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Thursday, November 3, 2011

My Philosophy: Causes of Disorders


There is a tendency to want to eliminate problems. "Oh, if I could just find what it causing this, we can stop the medications, accommodations, etc."

Well, yes and no.

Every family has they're genetic challenges; some members of the family suffer more than others. These sensitivities may be aggravated by nutritional, physical, or emotional deficits, but the sensitivities themselves are usually written in the DNA.

I have OCD tendencies, especially post-partum. Medicine gives me guard rails, but I still feel like something is pulling on my feet. My mental struggles are a symptom of some other medical issue. Over the years, I've found that avoiding sugar, grains, and milk dramatically reduces my symptoms. Eating these things almost guarantees that I have some kind of brainlock that day. So, it's likely that there's an underlying digestive issue. But what's causing the digestive issue? Likely a nutritional deficit or some injury to the digestive system from eating milk all my life when my body hates it. Now, even if I "cured" ALL that underlying stuff (which has been there for over 30 years, so full recovery is unlikely), any time my body gets hacked off at me, it's going to go the anxiety/OCD direction....just like the rest of my family. I will likely never be cured of the tendency.

My family of origin has three main struggles: allergies, digestive cancer and hormone-related OCD/anxiety. It goes back generations. So, it's no surprise that spent my whole childhood on allergy shots, have HORRID digestion, and totally "dropped my basket" post-partum. It sucks to have problems, but I'm glad to know what's ahead. Menopause is murder in my family. I should just go ahead and reserve a bed at the hospital.

It's also no surprise that at least one of my children had allergy-induce asthma, is already showing OCD tendencies, and that NOBODY in the house has normal bowel movements.

Over the years, I've discovered all kinds of digestive and OCD hacks. I hate that my kids have problems, but I'm relieved that it's something with which I'm REALLY familiar. I'm always searching for new and different ways to "cure" the underlying problems in myself and my kids, but regardless of how far I make it down that road, when the bodies and minds in my house are under stress, I know they will be heading a familiar direction.

This is good news and bad news. The bad news is that it's unlikely that your symptomatic child will get over his issues 100% cured of whatever physical/mental struggle tendencies he's got. It will come back off and on in his life, especially during times of stress. But, the good news is that he will likely not have anything BRAND NEW to deal with. That's good news for parents too. Pretty much anything your child has, you've seen it already in the the family tree. It's pretty rare for a child to exhibit tendencies that his biological family has never seen. "Ooooh, Little Bobby is lining up his toys JUST LIKE grandma used to do with her knick-knacks...I just thought she was mean."

So disorders can be cured, kind of. Depending on what you're family struggles with, you may have to keep your eye on it for life. I will likely never be at a point where I have brilliant digestion and can eat anything I want, but I have a LOT more freedom than I did five years ago. And my children won't have to wander around wondering what's wrong with them for 30 years like I did. They'll know their limitations and learn to live with them...or at the very least, we'll all know why they're going off the rails.

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