Episode 141: Can Trauma Make Genetic Disease Worse? The Role of the Nervous System with Lizzie Dunn

Many people living with genetic conditions can feel powerless against their diagnosis. How does past trauma and nervous system dysregulation relate with a genetic condition? What if the nervous system still holds the key to how one experiences their genetic condition?

Lizzie Dunn, diagnosed at 13 with MEN1, a hereditary endocrine disorder. In this episode she shares how she came to me skeptical about the role of trauma work for a genetic condition. Through nervous system regulation and somatic work, she experienced shifts she never thought possible.

This episode bridges the gap between conventional medicine, stored trauma and nervous system regulation. Whether you're a practitioner working with those who have a genetic condition or someone with a diagnosis, you'll learn how to use nervous system regulation as the master conductor of your biology.

In this episode you'll learn:

• [00:00:09] How nervous system regulation influences genetic disease symptoms

• [00:03:00] Why the nervous system sees genetic mutations as vulnerabilities that trigger faster trauma responses

• [00:09:00] How stored trauma creates dysregulation that amplifies all symptoms

• [00:14:00] Why so many people with chronic conditions live disconnected from their bodies

• [00:22:00] How paradox and vulnerability are essential parts of healing

• [00:23:40] Why generational trauma gets passed down through mitochondrial DNA

• [00:30:00] How the healing journey requires working on mind, body, and biology levels simultaneously

• [00:36:00] Why small interventions across three areas create bigger shifts than years of single-approach work

Main Takeaways:

• Nervous System as Master Conductor: Even with genetic conditions, the nervous system determines symptom severity by directing all physiological responses and biological adaptations

• Genetic Vulnerabilities Trigger Faster Trauma Responses: The nervous system sees genetic mutations as vulnerabilities, causing it to move into overwhelm and trauma biology more quickly than if no vulnerabilities existed

• Body Disconnection is Survival: Living in your head and disconnecting from your body is a protective mechanism to avoid overwhelming sensations of powerlessness, shame, and pain

• Generational Trauma Through DNA: Trauma passes down through mitochondrial DNA on the mother's side via epigenetic changes from oxidative stress, affecting gene expression in future generations

• Integration Creates Lasting Change: Single-approach healing (therapy alone, supplements alone, or diet alone) creates temporary shifts; addressing mind, body, and biology simultaneously creates sustainable transformation

• Small Hinges Move Big Doors: You don't need decades of intensive work; small interventions across three levels create remarkable shifts when done together

• Body Has Innate Healing Capacity: Like skin healing over surgical incisions, the body can reorganize and reset when blocks at mind, body, and biology levels are removed

Notable Quotes:

"The nervous system is what drives all the other systems, because it's what changes them, allows them to adapt to our environment. And so the nervous system, when it becomes dysregulated in its responses, it's going to cause dysregulation of all the other symptoms and systems."

"Why would I want to be in my body? My body is in pain, emotional pain, physical pain. I don't like my body. My body is working against me. At least that's the thought that I have. Why would I want to be in my body?"

"That's not resilience. That's pushing through, that's surviving. So let's not call it that. Let's call it, Hey, you're surviving, you're pushing through. But that kind of resilience is going to come at a cost."

"Epigenetics do get passed down to us, and it gets passed down, especially through the mother because of the mitochondrial DNA that gets passed on to the children."

"You actually don't have to do that much of each to start seeing shifts. But we do need to bring in all three because when you have all three, they're like small hinges. And when you've got three of these small hinges, you just do baby steps because small hinges move big doors in our life."

Episode Takeaway:

Living with a genetic condition doesn't mean you're powerless over your symptoms. Your nervous system acts as the master conductor of your biology, determining how severely you experience your hereditary condition. When you have genetic vulnerabilities, your nervous system perceives them as threats and moves into trauma biology faster, creating dysregulation across all systems. The exhaustion many people feel isn't just from their disease—it's amplified by stored trauma, nervous system dysregulation, and the survival mechanism of disconnecting from their body. True healing requires removing blocks at three levels simultaneously: addressing self-limiting beliefs through parts work, completing interrupted protective responses through somatic work, and supporting cellular function through biology interventions. When you provide support across all three levels, small interventions create remarkable shifts. Your body has innate healing capacity—when blocks are removed, it can reorganize, reset, and return to its best possible state, regardless of genetic vulnerabilities.

Resources/Guides:

• The Biology of Trauma book - Available now everywhere books are sold. Get your copy

• Foundational Journey - If you are ready to create your inner safety and shift your nervous system, join me and my team for this 6 week journey of practical somatic and mind-body inner child practices. Lay your foundation to do the deeper work safely and is the pre-requisite for becoming a Biology of Trauma professional.. 

