What Christina Applegate's Book Made Me Google

As someone with an autoimmune condition (hi, Hashimoto's, the gift that keeps on giving), I'm obsessed with the research connecting what happens to us emotionally — especially early in life — to what eventually shows up in our bodies.

I came across this Norwegian study while listening to Christina Applegate's new memoir, You with the Sad Eyes. She trauma dumps — freely and without apology — and somewhere in the middle of it, I couldn't stop thinking: what if these things aren't separate stories?

Turns out, researchers are asking the same question.

The study followed nearly 78,000 women and found that childhood sexual or emotional abuse was associated with a significantly increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis. Women who experienced sexual abuse had a 65% higher risk. Those exposed to all three types of abuse (sexual, emotional, and physical) had a 93% higher risk.

The theory is that childhood trauma triggers a chronic stress response that the body never fully shuts off. A proinflammatory state that persists for decades. Stored, not resolved... and then dismissed.

Women are already underdiagnosed and underbelieved in medicine. Add a trauma history, and suddenly symptoms become anxiety, stress, and "have you tried therapy?" The idea that the stress response to trauma could be a biological MS risk factor doesn't just tell us something about the disease; it tells us something about why women's pain gets dismissed for so long.

Most of us have spent years wondering what our bodies were trying to tell us. Some of us are still finding out.