Ambivalence

I am ambivalent today.

I have been running tests of statistical significance on my research  and today stepped back to analyze the findings...these are very early findings but the correlations that are significant consistently are that:
1. If a person is abused or neglected their children have a significant chance of having food allergies.
2. The age of onset of those food allergies (for the child) is affected by the frequency, duration and severity of the abuse of the parent (the higher the frequency, longer duration and greater severity are correlated with earlier onset of food allergies).

Not only does abuse and neglect hurt us...put us at risk of unhealthy habits, high risk behaviors and early disease and death...it is also passed to our children. We, the abused, pass along the hypervigilance and lack of trust that we experience psychologically to our children as a hypervigilance to foods...food that is benign, nutritional and necessary for life...we pass along physiologic distrust to our kids...the message that the world is not a safe place is passed to them in utero...That makes me very sad.

From a scientific perspective I am excited to find that my ideas have merit...that I am onto something...and that something could be significant. Perhaps this will be the platform that will allow me to speak out against abuse in a more public forum. Perhaps this is how I can make a difference. It's too early to say if this research is truly significant, I am meeting with my professor on Wednesday to go over my work. I will let you know what she says.

Love and Light,
Maggie