Autoimmune diseases refer to problems with the immune system, which usually fights off viruses, bacteria, and infection. The problem causes your immune cells to attack your body by mistake. These diseases can affect almost any part of the body. (NIH)
The immune system gets confused. It attacks the one it is supposed to protect.
When trauma happens, and doesn\’t get processed, the fight-flight-freeze cycle never finishes, the psyche can develop what I call an \”emotional autoimmune disorder\”.
What is meant to protect us: the fight-flight-freeze mechanism, goes into overdrive. When this happens, we are protected, but more than we need to be. The brain does not know this. The nervous system does not know this.
And that can cause harm: mental health issues, executive functioning, struggles with relationships. It can also cause medical issues and disease, because the fight-flight-freeze is not meant to be a chronic state.
And just as with an autoimmune disorder, which cannot simply be reversed or even dialed down, embedded and unprocessed trauma keeps these protective mechanisms in overdrive.
For me, add to that being Highly Sensitive, and an Empath.
I\’ve written about that here. And here. And also here. Oh, and here.
My emotional immune system are my defenses, how I respond to triggers, old patterns. Yes, over the years I\’ve healed and integrated and softened a lot of them. I\’m still working on that.
I probably always will be.
But the fact remains that my emotional immune system is set WAY higher than most people\’s, at least people who don\’t have PTSD or are Highly Sensitive or an Empath (or all three)–and certainly higher than I actually need it to to protect me.
So what is the point of this analogy?
It\’s to recognize that how we feel, how we operate, how we are wired is NOT WRONG. It\’s often more than necessary, and the struggle of managing it is VERY real.
The struggle is real.
We can only heal what we can name, what we can acknowledge, what we can hold.
So this is me naming it, for me.
And, if this resonates in any way, for you.
May you find your healing path, and always be on it.
[image: colorful image of neurons in the brain, purple and pink and blue}