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Coming Out as a Survivor of Adverse Childhood Experiences

For the last three months I have been a regular writer at Elephant Journal. I am not going to lie and say I'm getting rich. Though I've been among the top eight writers (the only ones who get a guaranteed pay out) for three months in a row - the pay is crap. I mean total crap. I've made less than $25 an article. Some are getting paid $5 an article. Most are paid nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip.

 

Most sites don't pay writers much or at all and if they do, in exchange, they pummel readers with ads. This is not a piece about lousy pay rates and starving writers though. That is a larger topic and not at all unique to Elephant Journal. 

 

What is unique to Elephant Journal and ACEs Connection, too, is allowing and encouraging writers to express truthfully and honestly about topics often considered taboo.

 

Trauma. Neglect. Sexual abuse. PTSD.

 

This is radical, life-affirming and life-changing. Maybe even life-saving.                        

 

Life-saving is better than dollar bills.

 

Truth-telling is what motivates many writers. But some truths are easier to share than others.

 

I write most about post-traumatic stress and being a survivor of sexual violence and childhood abuse and parental abandonment.

 

Despite how common it is to be a post-traumatically stressed high-ACE scoring adult with long-term and lifelong impact from violence and neglect, there is still very little understanding of these issues and talk about these subjects.

 

Anywhere.

 

In homes or families, in publications or in doctor's offices.

 

It's still a cringe-fringe-wince topic that makes many uncomfortable.

 

No one thinks I'm generally happier, more employable and a better date after finding out my history. They should, because I'm gritty as hell, tough as shit and can laugh at most anything.

 

But there's still stigma about being out as a survivor.

 

I push through it because breaking silence, challenging shame and helping people feel not alone is a balm for the writer and readers.

 

I am glad to have a platform to write openly and honestly today. 

 

"You should write for paying markets," one writer said to me.

 

"Yeah, but I wouldn't be able to write on these topics," I said. It's true. Every once in a while I write for better pay, to make sure I can. And then I return to activism.

 

Because I know this: It's still not easy to be out as a survivor.

 

And I know this.

 

I almost died of silence. I couldn't understand as a young adult how I'd ever make love, have a family or manage post-traumatic stress. I wasn't sure it was possible. In fact, I was sure it was impossible.

 

I was so damn wrong. This is something every survivor needs to know.

 

Even though most prefer we keep our traumatic experiences to ourselves, it does not help us - only them - if we're quiet.

 

I'll take any microphone that will let me speak.

 

Finding people willing to publish even work done for free is not easy. 

 

Being allowed to write about trauma, abuse, recovery and healing from various angles again and again and again is a gift and I am grateful.

 

It gives me and other survivors something rare:

  • The ability to speak for myself.
  • Direct access to other survivors.

This is groundbreaking.

Refreshing.

Necessary.

Rare.

 

We can share about the hell of kicking Klonopin or Paxil, or parenting while triggered, or telling a lover about our family of origin.

 

We can talk about childbirth or menopause and what it does to anxiety or depression. We can share tips on getting through holidays.

 

We can tell each other to go read Childhood Disrupted by Donna Jackson Nakazawa, and how validating it is to know we don't just suck at being human.

 

Often we don't need solutions or fixes but just to be able to be real.

 

So while I don't like struggling to pay my bills, I like something else even less.

 

Silence. Hiding. Shame. Secrecy.

 

As a high-functioning trauma survivor who could "pass for normal", I often felt phony, unable to be real or relaxed or myself.

 

I don't feel that way any longer.

 

I feel real, transparent and honest.

 

"You're aging backwards," my friend Kathy said yesterday. "You look better than you ever have."

 

She's not talking muscle tone, hair styles or skin care.

 

"I feel so inhabited," I said.

 

"You look unburdened," she said.

 

"I feel more open," I said (though I admitted to feeling scattered and too busy too). This is because of the work I've done but also the community I've found.

 

I don't feel alone.

 

It makes me brave. I no longer write, talk or live around the edges of my truth.

 

I feel like just another human.

 

I used to avoid conversations about fathers because mine, if alive, is alcoholic and homeless.

 

I used to feel unfeminist and guilty for wishing my own mother was more protective, loving, traditionally maternal - even though it was true and even as I get why that wasn't possible for her.

 

I didn't want to say what it was like to be abused by my step-family even though the  experience shaped me. If I did talk, I did it in therapy, where I paid someone a $100 an hour just to listen to me. But honestly, that gave me the feeling that this is so bad only someone I pay a C-spot can bear it.

 

I talked and wrote and lived around my past, my feelings and my truth.

 

I felt outside of myself, my life and soul.

 

Silence seeps life force energy. Shame prevents joy and ease and feeling honest.

 

But it wasn't and isn't always possible to be out as a survivor.

