The Hidden Link: How Childhood Trauma Fuels Autoimmune Diseases and Chronic Illness

In today’s fast-paced world, more and more people are asking why their bodies seem to turn against them. Searches like “how does childhood trauma affect health?” and “trauma and autoimmune disease” are becoming increasingly common, reflecting a growing awareness that our past experiences might hold the key to our current symptoms.

If you have been living with chronic fatigue, joint pain, digestive issues, skin rashes, or other unexplained symptoms despite countless appointments and tests, you are not alone. I’m Suzie Wylie, a Masters-level Nutritional Therapist and Relational Gestalt Psychotherapist in advanced training, and I work with clients at The Autoimmune Clinic who are searching for exactly these answers.

Through my clinical work, I have seen how unresolved trauma from childhood and beyond can show up in the body years later as chronic illness — including autoimmune disease, mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS).

Understanding the ACEs Study: Trauma’s Impact on Long-Term Health

The landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study was one of the first major research projects to shine a light on this connection. Involving over 17,000 adults, it revealed that people who had experienced more adversity in childhood — including abuse, neglect, parental separation, or growing up in a household with violence or substance misuse — were far more likely to develop chronic conditions in adulthood.

The relationship was “dose-dependent”: the more ACEs you had, the greater your risk of everything from depression and alcoholism to heart disease, diabetes, and autoimmune conditions. Chronic stress in early life doesn’t just affect your mental wellbeing — it can rewire your stress response and immune system, laying the foundations for inflammation and illness decades later.

The Link Between Trauma and Autoimmune Disease

Newer research has strengthened this connection. Studies now show that conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and inflammatory bowel disease are more common in those with early-life trauma.

When we live through trauma, our stress system — the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis — is activated repeatedly. This floods the body with cortisol and adrenaline and keeps us in a state of “fight-or-flight.” Over time, this disrupts the immune system, drives inflammation, and can even switch on or off certain genes, making us more vulnerable to autoimmune reactions.

Later-life trauma — bereavement, accidents, ongoing stress — can add to the burden, tipping the body further out of balance. Even the gut microbiome, a cornerstone of immune health, is affected by trauma, often leading to leaky gut and immune overactivation.

How Trauma Shows Up in the Body

I often hear from clients who feel their symptoms don’t make sense. They may be told that all their tests look “normal” — yet they still feel exhausted, in pain, or unable to function.

Trauma can keep the nervous system stuck in high alert, leading to:

• Chronic fatigue or brain fog

• Widespread pain or fibromyalgia-type symptoms

• Bloating, diarrhoea, constipation, or IBS-like symptoms

• Skin rashes or hives

• Heightened reactivity or autoimmune flares

Connecting these dots can be the first, powerful step in moving towards healing.

My Approach: Nutrition + Gestalt Therapy

I believe that true recovery from chronic illness involves both the body and the mind. My approach integrates evidence-based nutritional therapy with Relational Gestalt psychotherapy.

• Nutritional Therapy & Functional Medicine: I look at the physical imbalances driving your symptoms — gut health, nutrient gaps, inflammation, and hormonal patterns — and build a clear, step-by-step plan to address them.

• Gestalt Therapy: This approach helps you become more aware of the patterns and unfinished experiences that may be keeping your body in a state of stress. Gestalt therapy is powerful for those who feel their illness is “stuck” and want to explore how past experiences may be shaping their current health.

Together, we work on rebalancing the physical body, calming the nervous system, and helping you feel more resilient. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all process — we track your progress closely and adjust as we go. The aim is to gently bring you out of survival mode and towards more energy, stability, and freedom from symptoms.

Taking the First Step

Working through the connection between trauma and chronic illness can feel daunting, but it can also be profoundly liberating. If you are living with autoimmune disease, MCAS, CIRS, or other long-term health challenges, you do not have to face them alone.

Book a consultation with me at The Autoimmune Clinic, and together we can begin to unpick the root causes of your symptoms and build a personalised path back to health — one that honours both your body and your story.