one thing ive been thinking about in the last few days is how when my mom was in a very toxic relationship when i was a kid, she developed a terrible MRSA infection on her leg. she always used to get staph infections when she was really stressed out throughout my childhood. she also has psoriasis, an autoimmune condition, that flares up whenever shes very stressed. did you know that the propensity for autoimmunity is genetic, but it's not always the same autoimmune disease amongst relatives? i have multiple family members with an AI disease, but none of us have the same one. my mysterious grandmother who died young due to medical malpractice had her thyroid removed, though no one in the entire family knows why—not even her ex husband (my grandfather). ive begun to wonder if it was autoimmune related. anyways, because of my mom's stress-induced skin issues, it was always very obvious to me the way chronic stress ties into overall health.
when my poor mother had her worst MRSA flareup, we lived with that awful man, and she'd usually keep her leg hidden. however, i saw the infection a few times, and it looked awful. i remember her putting both of her hands around the massive purple-red swelling, the circumference of an orange, the heat radiating from it, the peeling skin, the pus oozing... i was so young, i didnt even realize how bad it was at the time because she just accepted it, didn't seem too outwardly worried about it. she said she had gotten recurrent infections like that in minor injuries on different parts of her body for years. i thought that was just a thing that happened to people sometimes, based on her reaction to it. she always bottled up her emotions back then. she used to say that she never knew if she was happy or sad, because she was always too busy and stressed out to know. i never knew what to do for her back then. it all felt very helpless.
anyways, none of the images on google look nearly as bad as hers did at its worst. the closest i found was on reddit, of someone who apparently went septic and died soon after the photo was taken. my mom had gone to the doctor before and all his treatments didnt work, leaving her with this one particular awful abscess that had gotten significantly worse since she had last seen him, and she should have probably gone to the ER for...
the thing she swears by finally healed her though, was leaving that man and moving us out of that house, drinking more water, and the folk remedy of taking garlic/primrose pills. once she did all that, it faded, never to return again. because of reduced stress and two natural supplements, her immune system was finally strong enough to fight off the MRSA. she now has a wonderful husband who keeps her chilled out and happy, she works out regularly, and takes time to relax. now, her only skin issue is that she only has a tiny stubborn psoriasis patch that occasionally shows up on top of her foot when she gets too busy at work. it makes me so happy to hear her talking about trying new things or just doing things like going to the zoo, because she never really did anything for herself until the last few years.
anyways, chronic unmanaged stress has a physical toll. chronic unmanaged stress is inflammatory, and it disregulates the immune system, and it slowly kills. its one of the most unfair things in life in my opinion, that you can already be suffering under deeply stressful circumstances, or because of unresolved childhood trauma, and then your health can suffer because of that. did you know that childhood trauma is linked with a higher occurance of autoimmune disease? it's horrible. but it means we have to find ways to make life more bearable, to heal the mental pain to heal the body, to handle the stressors we will inevitably face in a healthier and more resilient way. i just got recommended a reel of a man saying something like "you have two options: be a bitch and defend your boundaries, or develop an autoimmune disease." and he is SO right. defend those boundaries. get out of these toxic circumstances. do things that bring you JOY. it may well heal some of your health problems
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
