Good health and proper nutrition are essential parts of healing. This includes everything from eating healthy food, taking the right medication, getting sufficient rest, avoiding dangerous addictive chemicals, getting proper medical care, exercising regularly, etc.

Emotional issues are highly affected by the physical elements of our bodies. For example, all the therapy in the world will not help your depression if your thyroid is having serious medical trouble. A good rule of thumb is to get regular and proper medical check up’s to rule out as many medical complications as possible.

However, it is quite common for trauma survivors to have great difficulty in these areas. Some people are prone to neglect their own medical care if they were excessively neglected during their childhood. Other people just dissociate away the importance of personal care. Others feel like they do not deserve proper health care even if they know they need it. Others are too terrified of medical doctors, and medical facilities to actually get proper care and treatment, no matter what illness they have.

Some of the common struggles with health and nutrition include:

Sleep difficulties – sleeping too much, not enough, inconsistently, etc
Eating disorders
Unhealthy food choices
Concerns about medications
Fear of medications
Taking medications inconsistently
Fear of medical doctors and/or medical facilities
Confusion about what is an emotional issue and what is a medical issue
Sugar addictions
Chemical addictions
Using dissociative skills to block out legitimate medical issues
Mixing past trauma issues with current need for medical attention
Genuinely not knowing what is normal or healthy vs. not normal and not healthy
Trauma-based beliefs about not being “good enough” to deserve appropriate medical treatment
Fears, shame or guilt about presenting for medical treatment due to ongoing self injury issues and self destruction that actually causes the medical complications
The very presence of having both mental health issues simultaneously with physical health issues making everything more complicated and unclear
Dissociation and lost time interfering with the ability to do accurate self report for appropriate medical treatment
Disoriented child parts coming out at medical appointments
Depression interfering with ability to manage appropriate self care

If you are struggling with any of these issues, please consider a clinical consultation.