Related Episodes:

• Episode 118: How Practitioners Can Navigate Their Own Chronic Illness and Healing Journey

• Episode 128: How Attachment Trauma Drives Anxiety, Autoimmunity & Chronic Illness

Related YouTube videos:

• Trauma: Genetic vs. Epigenetic Insights with Dr. Bruce Lipton | Dr. Aimie Apigian

Your host: Dr. Aimie Apigian, double board-certified physician (Preventive/Addiction Medicine) with master's degrees in biochemistry and public health, revolutionizes trauma healing by revealing how our cells—not just our minds—store trauma. Her book "The Biology of Trauma" (foreword by Gabor Maté) transforms our understanding of how the body experiences and holds trauma. After adopting a child during medical school sparked her journey, she developed an integrative science-based sequence for the healing journey. Through her practitioner training, podcast, YouTube channel, and international speaking, she bridges functional medicine, attachment and trauma therapy, proving that repairing trauma's impact on the mind, body and biology is possible.

Genetic Conditions and Nervous System Regulation: Why Your Hereditary Disease Symptoms May Not Be Set in Stone

Living with a genetic condition often feels like carrying a predetermined script. Your diagnosis arrives with a lifetime prognosis. Medical appointments focus on monitoring and managing symptoms. Practitioners explain that your mutation dictates your experience.

But what if that's only part of the story? What if the severity of your symptoms depends less on your genetic code and more on your nervous system state?

The biology of trauma^® reveals how nervous system dysregulation amplifies symptoms of hereditary conditions. These patterns explain why two people with identical genetic mutations can have dramatically different experiences. One thrives while another struggles daily with debilitating symptoms.

When Your Body Feels Like the Enemy

Lizzie Dunn received her MEN1 diagnosis at 13. A genetic endocrine disorder requiring lifelong surveillance and surgery. She tried everything to feel better. Different diets. Cold showers. Supplements. Protocols.

Nothing created lasting change. Her body felt wired to be difficult. To work against her.

This belief is common among people with genetic conditions. Your mutation becomes the villain. Your body becomes the enemy. The exhaustion, pain, and symptoms feel like betrayal.

But this perspective misses something crucial. Your body isn't working against you. It's been trying to protect you using the only strategies available.

The Nervous System as Master Conductor

Your nervous system directs every physiological response in your body. Walk outside on a hot day? Your nervous system activates sweat glands to cool you down. Walk outside in winter? It constricts blood vessels to preserve warmth.

This happens automatically, constantly, dynamically. Your nervous system adapts your internal biology to match your environment.

The same system that regulates temperature also regulates your hormone system, cardiovascular system, and digestive system. It coordinates everything.

Even with a genetic condition, your nervous system still determines how severely you experience symptoms. The mutation creates vulnerability. The nervous system decides how to respond to that vulnerability.

Why Genetic Vulnerabilities Trigger Faster Trauma Responses

Your nervous system constantly assesses two things: vulnerabilities and capacities.

Vulnerabilities might include genetic mutations, nutrient deficiencies, toxin burden, or lack of support. Capacities include community connections, good nutrition, stable routines, and emotional resources.

When your nervous system detects a challenge, it evaluates: Do we have capacity for this given our vulnerabilities?

A genetic condition registers as a significant vulnerability. Your nervous system knows you're not as strong as your mind wants you to believe. When problems arise, it moves into overwhelm faster.

This creates a cascade. Overwhelm triggers trauma biology. Trauma biology creates nervous system dysregulation. Dysregulation amplifies every symptom of your genetic condition.

The mutation didn't change. But the dysregulation makes everything worse.

The Survival Mechanism of Body Disconnection

Many people with chronic genetic conditions live disconnected from their bodies. They exist primarily in their heads. Analyzing. Planning. Understanding. Learning.

Lizzie discovered this pattern during nervous system work. Her way of coping had been to not feel. To not breathe fully. To live almost entirely above her neck.

This disconnection is a survival mechanism, not a character flaw.

During overwhelming experiences, your body creates awful sensations. Powerlessness. Shame. Trapped feelings. Isolation. These sensations are unbearable.

Your mind and body develop disconnection strategies to help you survive what feels unsurvivable. You learn to not feel. To avoid your body. To escape into your head.

The Feedback Loop That Keeps You Stuck

Then stored trauma creates more inner pain. More uncomfortable sensations. Physical pain. Emotional pain.

Why would you want to be in a body that hurts? Why would you connect with a body that feels like it's betraying you?

So you reinforce the disconnection. You sign up for more courses. You study more. You analyze more. You try to understand your way to healing.

But understanding alone won't create change. The healing requires going into the body. And that process is harder than most people realize.

