Pain In The Brain: The Effect and Cost of Trauma

I remember when I was attending a Protestant bible study years ago there was a guy who attended who was having all these strange and severe neurological issues. He seemed to be an "anxious-type" person, but he would recount going to doctor after doctor who were "unable to find anything physically wrong" with him. He seemed fixated on the fact that these temporary immobilizations and seizure-type activity were strictly physical and/or spiritual. 

I also recall when I was in my twenties being acquainted with a man in his sixties at the parish I was attending, a (repressed?) homosexual who suffered from fibromyalgia. He recounted to me that he was engaged to a woman at one point in his life; I only surmised he was probably gay, though he never outright admitted it. It was my first time hearing about this disease. A few years later I googled "fibromyalgia is a bullshit disease" and came across a some Reddit threads that wrote/ranted about the kinds of things everyone is thinking but not supposed to say out loud. Namely, that it's "not real."

I don't think that's quite true, but it's also not the whole story either. Emotional pain is real pain, and pain--as any doctor or nurse knows--is not objective in nature. What one person may be able to endure, another may be crippled by it. 

However, I think many people who suffer from this kind of phantom pain/chronic pain/fatigue issues may not realize that in many/most cases, it's not something physical at all that is causing the physical pain. In other words, while many people go to GPs to "figure out what's causing this," they may be better off visiting a psychologist. 

The economic burden of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)--if you want to consider that an umbrella term for many different types of trauma--is $232 billion annually in the U.S. [1] I have written in the past and made the case that pornography is not only a spiritual, but also a public health issue/crisis. We are not a healthy society, either physically, psychologically, or emotionally. When you think about how much sexual trauma is out there, a kind of silent corrosion in the spirits of many men, women, and children, and how pornography touches and causes so much second and third degree sexual deviancy and trauma (abuse, exploitation, divorce, etc), you realize that a large percentage of the population are the "walking wounded." Just because a wound is unseen doesn't mean it isn't real. 

Here's the thing though--for many people who grow up from childhood or early adulthood trauma, many don't even realize how they have been affected by it and thus remained unhealed, the latent trauma undealt with. And so it "comes out" in a myriad of ways. For young men, it can sometimes be violence or criminal activity, substance abuse, etc. For women, this can also be true, but additionally promiscuity, self-harm (cutting, eating disorders, etc) can be attempts to deal with the unseen emotional and psychic wounds inflicted. 

"When this response [fight or flight] remains highly activated in a child for an extended period of time without the calming influence of a supportive parent or adult figure, toxic stress occurs and can damage crucial neural connections in the developing brain." [2]

With regards to certain diseases like fibromyalgia (FMS), which seem to disproportionally affect women more than men, it appears that unresolved trauma plays a big part in the manifestation of chronic pain (Non-Specific; Not-Otherwise-Specified/NOS), chronic fatigue, inflammation, etc.  

"Although the etiology of FMS is still unknown, recent studies have shown that physical trauma and psychosocial stress factors may also play a role in the etiopathogenesis. Traumatic experiences such as emotional, physical, or sexual abuse are thought to be triggering factors in susceptible individuals for FMS." [3]

This appears to make sense. When we repress events that are psychologically painful, it will find a way out in one way or another--even physically. The mind and body are not separate, unrelated entities, just as the spirit is not separate from our minds and bodies either. When we are spiritually not in a state of grace, when sins we may not even be conscious of remain in us, this can manifest in how we live our lives and prevent the conduits of grace from being opened. When we have trauma--whether realized or unrealized--this can trigger physical responses that have emotional and psychological origins.   

Some trauma and PTSD cannot be avoided--such as natural disasters, war, etc--but much of the trauma we are dealing with as a society today--especially sexual trauma--has its root in human sin. As the saying goes, "hurt people hurt people." Sexual confusion, difficulties with commitment and trust, sexual violence, substance abuse--how much of this can be avoided by adopting a virtue and moral-based way of life that prioritizes healthy minds, hearts, bodies, and spirits?

It seems so obvious from an outsider looking in that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to chronic pain, and that one would benefit from seeking psychological healing in the hard work of therapy to deal with these unresolved wounds. But it's not always easy to see when you're in the midst of this pain, and so one may not even realize that their physical pain is more than just physical. Healing in this way can be a long road, and slow progress as well. We often want 'quick fixes,' pills, or diagnoses to make us feel like our pain is legitimate. My wife is an ER nurse and from the stories she tells me of those who come in, I'd say three quarters of those seeking treatment for various ailments have trauma at the root. We see the symptoms, not the causes. Sometimes the more comprehensive approach involves going deep and to the source, under a trained professional, to heal.