 

I have needed the words of others to be an umbrella that I cling to and read and hide under when I had nothing of my own to protect me.

 

Not because I was too afraid to speak up (though sometimes I was) -- but because interpersonal violence and developmental trauma and neglect are topics people have a hard time "liking" or even tolerating.

 

There are topics people are afraid of. People are afraid of identifying as or with survivors even now.

 

Or worse. People stigmatize, shame, blame or further traumatize survivors.

 

Developmental trauma is the curdling of life-giving milk that soured rather than nurtured our infant, toddler or child selves. We fed on pain, and we survivors understand having to swallow what tasted bad and made us sick when the other option was to go hungry.

 

We know sometimes the choices are bad and worse.

 

We know we are not met with compassion all of the time. Sometimes silence is better than the alternative: Rage. Persecution. Further traumatization.

 

When I think about the women who came forward to speak about being raped or drugged by Bill Cosby I want to cry. They were belittled, attacked, questioned, doubted and disbelieved.

 

Until and only until what? Until Cosby's own words damned him and "credited" them. Before that time, they weren't worthy of being believed. The benefit of doubt goes to the perpetrator just about always. Survivors know and have often experienced this unfair truth.

 

Survivors have to recover from violence but also the way we are treated and regarded in the aftermath of violence. Traumatic stress is amplified rather than ameliorated. 

 

It is rare to have spaces to share openly and honestly about the reality of having survived trauma, abuse and sexual.

 

It's also medicinal, healing and groundbreaking. The truth is that the more we are welcome to talk and share about our past reality the more joy and space we feel to inhabit the present.

 

This process is accelerated when we can relate, inspire and validate one another. We can comment, text, or pick up the phone and hear and be heard. We can text: "Can you stand the Duggar case or the Cosby coverage?"

 

And for all of this to happen unmediated by a therapist or support group or anyone speaking for us or telling us what we need is fabulous and saves boatloads of cash.

 

Humans require solidarity and peer-to-peer knowing and sharing and relating.

 

This very basic telling truth and story telling has been lacking in our family life and societal communing. I learned in writing workshops with Nancy Slonim Aronie how wonderful it was to share stories and not be asked to sit at a "too-triggering table", but to just share words.

 

It changed my life and made me feel hopeful. I realized I would not have to only work on the me I would present but learn how to be the me I am. I didn’t have to forever weigh what or if or where it was okay to share, but to just go with the truth. This had never been an option.

 

It’s becoming more possible and easy. As a columnist I get to share online and people can feel more real too, for free. That’s fortifying.

 

I'm glad to be a part of this silence-breaking movement.

 

We are starting to find and believe in ourselves and each other.

 

There is nothing more beautiful and sacred than breaking silence and telling the truth about our humanity.

We have incredible stories that are gripping, interesting and worthy of being told.

 

We are finding our survivor voices and using them. We are getting brave enough to start sharing. We

appreciate being listened to, respected and heard.

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Comments (20)

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Tina:
I can feel your passion and your utter exhaustion. I'm sorry it's so hard and you don't have an ally right in your office or someone to partner with to help. I'm so sorry it is so hard. I don't if you mean giving up on pushing ACES or giving up the fight - but in either/both cases I have to say - your work and life and insights are important and I'm so sorry it's such a battle. If you were my daughter I'd suggest a day or two of couch treatment with only books and nothing on the to do list and being queen of the couch and being in need of extra TLC. I know as grown-ups lots of us don't have a ton of extended support and sometimes even our own internal support can be tapped out.
I just want to say that I think even before I was an activist I read an article about you and your work and perspective and it gave me hope that others were out there and it made a difference. So there may be countless people and ways you are inspiring and educating others and you don't know it directly but it matters.
So thank you for your advocacy and I'm sorry it's hard.  
Cissy
 
Men you totally summed it up! Sometimes I just want to give up to stay alive. But whenever I comtemplate giving up, I face such a horrible internal struggle that tells me I know a kid is gonna die because I stopped caring to save myself it is a terrible bind and least anyone think I am exaggerating I just put up a link from pediatrics in aces in Peds. . Physicians are ignoring signs of physical abuse and not getting skeletal surveys at terribly high rates. Why?  lots of thoughts posted in the article but I think one is probably, I don't want to know... I have seen pathonumonic sugns of abuse ignored so badly I have had to step in. That is a terrible situation to be in but the choice becomes black and white step in and report or a kid could likely die and will certainly suffer more. Bottom line....it sucks!