The False Praise of Resilience

People praised Lizzie for being emotionally held together. For being resilient. For being strong.

She took it as a compliment. An ego boost.

But that's not resilience. That's surviving. That's pushing through at a cost.

This pattern gets reinforced from childhood. Adults praise children who "handle things well." Who don't complain. Who keep going despite difficulties.

Those children grow into adults with chronic illness decades later. The stored trauma they never processed becomes their biology. Becomes their symptoms. Becomes their disease.

True resilience includes feeling. Processing. Completing stress cycles. Not just powering through and storing everything away.

How Trauma Passes Through Generations

Generational trauma doesn't just pass through learned behaviors and beliefs. It passes through your DNA.

Specifically, through epigenetic changes caused by oxidative stress. When your ancestors experienced overwhelming trauma, excess oxidative stress damaged their DNA at the epigenetic level.

Epigenetics determines which genes get expressed. Like a library where the librarian decides which books you can check out. You have all the books (genes), but only some are available to read.

These epigenetic changes get passed down through mitochondrial DNA, especially on the mother's side. The mother's mitochondrial DNA passes to her children. Not the father's.

This explains why some families show patterns of autoimmunity, chronic fatigue, or other conditions across generations. The genetic mutations may vary, but the epigenetic changes create similar vulnerabilities.

The Body's Innate Capacity to Heal

During general surgery residency, I watched bodies heal themselves after surgery. Skin closed over incisions without conscious effort. No therapy required. No visualization exercises needed.

The body just healed. Because that's what bodies do when blocks are removed.

This same principle applies to trauma. Your body has innate healing capacity. It has built-in strategies for repair and reorganization.

Remove the blocks. The body can heal.

With genetic conditions, blocks exist at three levels: mind, body, and biology.

Why Single Approaches Create Temporary Change

Lizzie experienced this pattern repeatedly. She would try something new. Feel initial improvement. Then slide back to baseline.

She cut out gluten. Six months of feeling amazing. Then symptoms returned.

This happens because single-approach healing only addresses one level of the problem.

The Three Levels Where Trauma Creates Blocks

Mind level blocks: Self-limiting beliefs. Thoughts that the world is against you. Beliefs you can't trust anyone. Patterns of isolation and self-protection.

Body level blocks: Muscle memory of helplessness. Incomplete protective responses still waiting to finish. Disconnection from physical sensations. Somatic patterns of freeze or collapse.

Biology level blocks: Inflammation. Nutrient deficiencies. Toxin burden (stored trauma attracts and holds toxins). Mitochondrial dysfunction. Oxidative stress. Gut dysfunction.

When trauma first occurs, the blocks are primarily emotional and mental. Biology hasn't had time to catch up.

But compound that over 20, 30, 40 years without resolution? Now you have blocks at all three levels.

Someone doing only therapy addresses the mind but misses body and biology. Someone doing only supplements addresses biology but misses mind and body. Someone doing only somatic work addresses body but misses mind and biology.

The other blocks remain. Healing doesn't stick.

Small Hinges Move Big Doors

Integration changes everything.

You don't need years of intensive work at each level. You need small interventions across all three simultaneously.

A little biology work. A little somatic work. A little parts work.

When you bring all three together, they work like small hinges. And small hinges move big doors in your life.

Integration for Genetic Conditions Looks Like:

Biology support: Reduce oxidative stress. Support mitochondrial function. Address inflammation. Heal gut dysfunction. Optimize sleep and circadian rhythms.

Somatic work: Complete interrupted protective responses. Build capacity to feel safe in your body. Practice gentle reconnection. Track nervous system states without judgment.

Parts work: Work with fragmented younger parts still waiting for needs to be met. Address self-limiting beliefs formed during early overwhelm. Integrate conflicting internal voices.

This approach addresses the root cause at every level where trauma impacts you.

The Timeline for Change

People often worry: Will this take the rest of my life? Do I need decades to shift patterns accumulated over decades?

The answer might surprise you.

Shifts can happen quickly when you remove blocks at all three levels simultaneously. Not because you're forcing anything. But because you're finally working with your body's natural healing intelligence.

Someone doing intensive therapy alone for years may see limited physical improvement. Someone addressing all three levels with smaller interventions often experiences remarkable changes in months.

The key is integration, not intensity.

Why Younger Parts Still Affect Your Adult Health

Lizzie spent hours each week with her five-year-old self during parts work. The same five-year-old. The same memory. The same unmet need.

That younger part was still waiting. Still trying to get attention. Still influencing her adult relationships and health.

When overwhelming experiences happen in childhood, parts of yourself can become fragmented. Stuck at that age. Still experiencing those sensations of powerlessness and isolation.

