Child abuse is linked with adult ailments

Recent research has demonstrated a relationship between childhood abuse and a number of adult ailments, including arthritis, depression, cancer, and psychosis.

The research, published in journals in America, Australia, Canada and England, notes the following connections:

· Adults who experienced physical abuse as children have 56 per cent higher odds of osteoarthritis compared to those who have not been abused, according to a study by University of Toronto researchers published in Arthritis Care and Research.

· Childhood physical abuse is associated with elevated rates of cancer in adulthood, according to another study by University of Toronto researchers to be published in the journal, Cancer.

· People who were abused and neglected during childhood have a higher risk of major depression when they become young adults, according to a report in the January issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, depressed men who were abused have ten times higher risk of suicide, according to an article in the British Journal of Social Work.

· Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London have published new research in The British Journal of Psychiatry which indicates that women with severe mental illness are more likely to have been abused in childhood that the general population.

· Childhood sexual abuse significantly increases the risk of developing drug and alcohol issues, mental illness and marital strife in men and women, according to a study in American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

This research underscores the long-term devastation caused by childhood abuse and shows links between it and a growing number of adult diseases and disorders. And it calls attention to a problem—be it physical, emotional, or sexual abuse—that has been escalating over the past decade.

For years, families swept childhood under the rug and some researchers believed that it had only limited long-term effect. Indeed, some researchers stated that a child could grow out of it once he became an adult. This new research shatters this mythology once and for all.

Although recent researchers don’t offer an explanation for the link between abuse and a myriad of illnesses, one can conjecture that any kind of child abuse engenders low self-esteem, bad coping method, and a pessimistic outlook on life. These three factors alone would predispose victims of child abuse to a number of illnesses. In addition, bad hygiene and physical posture associated with child abuse victims could explain the many cases of arthritis later on.

This research goes counter to recent trends to seek primarily biological explanations for mental disturbances as well as for physical ailments. It clearly shows that environmental traumas continue to have at least a partial effect on the development of adult problems.

Maybe, just maybe, by focusing on the many long-term effects of childhood abuse, we may at last be able to come up with some preventative measure that will help us to diminish or even eliminate it from our culture. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Do you have to be disturbed to be an artist?

Artists have often been portrayed in movies, plays and novels as being emotionally disturbed. Nicole Kidman won an Oscar a few years back for her depiction of Virginia Woolf as a writer suffering from bipolar disorder in the film, Hours. Indeed, it has become common to think of artists as being more disturbed than the average person, but is it true?

A psychologist (Ludwig 1996) did a comparative study of emotional disturbances among artists and nonartists, showing that disturbances were far more common among artists.

He found that 60 percent of actors and 41 percent of novelists were alcoholics. However, only Three percent of scientist and 10 percent of military officers were alcoholics. Likewise 17 percent of actors and 13 percent of poets suffered from bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic depression), while only one percent of scientists did so.

Goodwin and Jamison (1990), uncovered impressive evidence of a link between creativity and depression or manic depression. The list of writers who suffered from it includes not only Virginia Woolf, but also Gertrude Stein, Fydor Dostoyevsky, William Shakespeare, Pablo Picasso, Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway, William Styron, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Melville, Eugene O’Neill, Henry James and Honore de Balzac.

Composers who suffered from these disorders include Robert Shuman, Hector Berloiz and George Friederic Handel (who wrote The Messiah in 24 manic days); artists include Vincent van Gogh and Salvador Dali; and poets include Poe, Tennyson, Byron, Shelly and Coleridge.

These studies also suggest several theories explaining why creative people are more disposed to mental illness. The theory that makes most sense to me is the one that focuses on a combination of genetic and environmental influences. Creative peole seem to be born with more delecate senses—an ear for music, an eye for color and design, a mind that sees beneath the facades of daily life. This genetic sensitivity renders them more susceptible to becoming traumatized by environmental events.

An event such as the loss of a mother at an early age, which might cause an average person to become somewhat disturbed, might have an even greater effect on a creative person with greater sensitivity.

However, the same sensitivity that makes artists more vulnerable to stress also makes them good therapy candidates. Among all the patients I have seen over the years, creative people have usually made the most rapid advances in therapy.

Why would a beauty kill herself?

Ever since Ruslana Korshunova, 20, jumped from a building on Water Street in New York’s financial district several weeks ago, people have been wondering why she did it. Why would a beautiful, young, successful model kill herself?

Newspapers reported that she was unhappy, but the source of the unhappiness was unclear. In one message from her diary three months before the suicide she wrote: "I'm so lost. Will I ever find myself?" In an earlier posting, quoted in the New York Daily News, she wrote: "It hurts, as if someone took a part of me, tore it out, mercilessly stomped all over and threw it out." One cryptic entry in March reads: "My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high."

Other postings revealed anger. In March she wrote: "I'm a bitch. I'm a witch. I don't care what you say ... I know why my other relationships didn't work out, 'cause I'm unpredictable. "

Originally from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, the almond-eyed, flowing-haired Korshunova appeared in advertisements and on runways for such designers as Marc Jacobs, Nina Ricci and DKNY. British Vogue hailed her as "a face to be excited about" in 2005. Her break came when modeling booker Debbie Jones noticed a picture of her while perusing an in-flight magazine article about Korushnova's hometown of Almaty, according to a Vogue magazine report. "She looked like something out of a fairytale!" Jones told Vogue. "We had to find her and we searched high and low until we did!"

At the time of her suicide, she was reportedly dating two American men and had broken up with a married man in Russia. She had also hired a “life coach” in Russia to help her with her relationship problems. Her mother, with whom she was supposedly very close, came to America to claim the body.

We may never solve the mystery of Korushnova’s suicide. But her case reminds me of another suicidal girl, a patient, whom I came to know a while back. Let us call her Miss M. Like Ruslana, Miss M was a beautiful young woman who was troubled by pursuers. And, like Ruslana, she was sending money back home in Europe to her mother each week.

For Miss M, the problem did not have to do with the men who dated her. It had to do with her mother. Her mother had smothered her with love when she was a child. After divorcing her alcoholic father, her mother clung to Miss M like a safety tube. When Miss M became a teenager, her mother would routinely disapprove of any man she was dating.

Miss M moved to America to get away from her mother (although she wasn’t aware of that consciously). Her mother called her every day, and Miss M would report to her the details of her love life. One after another she disapproved of her beaus and entreated Miss M to return to Russia. As Miss M went through one beau after another, she was beside herself, unable to understand the confusion within. One part wanted to give herself to a man; the other wanted to remain loyal to her mother. She suffered from confusion, depression and suicidal thoughts--a depression similar to Ruslana Korushnova’s.

Whether Ruslana had a similar childhood can only be mere speculation. But we do know that children from healthy families do not normally become suicidal.