 

Mem:
What I love about what you wrote is that there are so many positive and expansive parts to having high ACE scores and please know that doesn't mean I recommend them. I remember reading The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood by Wayne Muller and the first time I just raged at the book. I didn't want to look at the "spiritual advantages" but there were some. I had to go back to it when not knee deep in pain.
And I think those of us impacted by a lack of privilege DO get exhausted battling and feeling exhausted or misunderstood or like why don't people care? And of course that can touch on very deep emotional why don't people care (or parent or get it to gether or get help) stuff. So... this is all very hard and very important.
That's all I want to say as a gut response.
Cissy
 
Originally Posted by Mem Lang:

Part of the 'problem', I think, is that 'outliers' standout, Tina, certainly not often intentionally, but by that very definition stand alone.  When you think about it any profession requires a formal education process of some sort, by which fewer would have access to with high a ACE score and a low resilience score, as they wouldn’t be encouraged and their life is too chaotic, etc. etc.  It seems that people with high ACEs, etc who do enter professions either have someone modeling a better way for them or by (what seems to me and I envy those who have it!) some freak of nature thing happening where they are determined to throw themselves in study as a way of escape, and/or a better life for themselves and others.  Or maybe they're just intelligent   Anyway, they're the outliers.

So if you’ve experienced high ACEs and low resilience when young you’re far more likely to a very different person to most that enter tertiary education of any description.

Already that presents a problem (!):

  • You don’t assume so many things about the way people ‘should’ live as a given
  • You have had to do the hard yards to get yourself through university and beyond–financially,         emotionally, etc
  • At times of crisis you often only have yourself to pull through – no ringing mom for guidance!
  • No one but you to pick the kids up after school or make arrangements
  • You can’t talk about your family of origin at all, ‘cos it does/would completely freak them out,          whereas you know all about their families and their get togethers, etc.  There is a lingering          sense of shame in that, which shouldn’t occur, but does
  • You understand and appreciate that life isn’t black and white but mostly all grey and more          complex than most are willing to acknowledge
  • You therefore don’t judge others as harshly and like gossip for gossip’s sake, but are keen to really      try to understand human behaviour/motivations
  • You feel much more uncomfortable with the tribal ‘them’ and ‘us’ culture which pervades so much of the different strata’s of society
  • You find the nuances of middle class values, beliefs and mannerisms etc difficult at times to acquire, particularly if you don’t agree with them, but have to utilize them in order to not be too out there/fit in
  • Possibly there are some overlapping points in the above but I’m sure you get the gist! 

Therefore anyone with 'harsher' life experiences (particularly from childhood) entering into the          world of ‘professionals’ is naturally going to cause/find some(!) friction.

 

It’s quite a perennial problem and so what is the solution?!  That’s the trickier question.  I believe that

people such as ‘us’ need to be there and need to be heard.  It’s just such a goddamn lonely/alienating          place where no one likes to be the martyr that you need to be.  Educating those who are totally ignorant

to other ways of being.  Uncomfortable question:  if we were in their position would we be the same?! 

If we hadn’t had the childhoods we had etc then would we be any the wiser than those who judge others?

But that’s irrelevant here because we have such experiences and cannot undo them.  Out of our control.

It has made us richer in many ways for such experiences, but not in a way that helps in most professions.  It just gets in the way of black and white thinking...!

Does this sound … bitter.  It’s not.  Well it’s not meant to come across as completely bitter. 

It’s just the way it is, or I’m guessing the way it has been for a few of us here!  Yes Cissy, it’s good to offload to those who are the few that can truly can get it.

It does mean that further education in the trauma arena of TIC, ACEs etc needs to occur across the board,

just as minority groups have had to take a stand and have won to varying degrees: e.g. race, women, gay

rights, etc

So, do we want professionals to screen for ACEs?  Sure we do, but only with the headset of understanding

what’s happened to the patient: to empower them and to ensure further resiliency can occur.

Phew!  That's me done for a while!

 

Men you totally summed it up! Sometimes I just want to give up to stay alive. But whenever I comtemplate giving up, I face such a horrible internal struggle that tells me I know a kid is gonna die because I stopped caring to save myself it is a terrible bind and least anyone think I am exaggerating I just put up a link from pediatrics in aces in Peds. . Physicians are ignoring signs of physical abuse and not getting skeletal surveys at terribly high rates. Why?  lots of thoughts posted in the article but I think one is probably, I don't want to know... I have seen pathonumonic sugns of abuse ignored so badly I have had to step in. That is a terrible situation to be in but the choice becomes black and white step in and report or a kid could likely die and will certainly suffer more. Bottom line....it sucks!

Sorry, sorry, one more crucial thing!  If therapists, doctors, etc want to treat only the obvious manifestations they see: smoking, obesity etc etc exactly how smart are these non-outliers who profess to be so smart/effective/whathaveyou!!

Once you understand the concept of ACEs, etc you have a different world view to these things.  "They' just need to listen!