These fragmented parts contribute to inner tension. Inner stress. Inner overwhelm. That stress creates more problems in your biology.

Working with these younger parts isn't optional for complete healing. It's essential.

You become the one who goes back and gives your younger self what they needed. Then that part can come along into present time. Stop pulling you back into old patterns.

From Body as Enemy to Body as Ally

Understanding trauma's role in genetic conditions transforms everything.

Your symptoms stop being evidence of your body's betrayal. They become messengers about what your nervous system needs.

Your genetic mutation stops being a life sentence. It becomes one factor among many that your nervous system considers when determining symptom severity.

Your exhaustion stops being failure. It becomes information about nervous system capacity and where blocks exist.

This shift from adversarial to collaborative changes your entire healing approach.

The Path Forward

Healing with a genetic condition requires:

Recognizing nervous system dysregulation amplifies symptoms: Your mutation creates vulnerability. Dysregulation determines severity.

Understanding body disconnection as survival: Living in your head protected you from overwhelming sensations. But now it perpetuates trauma patterns.

Addressing all three levels simultaneously: Mind, body, and biology. Small interventions at each level create bigger changes than intensive work at one.

Working with fragmented parts: Younger versions of yourself still influencing current health need repair and integration.

Removing blocks systematically: When blocks at all levels are addressed, your body's innate healing capacity can function.

Building on small successes: Start with your biggest current obstacle. Build momentum gradually rather than attempting complete overhaul.

The Promise for Genetic Conditions

Your genetic diagnosis doesn't have to determine your quality of life.

Your nervous system acts as master conductor. Support it properly, and symptom severity decreases. Even with the same mutation.

Your body isn't betraying you. It's been using every available strategy to protect you and keep you alive.

The same biological systems that stored trauma patterns can reorganize and reset. Mitochondrial DNA can be influenced through epigenetic changes. Generational patterns can be interrupted.

This isn't about managing symptoms forever. This is about addressing root causes at every level where trauma created blocks.

When you give your body what it needs—safety, support, and integration across mind, body, and biology—healing becomes possible regardless of genetic vulnerabilities.

Helpful Resources

Research on Epigenetics and Trauma: Yehuda, R., et al. (2016). "Holocaust Exposure Induced Intergenerational Effects on FKBP5 Methylation." Biological Psychiatry, 80(5), 372-380.Rachel Yehuda's research on Holocaust survivors demonstrates how trauma creates measurable epigenetic changes that pass to future generations. This validates the biological mechanism of generational trauma transmission and shows why addressing nervous system regulation matters even with genetic vulnerabilities.

Research on Nervous System and Chronic Disease: Porges, S.W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation. W.W. Norton & Company. Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory explains how the nervous system acts as master conductor, determining physiological responses across all body systems. Understanding this framework is essential for recognizing how nervous system states influence genetic condition symptom severity.

Research on Mitochondrial Inheritance: Wallace, D.C. (2005). "A Mitochondrial Paradigm of Metabolic and Degenerative Diseases, Aging, and Cancer: A Dawn for Evolutionary Medicine." Annual Review of Genetics, 39, 359-407. Douglas Wallace's work on mitochondrial inheritance explains why maternal lineage particularly impacts health patterns. This research foundation supports understanding how oxidative stress and trauma biology pass through mitochondrial DNA to affect future generations.

This Episode Is For: 

✓ People with genetic conditions feeling trapped

✓ Anyone with hereditary autoimmune disorders

✓ Practitioners working with genetic disease patients

✓ Those skeptical trauma could affect genetic conditions

✓ People with chronic illness and body disconnection

✓ Anyone pushing through exhaustion constantly

✓ Those interested in generational trauma passing down

✓ People ready for integrated healing approach

What You'll Learn

Listen to Lizzie Dunn's story of living with MEN1 genetic condition. Learn why the nervous system sees genetic mutations as vulnerabilities, triggering faster trauma responses to protect already vulnerable systems. How stored trauma creates dysregulation amplifying all symptoms of conditions. Why so many people with chronic illness live disconnected from bodies as survival mechanism to avoid overwhelming pain and powerlessness. How paradox and vulnerability are essential for healing to occur. Why generational trauma passes down through mitochondrial DNA via epigenetic changes. How true healing requires simultaneously working on mind, body, and biology. And why small interventions across all three areas create bigger shifts than years of single-approach work focusing on only one level.

Your nervous system conducts your biology—regulation influences genetic disease severity.

Listen to Episode 141 with Lizzie Dunn →

Disclaimer

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The information shared reflects my clinical expertise and research, but every person's biology and healing journey is unique. Always consult with qualified healthcare providers before making changes to your treatment plan or starting new interventions. If you're experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact emergency services or a crisis helpline immediately.

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