Understanding what went wrong

Nervous system dysregulation at the root of chronic pain and illness

The over-activated nervous system

A large number of chronic health and chronic pain conditions are the result of an over-activated nervous system. For a variety of reasons, the nervous system can enter into a fight-flight-freeze state and, rather than calming back down again, it gets stuck there. Most likely, if your nervous system is stuck in an over-activated state, it’s because something repeatedly triggered that fight-flight-freeze response. Once it’s stuck in this over-activated state, a large number of conditions can arise, and if you aren’t able to regulate your nervous system and re-enter a calm state, these conditions can become chronic.

How this started

Many people with chronic conditions developed them primarily as a result of the symptom-fear cycle. We may have been injured or our bodies were exposed to a new virus, and the experience of responding to the threat or damage triggered a fight-flight-freeze response in our bodies. After the initial symptoms triggered an over-activated response, for a variety of reasons, our bodies got stuck in that state. Then, every time a symptom arose, it triggered a fear response, which made the symptom worse, which triggered more fear, and so on. In this case, the symptom appearing and then reappearing and then getting more severe is the primary trigger that repeatedly dysregulates the nervous system and leads to a chronic condition. Many people whose nervous systems were dysregulated by symptoms will find that standard brain-retraining practices help.

For a large number of us, however, the situation is more complicated. Many of us often had complex traumatic experiences, likely during childhood, that left our developing nervous systems in a triggered state and unable to return completely to a calm state. Over time, that dysregulated state became worse and worse. We can often look back at our childhoods, teenage years, and young adult lives and start to see all the various signals that indicated we were already in a dysregulated state, including frequent headaches, frequent stomach aches, insomnia, back pain, eating disorders, pelvic pain, and more.

Some people may be able to look back at their childhoods and easily recognize that they had traumatic experiences. Others of us, myself included, may initially look back and think that our childhoods were mostly pretty good. In that case, it may take a little digging to understand what went wrong.

A short list of things that can go wrong

Unprocessed trauma

Trauma stays with us until we process it. Big traumas—like physical or sexual abuse, war, becoming a refugee, etc. — are more easily identified, but because they’re so scary and emotionally fraught, it can be difficult for someone to process it on their own (I recommend everyone try to work with a somatic therapist, but this is especially the case for people with big traumas that they’re scared to access). Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are known to lead to issues later in life, and the current list of ACEs is likely incomplete. Likewise, emotional abuse, which is incredibly harmful, can be much more difficult to identify, especially if it’s not an extreme version of neglect or bullying.

But other traumatic things can happen to us as well. Little-t traumas, which are smaller but can add up over time, can be especially problematic because they’re so easy to overlook, and thus we don’t take the time to process them. I sometimes think of this as trauma by 1000 paper cuts, which was more in line with my experiences. It can also be easy to overlook injuries, illness, or surgeries, but those are absolutely traumatic to the body, especially for small children who don’t understand what’s happening (but also at any age). Finally, it may also help to consider that other people’s unprocessed trauma — especially your parents’ — can affect you.

Sensory Processing Sensitivity/highly sensitive person (and high sensation seeking)

Many of us were born with a genetic trait, known as Sensory Processing Sensitivity, that leaves us more aware of and sensitive to various stimuli. Someone with this trait is typically referred to as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). HSPs need more time to process life events, but we live in a culture that rarely allows us that time, and so unprocessed emotions can build up inside of us. Moreover, a small subset of HSPs also have the high-sensation-seeking trait. This can lead to a massive internal conflict (see below), and it can make it harder to identify ourselves as an HSP. The combination of being highly sensitive and high-sensation-seeking may make people even more prone to chronic health issues.

Problems with attachment and attunement as a baby/toddler

Children learn to regulate their nervous systems based on their interactions with their parents and caregivers. I found two theories, attachment theory and the “good enough parent,” to be helpful in understanding why you may not have developed a well regulated nervous system. If your parents were unable to support you emotionally or were otherwise unable to meet your emotional needs — if they weren’t attuned to your emotional needs — you may be more likely to end up with a dysregulated nervous system because you never learned how to process the emotions that life brings up or how to develop healthy relationships with others. Note that this is not about blaming your parents — they had their own issues — it’s about understanding why you may have repressed or unprocessed emotions today.

Not being accepted for who you are

If you don’t feel that you were accepted for who you are, then you may have tried to repress the parts of you that were deemed unacceptable. The act of repressing parts of yourself and the constant, subconscious effort to keep those parts repressed can be deeply dysregulating for the nervous system. It can be an ever-present source of subconscious fear that the “unacceptable” parts of you might escape. As with bigger traumas, this can lead to a mental, physical and spiritual disassociation from the self.

Internal conflict

If you feel internal conflict around any of the issues listed above, or about anything else, and especially if you repress the internal voices involved in that conflict, then that can trigger chronic conditions. There’s no need to repress something if you don’t feel internally conflicted about it. When someone we love dies, it’s acceptable to be sad, and we allow that emotion out. It’s only when the emotion or thought is considered unacceptable that we feel the need to repress it. The nervous system can become dysregulated as parts of us want to release the unacceptable thought or emotion and other parts of us want to keep it hidden.

Learn more

In the articles below, I dive deeper into topics, tools, and techniques regarding this component of healing. This is where I share what I did to heal and where I’ll add updates as I learn new information on these issues. So make sure to look through these posts as well.