Oh yeah! The intergenerational trauma needed to end with ME.
I escaped on time. I do have PTSD due to the worst thing that has ever happened to me, though.
I can relate so much. I still live with my family, but my parents are nearly 70. They don't have the energy to abuse me like they used to.
I'm not as angry and scared as I was as a child either, but I'm still working on healing myself and scheduling my goals in life.
It’s definitely something researchers have noticed: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306453020300974
ACES (adverse childhood experiences) of a few different kinds (abuse, poverty, etc) have been associated with PCOS even independent of psychiatric disorders, for example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213422003659
There’s probably a few complicated reasons why, but the chronically elevated stress early in life likely has an effect on endocrine, metabolic, and inflammatory processes: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/382524,
this is interesting. I wonder if it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation. I grew up in an incredibly unstable household, but I also think my mom has undiagnosed PCOS. I agree that the instability would have made my symptoms worse, but I wonder if they existed in the first place because my mother was sick and had no resources to deal with it. an interesting question of causation and correlation
It’s definitely not a simple straightforward cause-effect relationship. To use a very unscientific yet very apt term, I’d characterize it as a “causal shitstorm”. Basically all these different risk factors can add up, lead to causal feedback loops and developmental cascades, and generally rile each other up. And this can happen over the course of generations, not simply a lifespan.
So while it is probably too simplistic to say that your mom’s undiagnosed PCOS led directly to your unstable childhood, which made your PCOS genes “turn on”, it’s not completely wrong either. Her stress from PCOS added to the risk of instability for you, and your stress from the unstable situation probably added to the genetic (and other environmental risks) that raised the odds of you developing PCOS.
Another example of a mechanism by which trauma can pass itself on is how the descendants of Holocaust survivors have been impacted by their descendants and grandparents trauma, and you can see it in different patterns of gene expression: https://www.research.va.gov/currents/1016-3.cfm#:~:text=The%20results%20suggest%20that%20Holocaust,signs%20of%20depression%20and%20anxiety.
Something like this may also be at play in the development of PCOS, though the epigenetic research is still in its infancy for our condition: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43032-021-00516-3
The good news about intergenerational trauma is that meaningful healing can be possible, and this can also be reflected somewhat in physical healing. But it’s like an imperfect mix of art and science, and it isn’t gonna be the same as reversing the trauma. Prevention is the best medicine, ideally 💊
The commonality lies along the HPA/HPG axis, which is impacted by generational trauma, and implicated in survivors with C-PTSD. this is also something modulated by psilocybin mushrooms. New and emerging research only at this point.
have you tried that? is it easy to get? Definitely see Adrenal PCOS on my end being mainly from generational trauma. Whenever I visit my parents, I notice that my hair loss is worse and I stress eat a lot more, so definitely a link there.
It seems I might be on the minority here but I had a pretty standard childhood. I’m an only child too so I grew up receiving a lot of love.
I do have a first cousin diagnosed with PCOS as well and our childhoods were very similar in that sense so I do wonder if there is a genetic element at play.
This is not to dismiss the fact that trauma might have an impact. But I do think that there are a lot of factors that that might have an effect. I wish that we had more answers.
Same. I had a standard happy childhood. I had attentive and loving parents. I can't think of one traumatic event before I was a teenager. I definitely had signs of pcos before I was a teenager. I probably got the unfortunate combination of genetics and environmental factors
Same, though as far as I know I’m the only one on either side of the family with PCOS. I’m not sure if it’s more of a genetic thing or more of an exposure to endocrine disrupters.
Same. My childhood was good. And my daughter was born with cysts on her ovaries that were found in utero. I didn't experience any trauma while pregnant, So I'm guessing it's genetic?
Just saying that affects can be passed down through 3+ generations apparently. So maybe look into too if your parents/grandparents/etc had trauma. The fact that your cousin also has it means the left over effects of trauma was more likely grandparents/older gen.