 

Part of the 'problem', I think, is that 'outliers' standout, Tina, certainly not often intentionally, but by that very definition stand alone.  When you think about it any profession requires a formal education process of some sort, by which fewer would have access to with high a ACE score and a low resilience score, as they wouldn’t be encouraged and their life is too chaotic, etc. etc.  It seems that people with high ACEs, etc who do enter professions either have someone modeling a better way for them or by (what seems to me and I envy those who have it!) some freak of nature thing happening where they are determined to throw themselves in study as a way of escape, and/or a better life for themselves and others.  Or maybe they're just intelligent   Anyway, they're the outliers.

So if you’ve experienced high ACEs and low resilience when young you’re far more likely to a very different person to most that enter tertiary education of any description.

Already that presents a problem (!):

  • You don’t assume so many things about the way people ‘should’ live as a given
  • You have had to do the hard yards to get yourself through university and beyond–financially,         emotionally, etc
  • At times of crisis you often only have yourself to pull through – no ringing mom for guidance!
  • No one but you to pick the kids up after school or make arrangements
  • You can’t talk about your family of origin at all, ‘cos it does/would completely freak them out,          whereas you know all about their families and their get togethers, etc.  There is a lingering          sense of shame in that, which shouldn’t occur, but does
  • You understand and appreciate that life isn’t black and white but mostly all grey and more          complex than most are willing to acknowledge
  • You therefore don’t judge others as harshly and like gossip for gossip’s sake, but are keen to really      try to understand human behaviour/motivations
  • You feel much more uncomfortable with the tribal ‘them’ and ‘us’ culture which pervades so much of the different strata’s of society
  • You find the nuances of middle class values, beliefs and mannerisms etc difficult at times to acquire, particularly if you don’t agree with them, but have to utilize them in order to not be too out there/fit in
  • Possibly there are some overlapping points in the above but I’m sure you get the gist! 

Therefore anyone with 'harsher' life experiences (particularly from childhood) entering into the          world of ‘professionals’ is naturally going to cause/find some(!) friction.

 

It’s quite a perennial problem and so what is the solution?!  That’s the trickier question.  I believe that

people such as ‘us’ need to be there and need to be heard.  It’s just such a goddamn lonely/alienating          place where no one likes to be the martyr that you need to be.  Educating those who are totally ignorant

to other ways of being.  Uncomfortable question:  if we were in their position would we be the same?! 

If we hadn’t had the childhoods we had etc then would we be any the wiser than those who judge others?

But that’s irrelevant here because we have such experiences and cannot undo them.  Out of our control.

It has made us richer in many ways for such experiences, but not in a way that helps in most professions.  It just gets in the way of black and white thinking...!

Does this sound … bitter.  It’s not.  Well it’s not meant to come across as completely bitter. 

It’s just the way it is, or I’m guessing the way it has been for a few of us here!  Yes Cissy, it’s good to offload to those who are the few that can truly can get it.

It does mean that further education in the trauma arena of TIC, ACEs etc needs to occur across the board,

just as minority groups have had to take a stand and have won to varying degrees: e.g. race, women, gay

rights, etc

So, do we want professionals to screen for ACEs?  Sure we do, but only with the headset of understanding

what’s happened to the patient: to empower them and to ensure further resiliency can occur.

Phew!  That's me done for a while!

Hi Cissy, 

 

I want to screen for ACEs in pediatrics because I want to give information to people who don't have it and could use it.  The thing is (and this won't be written well because it is quick) the professionals I have worked with (I have not worked as a pediatrician --- my choice to focus on eliminating ACES/childhood adversity/toxic stress -- for almost a year because of the stigma I have faced due to factors associated with exposing my high ACE score) my partners don't want to screen because they say  "parents will feel judged".  

 

However, why would parents feel judged by physicians and why would you come to that conclusion unless you the, medical provider, is ready to judge your patients?  

 

(But even without such history I see you medical providers judging their patients all the time, for being poor, for smoking, for not being clean enough, for the child having stinky feet, for having lice, for being "non-compliant" -- It can feel like a cheese grater to my skin).  

 

This thought never enters my exam room.  I don't judge this stuff.  I understand the difficulties patient's present with but the stigma and judgmental way in which my  professional colleagues??? treat our patients affects me in several ways:

 

If I am open with my patients in this judgmental society and ask them about these factors that do affect their health and will their children if the parent is not mindful, the parent could get confused and think I am judging especially in a group  practice where the other colleagues are not on-board and frankly very often are judgmental.

