May 17 2011
University of Toronto researchers have found that childhood physical abuse is associated with significantly elevated rates of functional somatic syndromes such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivities among women.
“Women who reported they had been physically abused as children have twice the odds of chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple chemical sensitivities, and 65 per cent higher odds of fibromyalgia” said lead investigator Professor Esme Fuller-Thomson, who holds the Sandra Rotman Chair at U of T’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Department of Family and Community Medicine.
“These findings persisted even after controlling for potentially confounding factors such as other adverse childhood experiences, age, race, mental health and adult socioeconomic status.”
The study examined statistics from a regional subsample of the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey involving 7,342 women, 10 per cent of whom reported being physically abused as children. A minority of women reported they had been diagnosed by a health professional with chronic fatigue syndrome (1.3 percent), fibromyalgia (2.5 percent), or multiple chemical sensitivities (2.7 percent).
Co-author Joanne Sulman, from the Department of Social Work at Mount Sinai, said the research not only points to an association between childhood physical abuse and these disorders, but also explores the contribution of confounding psychosocial factors such as other childhood adversities, adult health behaviours and mental health.
The research will be published in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma.
http://news.bioscholar.com/2011/05/childhood-abuse-linked-to-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-fibromyalgia-in-women.html
University of Toronto researchers have found that childhood physical abuse is associated with significantly elevated rates of functional somatic syndromes such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivities among women.
“Women who reported they had been physically abused as children have twice the odds of chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple chemical sensitivities, and 65 per cent higher odds of fibromyalgia” said lead investigator Professor Esme Fuller-Thomson, who holds the Sandra Rotman Chair at U of T’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Department of Family and Community Medicine.
“These findings persisted even after controlling for potentially confounding factors such as other adverse childhood experiences, age, race, mental health and adult socioeconomic status.”
The study examined statistics from a regional subsample of the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey involving 7,342 women, 10 per cent of whom reported being physically abused as children. A minority of women reported they had been diagnosed by a health professional with chronic fatigue syndrome (1.3 percent), fibromyalgia (2.5 percent), or multiple chemical sensitivities (2.7 percent).
Co-author Joanne Sulman, from the Department of Social Work at Mount Sinai, said the research not only points to an association between childhood physical abuse and these disorders, but also explores the contribution of confounding psychosocial factors such as other childhood adversities, adult health behaviours and mental health.
The research will be published in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma.
http://news.bioscholar.com/2011/05/childhood-abuse-linked-to-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-fibromyalgia-in-women.html
My apologies in advance, I've written a very long post, so will submit this in chunks.
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Hello Dr. Hall,
I've been curious for some time re: why you have a blog about Mothers who kill their children, and have also written a book about fibromyalgia. Is it safe to assume that you have known of the connection made in this paper for some time? Or is this just a coincidence?
I'm not familiar with your book, but I believe it takes the position that fibromyalgia isn't a 'real' disease, or at least (at the time your book was published) had not been studied enough to define it as one particular disease process.
I notice that your blogs are not written with any personal commentary (they don't appear to have any particular point of view). So I admit to being curious as to what you're attempting to achieve with them.
It does cross my mind that you yourself may possibly have been a victim of female-perpetrated child abuse who is reluctant to disclose, but I don't want to read anything into this that isn't there. Perhaps it was your exposure to child abuse victims that has led you to create the "Mothers who kill..." blog?
I will say that I was a victim of severe child abuse prepetrated by my mother, and am now largely disabled with fibromyalgia and odd assorted other symptoms (I experienced repeat pericarditis for about 9 months approx. 2 years after my symptoms started escalating). I find both situations so stigmatizing (and unfortunately self-reinforcing) that I don't even think of going for help (even if I did there appears to be not much out there unless one is willing to be patronized and vilified, or is willing to join the wailing 'poor me I'm a victim that will never get beyond this' crowd). Before I stopped working I was a professional with a career that I loved, although it was very high stress. It's my own suspicion that years upon years of completely ineffectual (and misguided feminist-inspired) therapy that never addressed the real harm that women can do (I'm speaking of sadism and psychopathy here)left me still 'coping' on my own with the significant day-to-day after-effects of my abuse, and my energy reserves finally gave out.
As I said, I find the lack of personal comment on your sites curious. So I'd like to ask, if you'd care to disclose it, do you take the position of so many other medical professionals who have effectively written off the surviving children of these mothers as being necessarily defective and therefore poor candidates for any kind of treatment or assistance, or are you trying to, somewhat obliquely, raise awareness? Note: I'm not saying that that's your position; I'm asking what your position is.
If the answer to the above question (do you think these abuse survivors are defective and poor candidates for intervention?) is "No", do you have any suggestions as to what you think the surviving children can do to help themselves? There seems to be an (almost intentional it would seem) dearth of awareness of their situation and resources to address it so I think it will be up to survivors themselves to figure a way out of this in order to stop being societies designated scapegoates/victims. At least, that's what I'm attempting to do.
