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Childhood stress leads to adult ill health, studies say...

Messages
13,774
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10965862

Linked to heart disease, inflammation, etc.

I've always been confused by the way that some CFS researchers have tried to portray any link between child-hood stress and CFS as evidence that it is a psychological condition which requires the patient alter the way they think to recover from.

It seems that everywhere they look, childhood trauma doesn't seem to be good for your health. I'm not sure that this should have been a priority for CFS research funding over the last decade though.
 

klutzo

Senior Member
Messages
564
Location
Florida
Hi Esther,
I agree with you. I was brought up to believe the world is a cruel, hard place that is full of danger. That has not helped me one bit in life, and has probably hurt me a lot, but I am certain that not every child brought up with that view ends up with CFS. I also know many people who had relatively wonderful childhoods who now have CFS.

klutzo
 

Berthe

Senior Member
Messages
136
Location
near Antwerp
Dear everybody,

If you like to know more about childhoodstress that leads to adult ill health, you should read 'Why love matters' (how affection shapes a baby's brain) by Sue Gerhardt.

At the time I got diagnosed ten years ago, there was not much available about the body-mind interaction that supposedly should be one of the triggers of the 'illness'. So with the little energy I had left, I started to follow some courses at the university of Tilburg (Netherlands) in Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Neuroscience. For nearly eight years I have putted all my energy (4 hours a day) in my study. The rest of the day I laid like broccoli on the couch. To make a long story short; I graduated last april as a Bachelor in Philosophy of Mind.

I found out that there is already vital (academic and scientific) information that has not reached the public awareness. The new perspective is not due to any single breakthrough but to the combining of neurosience, psychology and biochemistry. For the laic most of these papers and books are difficult to understand. I have to admit that Sue Gerhardt did a great job in explaining and writing it for the public.

Gerhardt stresses the importance of the first and second year of the child's (brain) development and the attachment to the primary caregiver.

The primitive brain that we are born with basically ensures that the organism 'works'. How the immune system develops depends for a great deal on the environment, the relationship with the mother.
The picture emerging in modern science is that genes provide us with raw ingredients for a mind, but we must aknowledge that most genes response to environmental triggers and in combination with each other. With the human nervous system, the very early stages make all the difference.
Human babies are born with the expectation of having stress managed for them. They tend to have low levels of cortisol for the first few months. But their immature systems are also very unstable and reactive; the can be plunged into very high cortisol levels if there is no one responding to them (...in the case of insecure attachment). The hippocamus may particularly be affected by early stress. Well, I can't go into detail here, but it is an eye-opener if you are truly interested.

I want to add that not everyone with CFS therefor had an insecure attachment with his primary caregiver. But the fact remains that 20% of the CFS patints did have problems with their immune-system (Central Nervous System) as a child.

Berthe
 

Sunshine

Senior Member
Messages
208
Location
UK
I wonder what kind of childhood makes you turn into Simon Wessely...

Good question, hypothetically of course, maybe it could be someone who is fascinated in psychological reaction to trauma?.

By chance, <he who cannot be named> own father immigrated to Britain from Prague (through the Kinder Transport programme) and escaped the holocaust in WWII. I would never have betted on a doctor causing psychological trauma to study trauma though, although looking back it's now highly possible and even inevitable someone somewhere would try if meeting an agenda. Possibly, that's where it all went wrong. Why? In a muddled mind, people can project their lack of self worth onto others through abuse, it can only be sustained if not detected, or if one is immune to prosecution.

What sectors of society are mostly immune from microscopic investigation? Religious, Armed Forces, Police, Medical, Educational. All these divisions garner automatic respect by various people before even being assessed for proficiency. Due to history, and due to the way people assign loyalties. Ironically, Britain's biggest serial killer, is a doctor. Dr Harold Shipman employed by the NHS.

The ultimate weapon to pull off a hate epidemic, (without being detected) would be to be employed in a place of authority, a place that few understand (medicine) and when questioned, one can simply answer one's views are 'theories'. (psychology/psychiatry). This branch of medicine places it's professor behind a mask, a mask that shrouds not only its wearer but a retrovirus that has a huge latency period and mainly affects neurological functioning generating that can largely be palmed off as psychiatric. (Psychiatric dysfunction is of course directly involved with neurology).

Psychology thrives on theories and not science. Many people had theories in WWII about disadvantaged people or people that were capable and intelligent that needed to be stopped (in people who sought to destroy them). These theories created a ground swell that eventually exterminated then traumatised a minority religious groups for generations. Think what happened to ME and Gulf War syndrome patients, and who helped it happen? Very very interesting....

It appear the playground victim became the bully, to make others bully on their behalf. This is a well known maladaptive behavioural sytem, known as the abuse cycle.. Rather than by pure sociopathic pedigree alone, it's mixed in with narcissism, self hatred and inabilty to feel loved. The person you mention appears to be mixing these all into a mist, inhaling it and breathing the sadness onto millions of other people. Observing your own grief in others, is an exquisite luxury. If one is addicted to doing this and it soothes, then one cannot stop. This is aided by lack of empathy, respect or feeling for the victims.

<He who cannot be named> on his father:

"I've never made a secret of the fact that I greatly admire our armed services and feel we don't value them enough. Those feelings have no doubt been influenced by my father's background."


<he who cannot be named> on failing to find XMRV virus and defending CFS patients:

''“I’m aware that some people feel that because I am by background a psychiatrist that these patients [in his XMRV study] therefore suffer from imaginary psychiatric conditions and not Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,''. “That is a disgraceful and disgusting suggestion, which I find insulting on behalf of our patients who have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. And you can quote me on that.”

Schizoid flashback............to personality v1.23

<he who cannot be named> on ME, the same man who failed to find XMRV virus:

''Viruses are an attribution free from blame ... there's no blame, no shame and no stigma ... and here is the virus research doctor himself to protect us from that shame... ''
"Viral attribution reflects somatization par excellence".
''My local bookshop has just given ME the final seal of approval - its own shelf ............... A little more psychology, a little less T-cells would be welcome".
''The description given by a leading gastro-enterologist at the Mayo clinic remains accurate. 'the average doctor will see they are neurotic and he will often be disgusted with them.''

We have to feel 'shame' as ME patients, because if we feel shame, we feel HIS pain. (Very important to understand).

Imagine having the power to do that to 17 million people. You will feel like a God. Slow motion genocide by proxy. A brilliant betrayal undertaken against a disabled disenfranchised group that everyone laughs at further humiliating them. Who last pulled that off outside of medicine in a democracy on this scale? No one. It's never been done before in a modern 'fair' society.

If it wasn't so evil I'd clap it, but importantly it's not simply a theory but practice.

Schizoid flashback............to personality v1.0