Your DNA Records

The Sound of Survival

As a pediatric nurse, I spend moments of my shifts listening to my littles lungs. I listen for the whistle of a wheeze, the crackle of fluid, the breaths of life. And for years, I didn’t realize that my own body was playing its own clinical soundtrack. I thought my chronic health issues were in all honesty bad genetics. I want to clarify that I am not in any position to diagnose,, however I do have strong medical theories in regards to my own body.

Asthma as a Dark Bathroom

In New Mexico, I was locked in a dark bathroom for hours at a time. When you are four years old and the door is locked from the outside, one of the things you lose is your breath. You gasp. You hyperventilate. You try to be as quiet as possible so you don’t trigger a slap or beating. Now, as an adult, I live with asthma.

Clinically I know asthma is an inflammatory airway disease. Asthma is not just a “feeling of I can’t breath”-it is a physical, inflammatory HYPER response. In nursing school, we are taught that it is a “hyper-responsiveness” to triggers. For a child like Mary, the environment wasn’t just neglected; it was toxic. Thinking about how my records explicitly say “house full of garbage” is extremely disheartening. I wasn’t just living in a mess; I was breathing in mold spores, dust mites, and the fumes of “spoiled food” decomposing in the heat. Then, I was locked in a bathroom- a confined space where any air circulation was likely non-existent. My respiratory. System was essentially in a war zone. My immune system was on high alert because of the garbage and allergens, while my nervous system was on. High alert because of the fear. When you combine toxic fumes with a child whose body is flooded with cortisol because she’s locked in the dark, you get a respiratory system that learns to hyper react. My airways didn’t just tighten they became “hyper-reflexive,” just like my muscles. The question now is why does it continue when we are older?

The Setting Got Stuck

This. Is the part that is very hard for me to swallow. As an adult, I am of course no longer in that garbage filled home. I am in safe homes. But because those triggers happened while my lungs and immune system were still developing, my DNA took a “picture” of those dangers. In science this is called Epigenetic Programming. Essentially my body learned that “air=danger”. So today, when I encounter a mild allergen, or even just high stress at work, my lungs “remember”. They react with the same intensity they needed to survive New Mexico. I am not “tripping”; my. Mast cells and bronchioles are just following the protocol that was written when I was 4 years old.

One of the most studied areas in childhood neglect is the NR3C1 gene. This gene creates receptors in your brain that catch cortisol (this is the stress hormone) and tell your body “Okay, the threat is over, you can relax now.” Because the threat in the home never truly my body added tags to this gene to silence it. My brain literally had fewer signals to trigger “calm down”.

The gut is often called the “second brain” because it contains the enteric nervous system, which is in constant communication with your actual brain. I know in Tennessee when I was around 9 or so I would vomit every single morning. The matriarch would get so angry and at times force me to eat my own vomit. As a nurse today, I know that a child throwing up every single morning is a sign of hyperarousal. As a child I went through numerous tests to understand why I was throwing up and nothing was found physically wrong with me. I see today that when I woke up in New Mexico and in Tennessee, my body immediately flooded with cortisol and adrenaline because my environment was so unsafe. this “fight or flight” response shuts down the digestive system and can trigger a sensitive gag reflex or in my case vomiting as the body tries to purge itself to prepare for a “battle.”

The lining of your stomach and intestines has the fastest cell turnover rate in the body. If my telomeres (discussed in a previous post) are shortened, my gut lining struggles to repair. Itself efficiently, leading to “leaky gut”, food sensitivities and chronic inflammation. When trauma shortens the telomeres, those “zombie cells” release pro-inflammatory cytokines which in turn keeps the immune system on high alert. Mucus is a defense mechanism. In a state of chronic inflammation, the body treats the air that is breathed in or the surrounding environment around as a threat. The lungs and sinuses overproduce mucus to “trap” the perceived danger. The same nerve that helps regulate the heart and lungs, the vagus nerve, is often frozen or dysfunctional in trauma survivors which can lead to bronchial spasms (asthma).

The daily vomiting I experienced as a child is a physical manifestation of an epigenetic shift. By the telemores “tagging: the stress response genes to be permanently ON, my body stayed in a state of fight or flight. This causes the stomach to produce excess acid and triggers the “purge” reflex. My cells were being told that “battle” was about to begin every single morning when I woke up.

The God of the Breath (The Ruach)

In Genesis, God breathed life into man. That breath is called Ruach. When my asthma flares and my chest tightens, I am reminded that my breath was never truly mine to begin with—it is a gift.

Job 33:4 says, "The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life."

Even when the "Dark Bathroom" of my past tries to steal my air, God’s Ruach is more powerful than my inflammation. He is the one who expands my lungs when the world tries to constrict them. I have talked about the gut as the "second brain," but the Bible calls it the "bowels" or the "inmost being."

Psalm 139:13 says, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb."

God didn't just knit my spirit; He knit my enteric nervous system. He saw the morning vomiting in Tennessee. He saw the way my stomach churned in New Mexico. He was the one who sustained my "zombie cells" and my shortened telomeres when they should have given up. He is the God of the microscopic. I used to think my body was "failing" God because I couldn't find "stillness." But then I remembered

2 Corinthians 12:9: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

My "High-Velocity" nervous system and my "hyper-reflexive" muscles are the "cracks" in my vessel. But those cracks are exactly where His light shines through. My body’s hyper-responsiveness is a testimony. It says: "I survived the desert, I survived the mountain of abuse, and I am still standing because the Healer held the pieces together."

My Final Thought

My DNA may have taken a "picture" of the trauma, but God has the originals. He is the one who can rewrite the universe. He doesn't just ask us to "get over it"; He enters the inflammation with us. He is the Great Physician who cares just as much about my mast cells as He does about my soul.