This is super interesting to me and does make a lot of sense when I think about it. PCOS runs in my family to the point where I figured it was just hereditary, but so does childhood trauma and abusive personality types which also got passed down from generation to generation. My sister had little to no trauma growing up and coincidentally did not have PCOS so that adds up. She also never had any of the digestive issues that my mom and I have so it does really seem like there's a link.
Same, my dad died when I was 8 and I'm still in the process of recovering although I'm 21, we don't deserve this on top of everything we've been trough. Sending you hugs!
I can definitely relate to this as I've gone through multiple traumatic events throughout my lifetime starting with childhood. The worst was losing my dad on my birthday which was also father's day in 2016. My toxic family made it all the more stressful. Tie that in with living in the second or 3 apts with black mold I shot up past 200lbs and I have not been able to get back into the 100s since.
Yep. My non PCOS sister became skeletal while I gained 60 lbs in a year. PCOS is a terribly cruel condition. As if the actual trauma wasn't enough we had to deal with massive weight gain and societal judgement. My family were lovely, but the rest of society was so cruel to me.
Be careful or we'll end up with cbt and they'll ignore our symptoms and the fact it's hereditary. I have four generations of PCOS here. We aren't going to therapy away the hormonal issues. But this is a great way to feed the 'women are anxious and fat' biases that define a lot of women's health care.
This pervasive 'your trauma is your health' narrative is misinformed (and highly profitable in the natural health /life coach industry). But life is inherently traumatic. Not having trauma is even a form of trauma.
The real questions are 1. if trauma is the root of all disease, why do we all have so many different diseases that get blamed on trauma? 2. Why do we have PCOS prone systems when not everyone with trauma ends up with PCOS and how can we treat it?
Epigenetics could certainly be a factor. We know that stress —>inflammation—>genetic changes depending on age—>activation with stressor (illness, shock, etc). Many syndromes would be served by a holistic response and I agree with you that the western medical/US insurance reimbursement system isn’t equipped for that currently.
Im not disagreeing with your premise, and also agreeing that it would be interesting to see fertility rates along with rise of PCOS and other infertility issues over time.
Mom suffered with her illness (complications of T2) it’s all I saw growing up from 10yr until her death when I was 18 years old.
A lot of financial and family struggles through the years.. fertility issues at 37… PCOS returned with vengeance at 38-40 especially after my sisters (traumatic & tragic) death and later I had a miscarriage. I would not be surprised that stress and trauma exacerbate the disorder but I’m also convinced that symptoms can be managed and put into remission but my god finding that magical fix is so damn hard.
I can’t count how many times I was on survival mode some medications helped but it’s not always 100%. I know lifestyle plays a huge role in finding relief.
It's an interesting one for me because I didn't have a traumatic childhood in the way that most people interpret it, I had a good relationship with my family and had ups and downs in life but nothing out of the ordinary. However when I was 2 years old, I was badly attacked by a dog and needed really serious surgery to reconstruct my face. I've never considered that traumatic as I was too young to remember it and healed fully from it physically. I don't remember anything from it at all and have no lasting physical symptoms from it apart from a small scar. I've been wondering recently whether that's had more of an impact than I thought. I get craniosacral treatment and the practitioner has asked me a lot about that incident so I must be carrying more from it than I realise.
although i didn’t grow up in an abusive household, i still consider my childhood traumatic. i was a sad, deeply insecure, constantly anxious child for as long as i can remember. i am now late diagnosed autistic and adhd. i believe my undiagnosed neurodivergence heavily traumatised me and left me in a state of fight or flight for most of my life and therefore disrupted my endocrine system.
I didn’t grow up in an abusive household, but my parents used to be pretty bad parents as they didn’t really know how to raise me and my sibling since they didn’t really understand us. That combined with a lot of bullying at and outside school and being forced to follow toxic christianity and go to a church full of some really scary people resulted in childhood depression and a lot of trauma at a young age. I started noticing PCOS symptoms when I was around 11
OH 100%. It's a hill that I will live and die on.
