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By Abigail E Russell, Jon Heron, David Gunnell, et al., Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, September 4, 2019 Background Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as physical and emotional abuse are strongly associated with self‐harm, but mechanisms underlying this relationship are unclear. Inflammation has been linked to both the experience of ACEs and self‐harm or suicide in prior research. This is the first study to examine whether inflammatory markers mediate the association...

By Jeremy Loudenback, Chronicle of Social Change, September 19, 2019 Soon after being appointed California’s first-ever surgeon general, Nadine Burke Harris took off on a barnstorming tour across the state to talk about adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress, an issue she calls “the biggest public health crisis facing California today.” Before the pediatrician was appointed to her position in January by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), Harris had founded and led the Center for Youth Wellness,...

By Randy, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, September 18, 2019 I grew up on the South Side of Chicago. You might know it by “Chiraq,” but we all call it Englewood and it’s a lot of love and a lot of hate out here. Where I live, in my neighborhood, there’s always shootings. Have you ever heard that motto, “Kill or be killed”? That describes Chicago to the fullest in my experience. I first saw my cousin get killed when I was 11. I’ve been arrested on gun charges three different times.

In the U.S., an estimated 17.3 million American adults (7.1% of the adult population), experienced at least one major depressive episode in 2017. 1 The highest rates are reported among those aged between 18 and 25. 2 However, not only is there evidence that depression is vastly overdiagnosed, but there's also evidence showing it's routinely mistreated. With regard to overdiagnosis, one 2013 study 3 found only 38.4% of participants with clinician-identified depression actually met the DSM-4...

By Scott Stossel, The New York Times, September 17, 2019 When you’ve been in psychotherapy for as long as I have, you end up talking to your therapists from time to time about writers — Freud and Kierkegaard, let’s say, or Brené Brown and Tara Brach — whose insights might, or so you hope, have relevance to your treatment. But no writer have I pushed more fervidly on a therapist than Raina Telgemeier. “Look at this,” I said to my psychologist a few weeks ago, thrusting some splayed-open pages...

Being a part of the ACEs Connection community has helped this podcast continue to grow in its reach. Both through amazing guests who have reached out to join me on air to discuss their vital work in trauma-related fields and/or personal stories of triumph over trauma, but also in my audience. I feel blessed to be a part of this space.

"The reality of my own “adverse childhood experiences” is just catching up with me at age 73. My guess is I’m not alone."

Thoughts to share - ‘'Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.’' Samuel Ullman “We cannot all do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa “When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” Paulo Coelho Have a good day, Michael Skinner A diagnosis is not a destiny “ Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that...

By The Marshall Project, September 18, 2019 The stories in “We Are Witnesses: Chicago” are not meant to soothe, but rather to agitate, to poke and prod our assumptions, to force us to wrangle with the way justice looks in Chicago. With candor and directness, these men and women speak to who we are as a city and who we are as a nation. They speak of forgiveness and of second chances. They speak of anguish alongside joy. They speak of vengeance pitted against forbearance. In their stories,...

By Trudy Lieberman, Center for Health Journalism, September 17, 2019 Pity the poor consumer trying to understand the coming Congressional debate over surprise medical bills. Recall they are those staggering amounts of debt heaped on unsuspecting patients after they believed insurance had paid for their care. Those bills are growing rapidly and ensnaring more and more Americans in what has become one of the medical industry’s most unsavory business practices. And yet as unseemly as the...

By Elizabeth Arnold, Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center, May 29, 2018 In July of 2008, as a national broadcast correspondent, I reported on environmental conditions in Newtok, a remote community of roughly 400 Yup’ik people in Northwest Alaska. Newtok was losing forty to a hundred feet of coastline a year to erosion, and sinking because of “permafrost” that is no longer permanent, the direct result of a warming climate. Flooding threatened homes, the school, and the only supply of...

By Taressa K. Fraze, Amanda L. Brewster, Valerie A. Lewis, et al., JAMA Network Open, September 18, 2019 Question: What types of physician practices and hospitals self-report screening patients for food, housing, transportation, utilities, and interpersonal violence needs? Findings: In a cross-sectional study of US hospitals and physician practices, approximately 24% of hospitals and 16% of physician practices reported screening for food insecurity, housing instability, utility needs,...