 

Secondly, I might be attacked by my colleagues (and I have been for having a skill with working with some parents who are really struggling and difficult to work with because I understand this place of having a high ACE score) and then my own ACEs have been used to say I must be incompetent   ---- now my shame, that remnant of a very abusive childhood,  tells me my high ACE score somehow makes me undesirable to work around for normal doctors --- however --- I think I am not ill, but instead I have a persistent sense of urgency that we as physicians must come to address childhood adversity and toxic stress in pediatrics if we wish to help parents and children. It is easier to believe we are doing well by giving immunizations to prevent infectious diseases and we give antibiotics to cure pneumonia.  It is hard to know you work with one doctor who has experienced and lived one of the most tragic childhood diseases we still need to conquer in pediatrics --- my colleagues, many of them would rather maintain that  state of blissful ignorance by discussing how to keep teens from smoking, or kids from getting obese by sending them to a dietitian while completely ignoring the abuse and domestic violence that are stressing these kids out and leading to the smoking, over eating, drug and alcohol use.   It is difficult to work with someone who plasters handouts and research papers on ACEs and Toxic Stress all over her desk and basically has it tattooed on her forehead... "If you want to prevent obesity, smoking, drug use and addiction --- tackle ACEs! Please!"

 

I don't know how to get around this except go to work where I am not the only one who understands why getting to this is important and others don't live in denial.

 

The thing to me is I was trained at Michigan to get a really good psychosocial history on all patients. So beginning students wouldn't miss components of the history, we asked all these indepth questions on all patients so that helped me get good at this too and you learn a lot doing that --- and all I can wonder is where did all that training go???

 

Hum? I am wondering if I am not acting inferior/superior???? Not good for an organization or profession. 

 

A conversation got me thinking.  The goal is to make things better.... I may have more to say later..  

 

 

 

 

Last edited by Former Member

There's so much to respond to....

 

Tina: Like you - I am frustrated by the stigma and I think that's where we with high ACES and those with any diagnosis can be allies. To me, the pathologizing of children and women (and men too) injured by violence and neglect doesn't do a lot for social change but it medicalizes people in pain and labels and stigmatizes. I would not trust employers or even most medical professionals with ACE data. I mean I've already outed myself but like you Tina - it's a risk and it's not without consequence. At this age and stage of my life it's a choice and one consciously and deliberately made. But it's not one I could have made before my 40's.

And I've thought about the stigma issue a lot. I struggled with my own website name. It's Heal Write Now and the tag line is how to live on earth when you were raised in hell. And I want it to be hopeful and honest and with no labels. There's so much of our experience that we don't define and haven't "language" because others have been speaking for us instead of listening or speaking with us. I think the language is alienating at times as a result.

 

John,

I love the idea of an Enthusiastic Truth. But the tag line - does it feel like family confuses me. Honestly, because of my own experience it makes me recoil a little. While family SHOULD feel good and safe, etc. it's SO NOT the experience of so many. I know even now I am the least comfortable in my own skin with family of origin. Does it feel like family is exactly what I don't want it to feel like. Maybe I missed the intent.

I'm so glad your wife is also speaking out for herself and others!!! We need all of our voices and as many allies as possible.

 

I am loving the energy of these conversations. I'm not great at creating community though I do what I can via writing. But I do appreciate these online conversations about what we want to change, what could be more fair, what we need, want and know. I've never felt supported by chat groups where we share what went wrong or what or who did what. I've written a ton about those things though. But I find conversation and brainstorming and talking about what it's like in the now more healing. To me, that's the part that is so simple and missing.

Just conversation about what it's like in the now.

Anyhow, glad to have some of it here and online - thanks to Jane and everyone who is here!

Cissy

All these inspiring thoughts and desire for action!  

I do have to agree with Tina about the concern of ACEs possibly being misused.  ACEs and the Resilience questionnaire are powerful tools in the screening and understanding of trauma, etc but just as this can be used for the good it can conversely be misused.  To me, the ACE screening tools belong with a person's medical records  or the equivalent - completely private and confidential.  And ONLY given to those who are in the therapy or education practices - ie those caring/supporting their clientele and family.  I can see that there would be those who could use it for purposes that are totally the antithesis of what they're meant to be about.  Think about the seemingly endless industries that would love to get hold of such information for their own (largely economic) purposes:  insurance companies, employment agencies, to name just a few.  It's akin to giving your DNA profile away, not knowing how it is going to be used (or misused).  There needs some very careful planning guidelines around this.  There are naturally potential legal implications in this as well.

But a film about ACEs equivalent to An Inconvenient Truth?  Wow, that's ambitious, John! Go for it!

And Cissy, I shall continue to think about the idea of Bravery Awards or suchlike! 

It is so pleases to me to read these posts. There was a program on UCTV a few years ago during which the presenter talked about how similar the signs/symptoms of PTSD in women are with Borderline Personality Disorder. She pointed out that many women are being misdiagnosed with a label that will curse them for the rest their lives. This is appalling and, I think, an outcome of our real stories being stifled.

