Dr. Deepak Chopra

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

–Khalil Gibran

More people are talking about lupus as it relates to Michael Jackson.  I personally believe this is a good thing.  The more we discuss lupus the more awareness, at least that’s my hope. More importantly, I’m learning a few new things and thanks to Dr. Deepak Chopra, I’m learning more in just a few sentences of his than I ever thought I would learn.

Actually, full disclosure, I like Deepak Chopra and listen to many of his podcasts while at the gym.  In his most recent interview with Harry Smith on CBS’s Early Show, Chopra talked about the enablers around Jackson and then he talked about Jackson’s complaints of abuse — physical and psychological — suffered from his father.  Chopra makes an interesting statement, one I had not heard, creating a link between autoimmune diseases and abuse.  He said:

“He did complain about the stresses of his childhood and the verbal and at times physical abuse, and there’s a paper in this year’s February issue of “Psychosomatic Medicine” that linked accumulated childhood stress with autoimmune disorders, including lupus, which he had, and vitiligo, which he had. He had huge patches of discoloration. He had a very poor image of his body. And he had a lot of shame about it, a lot of loathing about it. And his compulsion with cosmetic surgery is part of the self-mutilation that occurs as a result of this body image. He became an isolationist. He hid from people. And the more he hid, the more cruel the media frenzy about his hiding and his covering up, You know, he used to wear clothes to cover up his disfiguration. That really actually hurt him a lot,” Chopra said.

“He was a delicate soul in a cruel world,” he added.

Interesting, I had never heard this.  Does this take us back to a condition being psychosomatic?  I had to find this article Chopra mentioned and the article is “Cumulative Childhood Stress and Autoimmune Diseases in Adults” by Shanta R. Dube, PhD, MPH, DeLisa Fairweather, PhD, William S. Pearson, PhD, MHA, Vincent J. Felitti, MD, Robert F. Anda, MD, MS and Janet B. Croft, PhD.

I would love to read this article and I will probably pay the $18.00 to view it.  Until then I did find the abstract quite interesting.  The objective of the study was to “examine whether childhood traumatic stress increased the risk of developing autoimmune diseases as an adult.”  Their findings and conclusions were:

Sixty-four percent reported at least one ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience).  The event rate (per 10,000 person-years) for a first hospitalization with any autoimmune disease was 31.4 in women and 34.4 in men. First hospitalizations for any autoimmune disease increased with increasing number of ACEs (p < .05). Compared with persons with no ACEs, persons with 2 ACEs were at a 70% increased risk for hospitalizations with Th1, 80% increased risk for Th2, and 100% increased risk for rheumatic diseases (p < .05).  Childhood traumatic stress increased the likelihood of hospitalization with a diagnosed autoimmune disease decades into adulthood. These findings are consistent with recent biological studies on the impact of early life stress on subsequent inflammatory responses.

Interesting.  Can we also look at this study another way.  Could an adverse adult experience such as death of a loved one, trauma, disfiguration from an accident or other traumas create a similar response in adults?   it makes you wonder.  In one lupus video I saw recently, two sisters with lupus talk about their diagnosis.  One suffered with her lupus symptoms for most of her life.  The other sister was not diagnosed with lupus until after she experienced what she called a “terrible loss.”

It’s no secret I had a pretty rough childhood but I also suffered a couple of devastating losses in the past few years and my current condition, in my opinion, came as a result of my “terrible loss.”

Yes, I want to read this article because lupus tends to adversely affect minority populations and it is in those populations where you will find either high expectations for achievement or lots of abusive behavior.  Something I’ve always said back in the day, within the African American community, a lot of parents would be carted off in paddy wagons for child abuse if they were held against today’s standards.  Then there is the abuse no one wanted to talk about, as in sexual abuse, by members of the family or family friends.

The study involved “15,357 adults (average age: 56), 64% of study subjects reported at least one adverse event during childhood such as physical or emotional abuse or household dysfunction. Individuals with two or more adverse events compared to those with none had a greater than 70% risk for acquiring various autoimmune disorders. The authors suggest that clinicians seeing patients with autoimmune disease be alert for histories of childhood adversity.”

Tonight, I had to find the book I ordered by Donna Jackson Nakazawa entitled The Autoimmune Epidemic.  I ordered it, received it, but never had a chance to actually look through or read it.  Tonight I discovered she has a section in her book entitled “Understanding the Stress Connection.”  I really need to read this book and I’m going to go download the above-mentioned paper as well.  I’m really curious now.

Bottom line, I have never been one who wishes to enjoy only the sunlight of life.  In fact, I do not own a pair of rose-colored glasses.  I do believe one must be able to accept both the good and the bad of a person.  To love someone unconditionally means you accept them, as they are, good and bad.

In rejoicing in the life of Michael Jackson and his achievements we must also look at the bad, however distasteful that may be, in order to learn life lessons.  For instance, if you are willing to read the Biblical story of Job and all of the good and bad entailed or the life of David knowing he sent a man to the front line to be killed in order to have an affair with the man’s wife, you must be able to look at the real-life Biblical stories that go on everyday around us.  Yes, whether you know it or not your life will teach and reach people.  To separate the man from his music is to separate your lungs from air.  Unfortunately, that very thing was done to MJ in life as people, good intentioned indeed, separated the man from his music.

Van Gogh cut off his ear, Picasso had a blue phase, we all go through peaks and valleys.  It’s how we deal with them and how our lives serve as instruction to or for others.  Lastly, be careful what you say or do to your children, you may cause them great harm later in life.

Interview With Deepak Chopra

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