Healing Chronic Illness by Healing Childhood Trauma
With Veronique Mead
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Having faced her fair share of illnesses as an adult, Veronique began to search for answers to some of the questions she had about the connection between trauma and chronic illness. Her curiosity and inquiring spirit led her to pivot her career from being a family physician to Somatic Therapist, and today she is on the forefront of the conversations around the ACE’s Study (Adverse Childhood Experiences). Her website hosts a generous amount of information that has been a resource I have personally used, as well as shared with others. What an incredible opportunity to ask her some of the questions that have been on my mind!
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About Veronique Mead
Veronique Mead, MD, MA, is formerly an Assistant Professor of Family Medicine who retrained as a Somatic Trauma Therapist. She presents the science of trauma on her blog. The research is taking us into a new way of thinking about and understanding chronic illness. It also makes it possible to identify more tools to support healing, even if trauma happened years ago. Veronique is an author, speaker and writer who integrates what she’s learned with her own journey of gradual recovery from a disabling chronic illness.
Hello Richa: I absolutely enjoyed your interview with Veronique Mead! She is such a down-to-earth person and expert. The fact that she shared her own story and that she has worked as a family physician in the western medical model of healthcare resonated greatly with me. I have had a lot of negative experiences with medical physicians regarding my fibromyalgia such as lack of validation in some cases and often their solution was pain medication which I want to avoid. I have often felt that they considered me a hypochondriac which I know that I am not. I have tried at different times alternative providers but due to their services not being covered by our provinces’ OHIP (Ontario Health Care Program), I would not be able to continue due the expense of their services. I retired this past summer due to increasing pain after almost 40 years in mental health/trauma and addiction as a social worker. My financial circumstances are even more limited now; but I am determined to find way to gain some relief.
However, Veronique has given me a new sense of hope to keep trying.
Thank you for everything that you do, Richa and please take care!
Thank you so much for this wonderful reflection Sharon. So true how we have to encounter so many blocks. Not just the internal, familial and health related, but also the systems in which we find ourselves in society and community. I applaud you for your courage to take the actions you need to advocate for yourself and your optimal health and wellness. Thank you for being here and being open to the brilliance and wisdom of Veronique! I was SO SO SO happy, as you can tell, that she was able to be on this show. What a gift. Thank you also for your well wishes! It is my wish too, to be well and take care of myself! Blessings.
This was so powerful and affirmative, thank you both for shedding some much needed light and information on this topic 🙏 I am 40 yrs and have developed debilitating autoimmune struggles. It’s stolen so much from me. I am just digging in deep to the world of our nervous system and how childhood and past traumas affect us as adults. I have a 10 ACE and have “stuffed” my traumas, hurts and pains down deep inside for 40 years. Recently, with a new betrayal from my husband, EVERYTHING is surfacing all at once! With much self work over the years, I am able to witness and accept that now is the time to get it all out, release, deal and heal so that I can move from barely surviving and into THRIVING 💜 I will be checking out your website Veronique. Thank you Richa for hosting this amazing summit ❤
Lisa-Marie – It sounds like a big layer triggered an activation of so much and that you are using some important skills such as witnessing and working with it from these perspectives. Knowing how experiences contribute really can make such a huge difference in how we approach it all. Wishing you the best on this important journey and thanks so much for writing! May you find some helpful things you on my blog 🙂
Hi Sharon,
I’m so glad you got some hope! So sorry to hear about the challenges with medical care, which is unfortunately still much too common.
I hope we can all keep planting seeds that will help inform medical and mental health training in better ways. Wishing you all the best on your journey!
Hi Veronique, I very much appreciated your talk. Your calm very grounded and unpretentious demeanor was a wonderful contradiction in itself to the stress and anxiety we with trauma so often experience. Even though I have had a very clean diet for years, your mention of diet and how eating foods that might not be good for your particular body might aggravate or trigger a threat response was an ah-ha moment for me! I loved your openness in sharing that your own journey was still a work in progress and that you still haven’t fully recovered. Successful Recovery stories are nice and give us hope but hearing it can be a long challenging journey but I’m incrementally making progress breaks through the isolation and for me at least increases safety as I’m hearing truth, not just a pep talk. I also valued how you always reminded us to trust and use our own thinking and listen to our bodies in making decisions about the next steps we are considering taking. Thank you very much for your well thought out and caring presentation!
Hi Buffy,
Hurray for aha moments!!
I’m so glad it breaks through the isolation to hear me speak from where I am. I sometimes wish I could make the journey easier (since it is shorter and easier for some) and I sometimes fear it might turn some people off the path of exploration. Yet what you share is exactly why it feels so important to be so honest. It really is an incremental and challenging journey for many of us, with no knowledge of what the outcomes will actually be for everyone one of us. I have found that listening is one of the deepest things I can do and it’s always a relief to remember that when I forget!