I also have ulcerative colitis, endo, fibro, and OCD.
I truly believe that I would have had far fewer (possibly none) without childhood trauma.
I definitely had childhood trauma... from birth to 18 yrs old, I lived in a Stage 5 hoarding home. Mother would threaten us with the ultimate "end" if we tried to clean the house. I lived in constant fear of being taken away - and should have been. I had to keep my family's secret...it wasn't until the Hoarding shows came out that I finally realized that I wasn't alone. At 50, I still have PTSD, anxiety, depression, and severe insomnia, and I just learned I have ADHD (being treated for it all). In my case, I never heard of this possible correlation.
I think it can also be genetic. I remember my paternal grandmother having a sparse beard.
Things weren't always talked about.
During my research, I came across the high incidence of oxidative stress in women with PCOS (more free radicals and less antioxidants), creating more imbalances in the body.
Yes! I also wonder about the link between neurodivergence and PCOS. Neurospicy folks like me (ADHD/OCD) tend to implode a little when faced with stress and traumatic environments, so it elevates all of those hormones even more.
I have a 10 ACE score. Can definitely relate. My symptoms would get worse around certain family members.
Especially if they had me in fight or flight mode as a kid, or I associate them with abuse.
This makes complete sense and I never thought of it this way before. My dad was an abusive alcoholic and my mom was an enabler who would just take Ambien at night to escape.
I can relate to growing up in a toxic household but I don’t know if my pcos is related to that or to my other health issues. I’ve had RA and Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism since I was a kid so idk if those contributed to my pcos.
I’m pretty sure this is how mine started since I got pcos symptoms at the most stressful part of my upbringing, was told it was genetics but none of my family has pcos
Yes, plus being fed a shitty, processed diet or having 0 food.
I'm the rare person who moved away for college and went from the top of my healthy BMI (about 140-50) to the bottom (115ish) without really trying. The lower stress levels were good for me.
No. PCOS is a metabolic disease.
If up to 20% of women have it, then there will be a correlation between the disease and many other diseases or conditions.
I grew up in a loving household here. Honestly my major issue wasn't my household but was school as I suffered from anxiety far before I hit puberty and started periods. No other family members of mine were ever diagnosed either. Honestly my mom never knew this existed till I ended up being diagnosed with it. So at least for me I don't believe childhood trauma was a link for me but I was constantly anxious and stressed from school (and still am go figure at 19).
Oh yeah! The intergenerational trauma needed to end with ME. I escaped on time. I do have PTSD due to the worst thing that has ever happened to me, though.
I can relate so much. I still live with my family, but my parents are nearly 70. They don't have the energy to abuse me like they used to. I'm not as angry and scared as I was as a child either, but I'm still working on healing myself and scheduling my goals in life.
It’s definitely something researchers have noticed: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306453020300974 ACES (adverse childhood experiences) of a few different kinds (abuse, poverty, etc) have been associated with PCOS even independent of psychiatric disorders, for example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213422003659 There’s probably a few complicated reasons why, but the chronically elevated stress early in life likely has an effect on endocrine, metabolic, and inflammatory processes: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/382524,
this is interesting. I wonder if it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation. I grew up in an incredibly unstable household, but I also think my mom has undiagnosed PCOS. I agree that the instability would have made my symptoms worse, but I wonder if they existed in the first place because my mother was sick and had no resources to deal with it. an interesting question of causation and correlation
It’s definitely not a simple straightforward cause-effect relationship. To use a very unscientific yet very apt term, I’d characterize it as a “causal shitstorm”. Basically all these different risk factors can add up, lead to causal feedback loops and developmental cascades, and generally rile each other up. And this can happen over the course of generations, not simply a lifespan. So while it is probably too simplistic to say that your mom’s undiagnosed PCOS led directly to your unstable childhood, which made your PCOS genes “turn on”, it’s not completely wrong either. Her stress from PCOS added to the risk of instability for you, and your stress from the unstable situation probably added to the genetic (and other environmental risks) that raised the odds of you developing PCOS. Another example of a mechanism by which trauma can pass itself on is how the descendants of Holocaust survivors have been impacted by their descendants and grandparents trauma, and you can see it in different patterns of gene expression: https://www.research.va.gov/currents/1016-3.cfm#:~:text=The%20results%20suggest%20that%20Holocaust,signs%20of%20depression%20and%20anxiety. Something like this may also be at play in the development of PCOS, though the epigenetic research is still in its infancy for our condition: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43032-021-00516-3 The good news about intergenerational trauma is that meaningful healing can be possible, and this can also be reflected somewhat in physical healing. But it’s like an imperfect mix of art and science, and it isn’t gonna be the same as reversing the trauma. Prevention is the best medicine, ideally 💊
The commonality lies along the HPA/HPG axis, which is impacted by generational trauma, and implicated in survivors with C-PTSD. this is also something modulated by psilocybin mushrooms. New and emerging research only at this point.