Another thought that occurred while reading these strong posts: A few years ago during an ACOA meeting it suddenly seemed clear to me that these traumatic childhood events took place while our little brains were learning HOW TO BE IN THE WORLD. Our adaptions as confused, frightened children became our way of being. I still think that's true. There is so much to relearn with this understanding. I find it exciting and look forward to continuing with eyes and mouth wide open.

I have a question.  

 

Is it mental illness or even brain dysfunction the anxiety, panic, even drug addiction that can result from exposure to childhood adversity.  There can be no denying that brains that experience early adversity and attachment trauma form improperly but expectably and predictably based on the experience so is this mental illness or brain dysfunction?  I don't think it is.  It would probably be brain dysfunction if the brain did not develop these adaptations.   For sure the anxiety, panic, and addictions  produce "dis-ease" that without mindfulness can harm others but I am not at all convinced they are diseases.  Yes we would be happier, healthier etc if society allowed us to freely discuss what happened to us grouping up without throwing unwanted, unhelpful and damaging stigma on us.  Society in not accepting the truth of the human condition and wishing to stay in a state of unhelpful, blissful denial is giving us another ACE and not helping herself.   Keeping this stuff inside is terribly damaging.  I consider it pus from an abcess and the treatment is incision and drainage.  However, I would never consider someone who had been in an auto accident, suffered a badly damaged leg that required amputation to be diseased.  I would think that person experienced a trauma and no-longer has a leg, lets get her a prosthesis.    We do not delegate diminished human status to those who have suffered from physical trauma, why do we with psychological trauma?   It is a little confusing to me and somewhat non-sensical.   Thanks Cissy for another great post.  (Oh and I have not read Donna's book yet). 

Last edited by Former Member
I would be really concerned about a company wanting my ace score.. With uneducated (basically ignorant) companies knowing your score I can see discriminatory hiring practices.   I talk my score and I have suffered dearly for letting that knowledge out. There are however so many of us with high ACEs as we reach others and help them know first on a forum such as here we may be able to get to a point where we can be a chorus speaking our aces and speaking as the aces heroes we are not as the less human  diseased folks the rampant and unwarranted stigma makes us out to be. I cannot wait for the day to come!!! I can't wait to hear us all singing together proud and free!
Last edited by Former Member
Dearest Cissy
So thrilled I made your day! You deserve to know that my current wife is also my hero. She says I saved her life. ..and I think it came from sitting in the hot tub in Montana for a few weeks 20 years ago and asking questions no one had EVER asked and letting her know each moment that I would catch her if she faltered. It took her 3 full years to finally believe that there was no other shoe to drop.
Those life traumas never GO AWAY. Yet facing them as you two have has to make you stronger. 
Someone recently wrote on The Connection what I believe can make a difference more quickly and loudly.  It was my idea from the start: They said that this ACE issue was the emotional /moral equivalent of Al Gore's movie Inconvenient Truth.
I  gave a presentation 10 years ago called Enthusiastic Truth.  That would bring this out into the open! After my hero wife fought and won her battle with her past she found the courage to talk about it with friends and was stunned to find so many people had many similar issues.
In this new Era of Coming Out why shouldn't we push it into the world view?

My son and his buddy are film makers and I have proposed a movie called : ENTHUSIASTIC TRUTH: THE ACE REVOLUTION. ..DOES IT FEEL LIKE FAMILY?

I have been trying to start a dialogue in Nashville,  the Capitol of Healthcare to start having every patient take the ACE test..there is already an app for it to take it in private. Hell, every company should know your score as you were hired so they could help you grow and develop skills and experience as you become STRONGER. 
As long as we continue to hide in the shadows and shame. ..souls will suffer.  I believe every company, school and association should daily ask the question. .Does it feel like family?  That is what we all are hungry for!  To belong and be HONORED for our differences. 
I am about to propose a Kickstarter campaign to fund the movie. I  know I can sell it on stage because I CARE that much...

NoAces.club is our goal and shame and shadows are the enemies.  How else can we ALL WIN?
Dear Mem:
I've done decades of therapy but I also don't see therapy as helping much towards making social change. For many of us, it's life improving and life saving. I've certainly felt I've burdened friendships and love relationships less by paying a therapist for support when I've needed more than the average bear. For that I'm grateful. It's a fair exchange. But I think the system needs to be changed. When survivors of abuse, neglect and dysfunction are treated, but not those who cause it - things don't change that much. Far too many survivors are going to therapy while abuse, addiction and mental illness remain untreated and rampant in families. The ones seeking help and support get a diagnosis and the ones who are in disease or in denial don't get a label. When I was in the adoption process I saw how people who were in active recovery from addiction or who had been treated for depression, anxiety, PTSD had more trouble adopting. But if someone is a raging drunk but presents well at a meeting, there's no red flag. There's still risks to disclosing and sharing and being honest. And there's still benefits to being in denial. That makes it hard for deep and systemic changes to happen in families and in society.
And while there are some talented and genius individuals who are treatment providers and social changers (like Belleruth Naperstek and Rick Hanson - who treat PTSD like a physical ailment more than a personality problem) that's still not common enough in my view.
And thank you for your words about my writing. I think of writing as social change like the feminists have always said: The personal is political. I used to think I didn't have a right to say stuff or complain until or unless I was totally healed or had a better plan. I no longer think that. I think it's ok to say and share here's how it is for us and just make sure our voices are heard and part of the conversation too..
 
