If we are lucky enough to be healthy, we probably don't worry all that much about health. If we are sick, we think about health issues all of the time.
If we are lucky enough be wealthy, we probably don't worry all that much about money. If we are poor, we think about money stuff a lot.
If we aren't hurt by racism or sexism or one of the many "isms," we might not even be aware these inequities exist. But if "isms" have hurt us, made life more difficult and less fair, we're probably acutely aware of them. We probably have lots of thoughts and feelings about how and why even if we aren't full-time activists.
If we have been impacted by adverse childhood experiences, we already know about ACEs. Learning about ACEs, formally, means we learn what they are called and the impact they have. I think people don't know that adults come to adulthood thinking and believing ACEs are just normal childhood experiences. Many of us come to parenting without ever even knowing what it's like to feel safe, attached and dependent on others.
We don't know that others have and expect those experiences or that we, as parents, are responsible for providing that.
One of the many reasons I love knowing about ACEs science is that it has helped me understand myself, my own parents and the challenges of many other parents.
I look at this image on the right. It's fragmented and chaotic. It's how I came to adulthood. And parenthood, to some extent.
I didn't know the image on the left was even an option or is the way others come to adulthood - and parenthood.
The one on the right is not different. It's got all the same pieces and parts. The colors and content are the same. But the one on the right has been cut, spliced and rearranged.
Many of us come to parenting not knowing we have been cut, spliced and re-arranged by childhood experiences and what the "uncut" version of us would be.
When I learned about ACEs I was not upset, triggered or traumatized. I was relieved.
It made sense. I had a context and a perspective I'd lacked.
I was shocked. But what shocked me is that so many people had so few ACEs and that any person at all had 0 ACEs. I actually didn't believe because I don't think I know a person with 0 ACEs. Still. My experiences, to me, were normal.
That's true for most of us. We don't realize how we are different until we meet people with different experiences.
As a kid, I didn't know my childhood would someday be called traumatic. I never thought, "I will probably require lots of evidence-based therapy."
I thought other people seemed to swim and maneuver through the world better than I did and so I must be doing something wrong. I didn't know they had more support. safety or security or that those are things I lacked. I thought I lacked.
Others seemed happier, lighter and more easy going and so to me, the problem was me. It wasn't until my anxiety got so bad, during college, that I got therapy and learned new things. I was 23 before I even considered my childhood as "an issue" I had to address. I did so because I was suffering. And because I was in college where health services, were free and where doctors and therapists all shared an office.
I think about my mother at 23. She had a 7, 5 and 3 year old kid, a full-time job, was battling cancer, was getting no child or emotional support from her first husband, who had been abusive, and was married to a man who was 49 and had three children who moved in with us.
She was full up on getting through the day and cancer. Her childhood was rough, too. She had no free time to get more present as a mother. It's pretty hard to think about the past at all when the present takes every single ounce to endure. How does one break-the-cycle without knowing which parts are broken, where the glue is and what the way is to make change?
What if she had learned about ACEs in highschool as the kids in Paper Tigers did? I wonder. It won't change everything but it can improve things.
To me, the earlier people get ACEs information, particularly in educational and neutral settings where it's just shared as facts, and not as pathology - the better.
ACEs can help provide information about the past. It puts the past into context so we can better understand childhood. Even now, my mother is almost 70 and she is thinking about some of this stuff more than ever. She can see how things are different for her grandchildren than they were for us, her children, or for her or her own parents.
It's never too late to learn.
And what we learn at any age changes things. For me, it changes how I parent still 14 years into my parenting.
I used to fear that my kid wouldn't be tough if I was too soft, especially when she was a toddler.I feared she wouldn't be street smart or able to cope with crap if she didn't have practice as a kid. I don't believe that now that I get she does need to make mistakes and her own choices. But I don't think she has to practice pain in order to get used to coping with it which is what I used to believe. Now, I want her to know how to decrease pain or get support not just how to better tolerate pain.
There's a difference.
I also have more compassion for my mother. I understand more about where she was coming from and how she was unable to meet my needs.
And also, that my needs mattered.
Those things are both powerful.
However, it's most powerful to learn that the fewer ACEs my daughter has, the less risks she will have. I know my parenting actually matters. I can debunk my own myths like attachment is spoiling, that kids don't remember the first few years so it doesn't matter what happens and that spanking is fine.
This ACEs stuff helps me. Past. Present. Future.
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