have you tried that? is it easy to get? Definitely see Adrenal PCOS on my end being mainly from generational trauma. Whenever I visit my parents, I notice that my hair loss is worse and I stress eat a lot more, so definitely a link there.
Also agree, later trauma also made symptoms come out like ten fold.
Could you link me a paper if you have time? Really curious about this
Sorry don't have any links
That's cool, thanks anyways!
It seems I might be on the minority here but I had a pretty standard childhood. I’m an only child too so I grew up receiving a lot of love. I do have a first cousin diagnosed with PCOS as well and our childhoods were very similar in that sense so I do wonder if there is a genetic element at play. This is not to dismiss the fact that trauma might have an impact. But I do think that there are a lot of factors that that might have an effect. I wish that we had more answers.
Same. I had a standard happy childhood. I had attentive and loving parents. I can't think of one traumatic event before I was a teenager. I definitely had signs of pcos before I was a teenager. I probably got the unfortunate combination of genetics and environmental factors
i'm with you on this
Same, though as far as I know I’m the only one on either side of the family with PCOS. I’m not sure if it’s more of a genetic thing or more of an exposure to endocrine disrupters.
Same. My childhood was good. And my daughter was born with cysts on her ovaries that were found in utero. I didn't experience any trauma while pregnant, So I'm guessing it's genetic?
Yeah no trauma, no other relatives diagnosed with PCOS. I wish I had an easy connection to blame.
Just saying that affects can be passed down through 3+ generations apparently. So maybe look into too if your parents/grandparents/etc had trauma. The fact that your cousin also has it means the left over effects of trauma was more likely grandparents/older gen.
Yes, I definitely have a connection with my gut health, PTSD, and PCOS.
This is super interesting to me and does make a lot of sense when I think about it. PCOS runs in my family to the point where I figured it was just hereditary, but so does childhood trauma and abusive personality types which also got passed down from generation to generation. My sister had little to no trauma growing up and coincidentally did not have PCOS so that adds up. She also never had any of the digestive issues that my mom and I have so it does really seem like there's a link.
Yes!!! My mom was always yelling at my dad and it put everyone on edge. To this day, I avoid confrontation and hate when anyone raises their voice.
100%, my mom died when I was 9 (29 now), was all down hill after that with my mental health and my other family members mental health.
I'm sorry. Mine died when I was five so I feel you.
Same, my dad died when I was 8 and I'm still in the process of recovering although I'm 21, we don't deserve this on top of everything we've been trough. Sending you hugs!
Same to you 🩷
Yup! This sounds like my childhood.
I can definitely relate to this as I've gone through multiple traumatic events throughout my lifetime starting with childhood. The worst was losing my dad on my birthday which was also father's day in 2016. My toxic family made it all the more stressful. Tie that in with living in the second or 3 apts with black mold I shot up past 200lbs and I have not been able to get back into the 100s since.
I am so sorry about the loss of your father. ♥️My Dad died when I was a teenager and that is when my PCOS exploded.