I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS:
"We need to be reminded that while of course there may be others worse off, and always will be, what we may have gone through could be one of the last bastions of minority silence, forbidden by the very loud silence one receives if one dares to try to explain even a little about their family of origin.  This is what happened to me, not what is wrong with me.  I do think differently from those who have not had a lot of trauma, absolutely undeniable.  Yet I feel that this is also a plus into seeing what's important in life etc.  I believe we are also not on an 'even playing field' with those who have not experienced such setbacks in the 'normal' world. Wouldnt it be uplifting to think that one day we could be able to openly discuss and be acknowledged, the hope being that one can let others know who may not have experienced high aces, low resilience, etc but is is just as justifable to be open as a person from a 'normal' family can be. And that this is given understanding not pity or uncomfortable silence.  This is why getting ACEs out there to all is not merely a desire, but  is a great need."
I SO AGREE WITH EVERY WORD. The fact that one of the only places we can speak, is in therapy, makes it feel stigmatizing and shaming. The only people willing to hear us have to be paid in exchange. It's hard not to feel shame when people are paid 100 plus just to be willing to listen to us and people have to utter a trigger warning when we speak. To me, that's not welcoming or encouraging or validating. I've done it. I'll take what I can get. Sometimes it's been the only place to talk, share or unburden. However, there's a stigma with having to whisper or get a diagnosis or pay money to speak your truth.
It doesn't feel good.
I - like you - more and more feel like we have important insights and contributions and not just that it's great if we're well tolerated. I think we are kind of essential and necessary and have to be pretty gritty and tough to be here at all. There are things we didn't learn and get but we did learn a lot about life along the way and some of it is worthy of being heard, for free- or maybe even of being valued.... RADICAL, right?
This is starting to happen more and more with us speaking directly TO one another and for ourselves and I find it thrilling!
I like Bravery Awards and just connecting directly. Thank you for your words, work and experience too! SERIOUSLY!!!
Cissy

 

Tina,

Thank you! I admire YOUR work so very much!!!! Have you read Donna's book yet? I'm hopeful it and others will keep making these topics more mainstream. And also that we will keep speaking for ourselves and from our own experiences as Kathy B. does and has been doing and others do as well. There's so much work to be done but things are really shifting and that's hopeful, huh?

Cissy

 

Originally Posted by Tina Marie Hahn, MD:

ACEs, Toxic Stress are the basis of the greatest Public Health Crisis of our time and has been the greatest public health crisis for all of modern society but movements like this can finally bring this crisis to the fore with all our work and all our persistence We can Be the Change we All Need To See.   Thanks Cissy.  

 

I love your work so very much.  

 

T

 

Scott:
I'm with you. I think we are going to see huge changes in our lifetime in treatments, awakening and understanding. And we are not alone and finding each other more and more thanks to social media and sites like this one. To me, it's not enough to whisper to one another in support groups or in therapy - the public conversation needs to be changed and the shame and secrecy are not helpful. Privacy is one thing but when there are few people who can truly hear it's not privacy as in a choice but secrecy as in knowing people prefer we keep quiet. But I too believe all of our voices are needed.
Keep up the good work!
Cissy
 

Thank you for the validation. I've been "out" for the past several years mostly because I just couldn't it in. And feeling like I was going crazy. People are generally uncomfortable when I speak about what I believe is now necessary for a larger audience to hear. Unacknowledged childhood trauma IS the public health crisis of our time. And there are people who hear me and privately confide their own ACEs. I believe we are working in the trenches of a rapid awakening.

