I think I've heard theories about breast cancer being more likely in women who've suffered trauma, or in women who've been in abusive relationships. Even if it were true, it's not particularly helpful to know. (Unless it were true at the kind of massively obvious levels where you wouldn't need a study to point it out, and even then it may not be information you could work with.) You can't tell someone to kindly make more effort to avoid being abused in childhood, because they will be more likely to develop various medical conditions as an adult. It just seems to lead to victim blaming. And then when the medical establishment does notice that people with serious medical conditions who are not receiving proper treatment or support are unsurprisingly stressed by their experiences, instead of trying to fix the problem - i.e. lack of proper medical and social support - they suggest condescendingly that we have poor coping strategies.
I have a nasty feeling this approach is more common with medical conditions which are mostly suffered by women, too. There's a long history of telling women that their physical ailments are all in their head or that being female is in some way a medical problem, and it's still going on today.
I have a nasty feeling this approach is more common with medical conditions which are mostly suffered by women, too. There's a long history of telling women that their physical ailments are all in their head or that being female is in some way a medical problem, and it's still going on today.
