A Difficult Topic

Sunshine to you on this glorious day!

A very difficult topic:  I'm writing today on behalf of those whose hearts, minds, and bodies were insulted by physical and/or psychological trauma prior to falling prey to toxic injury.

This is a difficult topic, firstly, because it is both highly sensitive and highly personal -- not easily discussed in any venue.  Secondly, it is a difficult topic because the thought process of unaffected onlookers can quickly veer in the direction of:  "So perhaps your toxic injury is all in your head, after all."

For a person who has been both traumatized and toxically injured, this judgment would be a devastating and unjust ramification.

Trauma, it is now known, can disrupt and alter neurological pathways in the brain.  The body under physical and/or psychological siege must contend with skyrocketing "fight-or-flight" adrenalin surges; subsequent hormonal interference and/or frank hormonal imbalance; resultant metabolic and circulatory changes due to the impact of severe stress on cortisol levels; sleep disruption or sleep deprivation; and the crushing weight of overwhelming emotional pain through it all.

If non-traumatized widowers in bereavement can succumb to heart attack and early death, just imagine how vulnerable can be the bodies of those already ravaged by physical and/or emotional pain inflicted by others or by catastrophic events.

Add a few pervasive chemicals to the mix, and such already-afflicted physical systems can, in effect, "tip right over."  With all systems overloaded to begin with, toxins can then become just "one too many" insults. 

And if that weren't enough, yet more aversive ingredients are added when others rush to judgment about such suffering and add "insults to injury."

For those of you have have, in fact, suffered debilitating emotional pain and trauma, please know that my heart goes out to you.

With this brief commentary, I've only just begun to dip my little toe in the water of a very complex topic.  I've caught wind of cognitive treatments for toxic injury which, it is claimed, have successfully enabled some toxically injured people to retrain the part (or parts) of the brain which are thought to be operative in neurologically sensitized reactions to chemicals.  As I understand it, this type of treatment specifically rejects the philosophy that toxic injury/chemical sensitivity is "all in the head."  The brain "retraining," therefore, does not imply that the cause of chemical sensitivity is embedded in psychological factors -- but merely that this physical malady lodged its effects in the neurologically reactive part of the brain.

Moreover, there are surely many toxically injured people who were never previously traumatized -- so that this suspected effect of the chemical reactivity lodging in the brain would hold true for both traumatized and non-traumatized sufferers.  May we respectfully acknowledge that trauma of any sort can render the body vulnerable to subsequent injury; and may we recognize that, once toxic injury actually does occur, it is firmly rooted in the body.

The true implication of such reports is that, if we (the toxically injured with or without previous trauma) can manage to access that physically sensitive part of the brain through the circuit of our own thought processes, we may have more power than we think to assist our bodies in at least some degree of healing.

While I'm always especially careful to reserve judgment about the emotional and spiritual safety of cognitive treatment endeavors with which I'm personally unfamiliar, I do grant myself the freedom to research them liberally and, in the meantime, to hope.

I hope I've spread a little sunshine to you today.

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

Still "Indomitable"

I've really got to do some excavating.  I've got to dig her up.  The old "me" with the toned, thin, and totally immune body.  I'm painfully aware that nobody can see her.  Nobody knows her at all in my present world.  This is frustrating beyond words. 

While people often urge me to stop thinking of myself as so vulnerable to toxins (see my post of March 5th, 2012), the funny thing is, I never think of myself as "vulnerable!"  This may seem even funnier, but I think of myself as "indomitable."  And do you know something?  I'm not going to quit that habit.  I really need it. 

Let me translate.  I'm not speaking here of some kind of overblown vanity or frank conceit.  I'm speaking from the more innocent perspective of my previously well self.  I'm speaking from the perspective of many, many people who have never been blindsided by bodily reactions that go beyond the pale.  They feel well.  They can't imagine feeling poorly.  They've never had headaches, let alone agonizing ones.  They don't know what people mean when they say a room "stinks" of stale smoke odors.  They're more likely to say (as I used to say), "What odors?"

I used to think people were being "picky" or "prissy" when they so much as mentioned annoying odors.  

And yes, I am capable of turning this around and appreciating how people must see me these days.  Deep sigh.  Very deep.  As the saying goes, "I hear you."

But to recap -- I do not think of myself as "vulnerable."  I do, however, think of toxins embedded in common products as very, very harmful:   "Know thy enemy." 

And knowing my enemy does not make me a wimp.

There is a huge difference between recognizing the extent to which pervasive toxins are intrinsically harmful, and thinking of oneself as "intrinsically vulnerable!"

The mere fact that these toxins are now so commonplace makes their scope all the wider, their vast influence all the more insidious.  Their staggering power in numbers -- when they finally manage to penetrate our bodies' best defenses -- is therefore all the more formidable.

I think of toxins as toxins:  harmful to everyone -- not just to me.  Some of us, however, have run through our body's natural defenses sooner than others.  If some of us had long-term chemical exposures, the chemicals ran through our defenses for us.  The body is strong, but too many chemicals are way, way stronger.  If some of us had brief but large and intense chemical exposures, those chemicals, likewise, ran through our defenses for us.  If some of us were overdosed with antibiotics as a child (per the "old thinking"), the antibiotics ran through our defenses for us.  If some of us were subjected to severe, prolonged stress and/or frank trauma, those factors ran through our defenses for us.  (Cerebral nerve pathways, scientists are now finding, can be altered through psychological trauma.)  If both chemical exposures and severe stress/trauma befell some of us, all the more quickly did these things strip our defenses.  If, in such a case, we happened also to have received a preponderance of antibiotics as children . . . . .

It all adds up.  The more biologically insulting factors at play, the more quickly the body's admittedly generous defenses are stripped. 

None of this, however, implies an innate "frailty" of constitution or additional "vulnerability" on the part of our persons.  (Nor does it imply any kind of "morbid fear" or "hysteria.")  But then, what about genetics?  OK, let's grant genetics its place.  Despite the role of genetics, however, many people's genetic predisposition isn't "tipped in the negative direction" for quite a while, if ever.  Something external pushes them over that balance.  And the less toxins (and trauma) circulating around us, the better.

Toxic damage can happen to anybody.  It's always a rude and unthinkable surprise.  It stretches one's mind to the absolute limit.

Readers, I do appreciate this.  Never, for a second, do I forget it.  And I'm going to hang onto that core of myself which remembers gliding through life donning my favorite perfume and a smile, sailing into crowds with nary a care.

That, my friends, is me.  I'm going to keep believing in miracles.  Someday -- I don't know how -- maybe there really will be a way around this nightmare.  Just because we don't see it yet doesn't mean it's not there.

So, CHEERS!!!!

~ Carolyn