I'd like to point you to another website that you may find of interest:
ReplyDeletehttp://female-offenders.com/
At the moment it confines itself to female-perpetrated sexaul assaults and incest. However I've communicated for some time with the owner (bloggert7165) and he is looking to, eventually, grow the site to cover other female perpetrated abuse. The abuse that happened to me, being that my mother was both a psychopath and sadist, doesn't fit clearly into any particular category other than torture and terrorizing: it had elements of sexuality in it, but was primarily about personality annhilation and torment, so even his site doesn't quite 'fit' my situation. By God's grace I had a very loving close relationship in my childhood to my paternal grandparents and father, which I believe had a strong immunizing effect and saved me from the worst effects of being raised by such a person. But in terms of the reaction I got while attempting to heal the very significant harm I was left with, my experiences are very close to the woman who has posted here:
http://female-offenders.com/Safehouse/2011/03/flotsam-and-jetsam.html
One more area that may not be obviously connected, and which you may have no interest in exploring: my own personal experience is that those type of mothers can play a significant role in the creation of rapists and sex offenders. I've found that there is significant research documenting sexual abuse by females in the background of rapists and serial killers, a concept which is continually suppressed, but is borne out based on my own experience. So, to bring this back to the topic at hand, the words in the Globe & Mail re: Russell Williams extreme pain and use of prednisone, jumped off the page at me. I suspect that he has fibromyalgia and was a victim of sadistic sexual &/or psychological abuse by his mother (if not physical as well - medical professionals know how not to leave scars). If it is indeed true that he didn't start offending until his 40's, may have finally been pushed over the edge of 'coping' by several factors: including his use of prednisone, his on/off reconnection to/estrangement from his mother around the time he started offending, etc... I'm not attempting to excuse his actions, but to understand what factors contributed to them.
Well, I've gone on at some length here when I don't even know what your position is on any of this. I hope this is of interest to you. My own position is, of late, that there is FAR too much silence and stigma around this issue, and it requires a good dose of good old fashioned sunshine and truth-speaking in order to begin to set it right.
I will, separately, submit a link to a blog I've created if you'd feel more comfortable replying there rather than here (if you care to reply at all). I ask that you not publish that link. I am interested in any thoughts, feedback, resources, etc... that you'd care to profer, whether you agree with me or not. After all, sunshine and the light of day are useful to help us see when we're on the wrong path, and truth-seeking requires a diversity of opinion.
Kind regards, and thanks for 'listening'.
Note1: This is a rather long post so I've divided it into two.
ReplyDeleteNote2: It appears there are some problems displaying comments here. The comment displays as "Posted", but then is overwritten by subsequent comments. None show up when the page is called up in a separate window.
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Hello Dr. Hall,
I've been curious for some time re: why you have a blog about Mothers who kill their children, and have also written a book about fibromyalgia. Is it safe to assume that you have known of the connection made in this paper for some time? Or is this just a coincidence?
I'm not familiar with your book, but I believe it takes the position that fibromyalgia isn't a 'real' disease, or at least (at the time your book was published) had not been studied enough to define it as one particular disease process.
I notice that your blogs are not written with any personal commentary (they don't appear to have any particular point of view). So I admit to being curious as to what you're attempting to achieve with them.
It does cross my mind that you yourself may possibly have been a victim of female-perpetrated child abuse who is reluctant to disclose, but I don't want to read anything into this that isn't there. Perhaps it was your exposure to child abuse victims that has led you to create the "Mothers who kill..." blog?
I will say that I was a victim of severe child abuse prepetrated by my mother, and am now largely disabled with fibromyalgia and odd assorted other symptoms (I experienced repeat pericarditis for about 9 months approx. 2 years after my symptoms started escalating). I find both situations so stigmatizing (and unfortunately self-reinforcing) that I don't even think of going for help (even if I did there appears to be not much out there unless one is willing to be patronized and vilified, or is willing to join the wailing 'poor me I'm a victim that will never get beyond this' crowd). Before I stopped working I was a professional with a career that I loved, although it was very high stress. It's my own suspicion that years upon years of completely ineffectual (and misguided feminist-inspired) therapy that never addressed the real harm that women can do (I'm speaking of sadism and psychopathy here)left me still 'coping' on my own with the significant day-to-day after-effects of my abuse, and my energy reserves finally gave out.
As I said, I find the lack of personal comment on your sites curious. So I'd like to ask, if you'd care to disclose it, do you take the position of so many other medical professionals who have effectively written off the surviving children of these mothers as being necessarily defective and therefore poor candidates for any kind of treatment or assistance, or are you trying to, somewhat obliquely, raise awareness? Note: I'm not saying that that's your position; I'm asking what your position is.
If the answer to the above question (do you think these abuse survivors are defective and poor candidates for intervention?) is "No", do you have any suggestions as to what you think the surviving children can do to help themselves? There seems to be an (almost intentional it would seem) dearth of awareness of their situation and resources to address it so I think it will be up to survivors themselves to figure a way out of this in order to stop being societies designated scapegoates/victims. At least, that's what I'm attempting to do.