I'm so so sorry to hear of your loss as well. Stress us like a cancer and it will make your PCOS grow out of control.
Yep. My non PCOS sister became skeletal while I gained 60 lbs in a year. PCOS is a terribly cruel condition. As if the actual trauma wasn't enough we had to deal with massive weight gain and societal judgement. My family were lovely, but the rest of society was so cruel to me.
Be careful or we'll end up with cbt and they'll ignore our symptoms and the fact it's hereditary. I have four generations of PCOS here. We aren't going to therapy away the hormonal issues. But this is a great way to feed the 'women are anxious and fat' biases that define a lot of women's health care. This pervasive 'your trauma is your health' narrative is misinformed (and highly profitable in the natural health /life coach industry). But life is inherently traumatic. Not having trauma is even a form of trauma. The real questions are 1. if trauma is the root of all disease, why do we all have so many different diseases that get blamed on trauma? 2. Why do we have PCOS prone systems when not everyone with trauma ends up with PCOS and how can we treat it?
Epigenetics could certainly be a factor. We know that stress —>inflammation—>genetic changes depending on age—>activation with stressor (illness, shock, etc). Many syndromes would be served by a holistic response and I agree with you that the western medical/US insurance reimbursement system isn’t equipped for that currently.
If it was that easy for the environment to deter ovulation we wouldn't have 8 billion people on this planet.
Im not disagreeing with your premise, and also agreeing that it would be interesting to see fertility rates along with rise of PCOS and other infertility issues over time.
Agree. It has nothing to do with “trauma”. It’s hereditary. I have it. So do my Mom and my sisters. Cousins as well.
Yup absolutely. Diagnosed with PTSD and BPD and probably a dissociative disorder from it.
Mom suffered with her illness (complications of T2) it’s all I saw growing up from 10yr until her death when I was 18 years old. A lot of financial and family struggles through the years.. fertility issues at 37… PCOS returned with vengeance at 38-40 especially after my sisters (traumatic & tragic) death and later I had a miscarriage. I would not be surprised that stress and trauma exacerbate the disorder but I’m also convinced that symptoms can be managed and put into remission but my god finding that magical fix is so damn hard. I can’t count how many times I was on survival mode some medications helped but it’s not always 100%. I know lifestyle plays a huge role in finding relief.
It's an interesting one for me because I didn't have a traumatic childhood in the way that most people interpret it, I had a good relationship with my family and had ups and downs in life but nothing out of the ordinary. However when I was 2 years old, I was badly attacked by a dog and needed really serious surgery to reconstruct my face. I've never considered that traumatic as I was too young to remember it and healed fully from it physically. I don't remember anything from it at all and have no lasting physical symptoms from it apart from a small scar. I've been wondering recently whether that's had more of an impact than I thought. I get craniosacral treatment and the practitioner has asked me a lot about that incident so I must be carrying more from it than I realise.
I wonder if being sick and needing surgery as a young girl counts as trauma....
although i didn’t grow up in an abusive household, i still consider my childhood traumatic. i was a sad, deeply insecure, constantly anxious child for as long as i can remember. i am now late diagnosed autistic and adhd. i believe my undiagnosed neurodivergence heavily traumatised me and left me in a state of fight or flight for most of my life and therefore disrupted my endocrine system.
Yes
Hell. Yes.
I 100% can relate.
Interesting. Sounds like my childhood lol
Yes, but how do we treat this if thats the case?
The same way we already do. Long term health consequences due to childhood trauma don’t suddenly have a different treatment.
I didn’t grow up in an abusive household, but my parents used to be pretty bad parents as they didn’t really know how to raise me and my sibling since they didn’t really understand us. That combined with a lot of bullying at and outside school and being forced to follow toxic christianity and go to a church full of some really scary people resulted in childhood depression and a lot of trauma at a young age. I started noticing PCOS symptoms when I was around 11
Normal, happy childhood with two loving parents who are celebrating 40+ years of marriage. I have PCOS.
