazed when the most important prayer of Judaism - the Shema - was focused on hearing rather than seeing. The rabbis assured me that while seeing was connected to insights and understanding, hearing was the basis of emotional connection. I think the Western world has consistently underestimated the impact of hearing - until Covid showed us what happens when the elderly are unable to be with one another, to hear one another. In addition, studies of the deaf have showed correlation with depression.

My takeaway was that the increase of autism is related to the increase of ENT problems that are germinated (pun intended) by daycare programs. After Covid, I found that almost every cold and flu I had historically had could be traced back to either air travel or daycare exposure. Daycare programs seem to be petri dishes for germ development. Perhaps more rigorous attention to that plus increased concern by pediatricians could reverse the continuing increase of autism.