 

Dear John:
Thank You! What wonderful support. THANK YOU! That is so kind.
It's SO interesting to hear your perspective as a Dad and ex-husband. And how wonderful that you are so aware of the impact of your own being well-parented as well as the converse for others. I too like the idea of us all knowing our ACE numbers. Although, I have to say I don't share my number hardly at all only that I'm a high ACE scorer. It's not that I do not share any details of my life - because at this point I do - but because of the judgment of others. Still, there's such stigma to having even experienced ACES. People do not generally react well.
I was just talking to a friend today about having workshops with high and low ACE scorers together because we can each learn from each other about different ways we were raised and how that impacts us now
I feel like two things have been the most healing for me.
1. Being able to utter the absolute and total truth, to myself in a journal or to a therapist or friend.
2. Talking to others with shared experiences AND without shared experiences.
It's the combination of validation and re-education.
I feel like there's such relief in being honest but then there's the need to backfill and fill the well and learn what strengthens and nurtures and fortifies.
Recently, I realized a gap in my own parenting. I taught my daughter how to deal with predators but not with boys who like her. I am so primed to think of the world in threat that she got self-defense (not a bad thing for any child) but I didn't even talk to her about the whole being asked out or liking or the age appropriate things. However, I had taught her how to defend herself if assaulted. This reveals a lot about my past and not enough about her needs. Those moments are hard and I see that I still bring my "stuff" with me and that's difficult because she does not deserve that stuff of mine. I need my friends who have raised adult children who are strong and vibrant who I can turn to and say, "This just happened. What should I be doing instead or what did you do when your kids were my age, etc."
I know what not to do but always what TO DO instead.
O.k. that was a tangent.
Thank you so much. YOU MADE MY DAY.
I appreciate it so much.
I'm on the East Coast and if you're even in New England let me know and we can brainstorm about how ACE scores can change the world
Cissy
you ever get down there away I look to get into please let me know if you ever get down there the way I look together to you in person. You should be so proud! !!

 

One can see why many therapists often don't really want to get to the heart of the matter because it can be so traumatising for them, if indeed they know how. It would be more unusual than usual I'm guessing (and through experience) that therapists can really be there for you, yet not be emotionally overloaded themselves. And if they're good at it, people would flock to them if they could, through word of mouth etc and it's a lot for a good therapist to have to make up for other therapists who are not able to treat in the manner needed. Tricky!

The science behind how the brain changes, epigenics, etc is a fascinating one.  But it also needs the raw human voice of lived experience to articulate what is going on.  Cissy, you do this so fabulously. It strikes a very strong chord in me as truth telling. Writing it seems, is very therapeutic - empowering and giving hope.  Key ingredients in recovery.  We cannot remain silent and thinking the situation is only ours to bear.  That is why I wrote earlier about bravery medals.  I kinda meant it!  We need to be reminded that while of course there may be others worse off, and always will be, what we may have gone through could be one of the last bastions of minority silence, forbidden by the very loud silence one receives if one dares to try to explain even a little about their family of origin.  This is what happened to me, not what is wrong with me.  I do think differently from those who have not had a lot of trauma, absolutely undeniable.  Yet I feel that this is also a plus into seeing what's important in life etc.  I believe we are also not on an 'even playing field' with those who have not experienced such setbacks in the 'normal' world. Wouldnt it be uplifting to think that one day we could be able to openly discuss and be acknowledged, the hope being that one can let others know who may not have experienced high aces, low resilience, etc but is is just as justifable to be open as a person from a 'normal' family can be. And that this is given understanding not pity or uncomfortable silence.  This is why getting ACEs out there to all is not merely a desire, but  is a great need.   Yes, it takes an articulated movement.  Hope this makes some sense!

ACEs, Toxic Stress are the basis of the greatest Public Health Crisis of our time and has been the greatest public health crisis for all of modern society but movements like this can finally bring this crisis to the fore with all our work and all our persistence We can Be the Change we All Need To See.   Thanks Cissy.  

 

I love your work so very much.  

 

T

Thank you for the validation. I've been "out" for the past several years mostly because I just couldn't it in. And feeling like I was going crazy. People are generally uncomfortable when I speak about what I believe is now necessary for a larger audience to hear. Unacknowledged childhood trauma IS the public health crisis of our time. And there are people who hear me and privately confide their own ACEs. I believe we are working in the trenches of a rapid awakening.

You are a hero this morning!  I happened to be a 0 and have felt the pain of the women in my life who have suffered like you.  My first wife is still hiding behind the shame and our children worry about her heart that she has kept from them.
I found a great report here in Tennessee regarding ACE scores and have an upcoming meeting set with the first lady of Tennessee havin up coming meeting set with the first lady of tennessee Crissy  Haslam.  I  am known as the Greatful Dad and happen to be a ZERO but am trying to pay it forward each day because I know how lucky I was to be raised by great  parents.  I  bought the domain name NoACES.club as a future goal. I will speak anywhere I get a chance and I'm calling it  the Aces revolution where the whole world declares their number. You're coming out is an indication of the strength that can be gained from attacking it head on instead of burying  your head in the sand.  This morning I give you a standing ovation and a big hug for your courage. Please let me know if you ever get down Nashville way I'd love to give  please let me know if you ever get down there away I look to get into please let me know if you ever get down there the way I look together to you in person. You should be so proud! !!
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