i think a lot of mental illnesses are, or often are traumagenic. some it’s on paper and others there’s just a strong pattern. trauma (wether violent, sexual, neglect based, a mix, something else) is what has a lot of power to make us/the brain start trying to cope in maladaptive ways. we’re not meant to experience such hardship so there’s only so much you can compensate healthily, especially as a child.
i developed severe OCD following being retraumatised.
a friend of mine with BPD has discovered a strong correlation between her disorder and parental neglect in childhood, as she’s been diagnosed and entered therapy.
of course there are also modifiers to this, pretty sure we know that there is genetic basis to being predisposed to certain mental illnesses. like some people are innately more vulnerable to alcohol addiction/dependency. so when things get hard it’s more likely to tip in that direction/thought pattern than other coping mechanisms.
i think a lot of it is a mix of nature and nurture? some people are born with underlying weaknesses (ie spinal problems) and certain strain can make them finally show up and be an issue, quicker than for another person. both can still develop the herniated disc but one much easier than the other.
traumatic environment lends itself to not being able to manage things like anxiety early in life, so what could’ve been a predisposition that’s developed management/control over in a healthy environment, and isn’t much of an issue in adulthood (and more of a natural human variation), becomes a much more debilitating problem (clinical anxiety disorders?) because of xyz trauma reinforcing it and xyz circumstances not being safe/stable enough to develop and learn/be taught those skills.
stuff runs in families too, wether it’s inherited or learnt/taught or combinations of both…
it's a really interesting topic.
obviously the brain and parts that regulate hormones are physical things so i’m sure genetic or otherwise developed changes in those can affect mood a lot, like TBIs can. but i am really curious what the numbers are in clinically recognised depression, what’s environmental/traumagenic and what’s genetic/developmental? internal and external causes. i don’t think we have surefire ways to measure that but hypothetically i’m super curious.
that’s my thoughts on it, anyway.
there’s a bunch of factors, trauma can definitely be one of or the one for sure, depending on what it is. but sometimes it probably isn’t?
mental illness is a sliding scale, too, we’re not either with x or without it, mental illnesses are natural human thoughts/behaviours at a harmful/debilitating/distressing degree. lots of people get traumatised but don’t “have” PTSD. you can also be dxed with something and potentially not meet criteria anymore in a few years. (and it may or may not still be a significant risk to fall back into (like EDs)) obviously it doesn't apply to everything, especially in traumagenic disorders (like PTSD, DID). but it’s not really the haves and have-nots, more so the “typical/below threshold” and “above threshold” behaviours.
i think i was dxed with anxiety and depression as a child, i would say that those things are very dependent on how i’m doing trauma wise and don’t merit their own thing (anymore?). i don’t think the depression is its own issue that persists independently of that for me, unlike potentially my mother who medicates to function normally. and depending on which parts of my system are around, i’d put the anxiety in general life as a footnote nowadays. i still can get very anxious but it’s very trauma related and interferes with my life very differently than it did when everything was debilitatingly anxiety inducing as a preteen/teen. i think it has much more plasticity and going to therapy to target specifically anxiety and do some CBT would (and has been) pretty useless to me. it definitely helped but not in the heavily trauma-backed territory. But some people i know would extremely benefit from that, because the anxiety is the main issue, not something lurking deep underneath. and they struggle much more than i do with it.
that’s the problem at the moment i think, not understanding the gradient aspect of it. it’s all seen as black and white so pretty much anyone is seen as having a clinically bad problem when it’s not actually like that. often seen in people armchair diagnosing strangers etc. especially online, anyone who is a jerk and/or not well liked is pinned a personality disorder.