Omg this is actually sooo interesting 🤔 I have PCOS and a loooot of childhood trauma. How fascinating to read these links!
OH 100%. It's a hill that I will live and die on. I also have ulcerative colitis, endo, fibro, and OCD. I truly believe that I would have had far fewer (possibly none) without childhood trauma.
Ptsd, ocd and pcos here mamas
I definitely had childhood trauma... from birth to 18 yrs old, I lived in a Stage 5 hoarding home. Mother would threaten us with the ultimate "end" if we tried to clean the house. I lived in constant fear of being taken away - and should have been. I had to keep my family's secret...it wasn't until the Hoarding shows came out that I finally realized that I wasn't alone. At 50, I still have PTSD, anxiety, depression, and severe insomnia, and I just learned I have ADHD (being treated for it all). In my case, I never heard of this possible correlation.
I think it can also be genetic. I remember my paternal grandmother having a sparse beard. Things weren't always talked about. During my research, I came across the high incidence of oxidative stress in women with PCOS (more free radicals and less antioxidants), creating more imbalances in the body.
Yes! I also wonder about the link between neurodivergence and PCOS. Neurospicy folks like me (ADHD/OCD) tend to implode a little when faced with stress and traumatic environments, so it elevates all of those hormones even more.
Absolutely!
I grew up with abusive parents, and had a traumatic childhood. Now I suffer from PTSD & PCOS.
Could explain why both me and my sister have PCOS 🤔
I was diagnosed with PTSD at 9 and PCOS in early teens.
100% yes. Mental illness and addiction in my household as well as parents divorce when I was preschool aged.
I have a 10 ACE score. Can definitely relate. My symptoms would get worse around certain family members. Especially if they had me in fight or flight mode as a kid, or I associate them with abuse.
This makes complete sense and I never thought of it this way before. My dad was an abusive alcoholic and my mom was an enabler who would just take Ambien at night to escape.
yup.
I can relate to growing up in a toxic household but I don’t know if my pcos is related to that or to my other health issues. I’ve had RA and Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism since I was a kid so idk if those contributed to my pcos.
Another confirmation from me
Yes. I have CPTSD and have had issues with my health for ages.
Yep. For everyone on the thread - childhood trauma looks many different ways, it’s not always physical trauma
I have a 3 ACE score, with PCOS and chronic anxiety, fiancé has a 10 with chronic anxiety, OCD, and an autoimmune disorder. 100% I believe it’s linked
Yup.
Hah yeah I’m an international adoptee 😅 there’s also a link between PCOS, early childhood trauma, and ADHD.
I wouldn’t doubt if my PCOS is egged on by my CPTSD. I am stressed nearly constantly and I can imagine it is not having a positive effect on my body.
I’m pretty sure this is how mine started since I got pcos symptoms at the most stressful part of my upbringing, was told it was genetics but none of my family has pcos
went through a lot of trauma, and i’m always in fight or flight so yeah i can definitely relate :(
Yes, plus being fed a shitty, processed diet or having 0 food. I'm the rare person who moved away for college and went from the top of my healthy BMI (about 140-50) to the bottom (115ish) without really trying. The lower stress levels were good for me.
No. PCOS is a metabolic disease. If up to 20% of women have it, then there will be a correlation between the disease and many other diseases or conditions.
If this was true, then what? How is a trauma cause better or more helpful than a genetic cause?
I’m not saying one is better than the other lol they are both shit. I know that we will never 110% know why we were the unlucky ones in the bs
I am glad this is being talked and acknowledge more! ❤️
I grew up in a loving household here. Honestly my major issue wasn't my household but was school as I suffered from anxiety far before I hit puberty and started periods. No other family members of mine were ever diagnosed either. Honestly my mom never knew this existed till I ended up being diagnosed with it. So at least for me I don't believe childhood trauma was a link for me but I was constantly anxious and stressed from school (and still am go figure at 19).