August 2010 - Are Some Diseases Related to Childhood Abuse?

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Did you know that every life experience you have is permanently recorded on both the unconscious mind level, but also in every cell of your body?

The primary function of your unconscious mind is to protect you physically and emotionally, so one of the ways it protects you is to repress any uncomfortable or unhappy memories so you do not have to be bother by them on a conscious level.

The problem is that even though these memories are repressed and more or less swept away from your conscious mind, the unhealed traumas, experiences, feelings and beliefs are still operating and can affect you in many ways. One way this may show up is in disease.

Most people do not want to deal with these memories and don’t know what to do with them any way, so simply repressing them is the way many people deal with them. Your unconscious mind really wants to heal these memories and when you don’t give them attention they often show up as a disease.

This happens not only because there are toxic unresolved feelings that affect every cell in your body, but disease itself can serve as a distraction from the real issue. In other words, we focus on curing or healing the disease instead. It’s also no wonder that simply taking a medication often only acts as a band-aid, as it doesn’t address the actual psychological cause.

In an interesting study done by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in May of 1998, the following diseases or issues were found to be a result of early childhood abuse, whether it be physical, emotional, mental or sexual:

• alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, suicide attempts, smoking, poor self-rated health, sexually transmitted disease, physical inactivity, severe obesity, ischemic heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, skeletal fractures, and liver disease.

The good news is, hypnosis is a powerful tool to help you release and heal these memories. Once the negative emotional charge is released from the unconscious mind, your body has a greater opportunity to heal. It takes a lot of physical, emotional and mental energy to keep these memories repressed, and once they’re cleared most people report greater energy, better memory and a feeling of well-being.

If you’d like to read the full abstract of the study it is reprinted below.

Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study

Vincent J Felitti MD, FACPA , Robert F Anda MD, MSB, Dale Nordenberg MDC, David F Williamson MS, PhDB, Alison M Spitz MS, MPHB, Valerie Edwards BAB, Mary P Koss PhDD, James S Marks MD, MPHB

American Journal of Preventive Medicine
Volume 14, Issue 4, Pages 245-258 (May 1998)

Abstract 

Background: The relationship of health risk behavior and disease in adulthood to the breadth of exposure to childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and household dysfunction during childhood has not previously been described.

Methods: A questionnaire about adverse childhood experiences was mailed to 13,494 adults who had completed a standardized medical evaluation at a large HMO; 9,508 (70.5%) responded. Seven categories of adverse childhood experiences were studied: psychological, physical, or sexual abuse; violence against mother; or living with household members who were substance abusers, mentally ill or suicidal, or ever imprisoned. The number of categories of these adverse childhood experiences was then compared to measures of adult risk behavior, health status, and disease. Logistic regression was used to adjust for effects of demographic factors on the association between the cumulative number of categories of childhood exposures (range: 0–7) and risk factors for the leading causes of death in adult life.

Results: More than half of respondents reported at least one, and one-fourth reported ≥2 categories of childhood exposures. We found a graded relationship between the number of categories of childhood exposure and each of the adult health risk behaviors and diseases that were studied (P < .001). Persons who had experienced four or more categories of childhood exposure, compared to those who had experienced none, had 4- to 12-fold increased health risks for alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, and suicide attempt; a 2- to 4-fold increase in smoking, poor self-rated health, ≥50 sexual intercourse partners, and sexually transmitted disease; and a 1.4- to 1.6-fold increase in physical inactivity and severe obesity. The number of categories of adverse childhood exposures showed a graded relationship to the presence of adult diseases including ischemic heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, skeletal fractures, and liver disease. The seven categories of adverse childhood experiences were strongly interrelated and persons with multiple categories of childhood exposure were likely to have multiple health risk factors later in life.

Conclusions: We found a strong graded relationship between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in adults.

Source: https://www.ajpm-online.net/article/PIIS0749379798000178/fulltext

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