I’m not faking being sick, I’m faking being well

Lately, I’ve been having a lot of health issues. It seems like my body has decided that this is the year that all of the accumulated trauma from my childhood is finally at the tipping point of causing issues. It started in October when my stomach started to hurt. I’ve had stomach issues in the past but this was different. I would eat and the food would just sit in my stomach. I would eat at night and throw up my dinner the next morning. I started getting nauseous all day and stopped eating during the day. I couldn’t even drink water. I waited a month to see a GI doctor who told me flat out I was fat. He saw my med list and decided I was a fat crazy bird. I work in the medical field and saw all the signs. Being a people pleaser, I was agreeable to everything he said. I had an endoscopy which is where they sedate you and shove a tube down your throat to see what’s going on in your stomach. It was a horrible procedure. I had the max amount of meds and still was awake for the whole thing. It was incredibly triggering. They strapped a bite guard to my mouth, laid me on my side and shoved a tube down my throat. My blood pressure never went below 140/100. It showed stuff still in my stomach but the doctor didn’t have too much to say. I also had to have a MRI of my liver which is where you get strapped down and go into a tube for 30 minutes. The MRI techs were at least sympathetic but it was still stressful. The GI doc recommended a med that I couldn’t take and after that, I never heard anything. Still not able to eat and the food wouldn’t move when i did.  I found another doc and she was more helpful but still they don’t know why my stomach stopped working. I was diagnosed with gastroparesis which basically means that your stomach doesn’t push food forward. I’ve lost 42 lbs since October. I only eat once a day and am nauseous almost always. There’s no cure or real effective treatment. The doctor said that my stress level is so high my digestive system basically shut down. I also have an ulcer which I haven’t had since my 20’s.

On top of that, a few months ago I started to get rashes when I was stressed. some were so bad that they had little blisters in them. As a child I had eczema and it returned with a vengeance along my hairline and scalp. I have to use a $30 peat mud shampoo and cream from a dermatologist to keep it under control

Finally, I started to have heart issues. I would have episodes where I would pass out and feel like a weight was on my chest. I couldn’t breathe and my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest. I had to have an EKG, a holter monitor, and an echocardiogram. I saw a cardiologist who was also a jerk. I have an arrythmia and the doctor said there was pretty significant damage to my heart from stress and if I didn’t make changes I would have a stroke or heart attack in a few years.

I have GYN issues from my trauma and it’s now causing significant issues with my period and pelvic pain

I had a basal cell carcinoma.

Overall, the medical community seems to be at a loss as to why this is happening to me at such a young age. I was also frustrated. I hate doctors and taking meds. I hate having to go to appts and be poked and prodded by people. I felt crazy because there were all these things wrong with me but no one knew why. I started to read to this book Disrupted Childhood and it answered a lot of questions. It’s about how childhood trauma can cause long term medical issues. It compared the ACES score and the higher it is the more likely a person is to have serious medical issues like cancer, heart attacks, and strokes. We’re also most likely to have autoimmune diseases and conditions like arthritis and GI issues and of course trauma leads to higher incidence of depression, anxiety, and mood disorders. That’s not a surprise. We’re more likely to complete suicide and have suicide attempts and use drugs/alcohol. The trauma we experience affects us at a cellular level and forever changes us mentally and physically. The biggest surprise to me was how it noted that people with childhood trauma have actual damage to their brains. Our brains can be smaller and the hippocampus and the amygdala and prefrontal cortex are smaller meaning we can’t control our emotions or memories as effectively and our rational thought center works less efficiently.

So what does this mean? We’re screwed. Well, maybe.

Every single doctor/specialist I saw told me I had to reduce my stress which is great in theory but I have a life to live and life is stressful. I have a job and a family and just day to day stuff causes stress. I know people with CPTSD have a lower threshold for stress but I didn’t understand until these past few months the impact it has on my physical health. I’ve started to make some healthy lifestyle changes. I exercise daily (which helps the one meal I eat actually move), drink more water, and trying really hard to sleep well (this is not going well but I keep trying).  I think that’s all I can do right now, is try to take the best care of myself physically that I can.

Check out this link for the PTSD stress cup theory:

https://healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.wordpress.com/ptsd-stress?sfns=xmo