This is not a peer review process. I’m not here to persuade anyone who is determined to be skeptical. You’re welcome to propose another cause for my illness and explanation for the fact that it kept getting worse while I kept enduring trauma and started getting better as soon as I started resolving that trauma. Others can judge the merits of responding with a sneering dismissal to the perspective I’m trying to share.

There's a tendency toward misguided objectivity/rationalism here sometimes, but it should be clear your reasoning is fine, even it doesn't prove anything, which you seem very aware of. What more could someone want from an individual internet comment?

You missed where he said "research findings linking stress/trauma with physiological conditions like inflammation, immune weakness, digestion etc, which aligns with my experience."

My experience is similar to Tom's, and the science is increasingly showing that stress and emotions are linked in pain, fatigue, neuroinflammation, cytokines, etc.

> linking

That's pretty weak. I can much easier imagine being prone to inflammation causing psychological trauma than other way around.

Besides... you tried to treat chronic muscle and joint pain, digestive issues, fatigue/lethargy, skin conditions, signs of inflammation with psychiatry and antidepressants? Initially? That's really bad starting point to approach collection of very probably unrelated problems.

Of course I saw conventional physicians first, multiple times over several years. My health kept getting worse.

Poor choice of words. There is extensive research showing that psychological stress causes inflammation (for example), and we have known this for quite a few decades.

I wouldnt expect antidepressants to be a primary treatment.

Stress in research is pretty broad term.

"Stress is a state of threatened homeostasis provoked by a psychological, environmental, or physiological stressor."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5476783/

I think that just rising the pressure, heart rate and increasing few hormones without moving muscles enough causes inflamation. The reason is not important. It doesn't matter if it was caused by your mom telling you she does not love you or by you wining at slot machine or breathing city air or loud noise.

> I think that just rising the pressure, heart rate and increasing few hormones without moving muscles enough causes inflamation.

Correct.

> The reason is not important.

I didn't say it did from an objective point of view, but in order to remove the inflammation you need to identify and discontinue the emotion that's causing it.

Maybe the use of the word "trauma" is a red herring for you. It's any emotional state that causes a chronic negative physiological state.

I have to agree with you that chronically reminding yourself about a bad thing that happend to you can spike your pressure and other potentially dangerous stuff and if you can talk yourself out of this habit it might improve your health.

With myself I observe that I tend to revisit my past minor traumas only when my body is in bad shape. Not enough sleep, flu, not eating enough. Then I obsess about past suffering. But after I get enough rest or flu passes, puff, my obsession with trauma is gone. So I'm not quite sure if traumas are often the cause not just symptom.

>But after I get enough rest or flu passes, puff, my obsession with trauma is gone. So I'm not quite sure if traumas are often the cause not just symptom.

That is true for the most part. However sometimes there are ongoing stressors that aren't easily resolved (such as a problematic relationship or job). In those cases the stress is ongoing, and can lead to detrimental health effects.

And even when the stress has been removed, sometimes the illness can continue (as happens in CFS, which I suffered from myself). In these situations it may be the stress and depression from the illness itself that leads to a vicious cycle.