Why the Rise of Autoimmune Diseases?

In the Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté lays the blame for the increase in autoimmune diseases squarely on “chronic variable stress.” He is quick to point out that stress and our inability to deal with it satisfactorily, isn’t our fault. In other words, just because I have multiple sclerosis and had several stresses in my life which may have triggered that disease, it isn’t my fault that I couldn’t deal with the stresses in a way which wouldn’t have led to a physical backlash of autoimmune disease.

To quote Maté, “No person is their disease, and no one did it to themselves – not in any conscious, deliberate or culpable sense. Disease is an outcome of generations of suffering, of social conditions, of cultural conditioning, of childhood trauma, of physiology bearing the brunt of people’s stresses and emotional histories, all interacting with the physical and psychological environment.

Repeat to yourself until you believe it, “It isn’t my fault I have insert name of disease.

ANY disease. And yes, I would include depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses in this category.