For people going through a divorce, a technique called narrative expressive writing -- not just writing about their emotions, but creating a meaningful narrative of their experience -- may reduce the harmful cardiovascular effects of stress related to marital separation, reports a new study. Full link to study summary.
Note: Dawn Daum & Joyelle Bran dt are the featured guests on the live chat held in the Parenting with ACEs Group on Tuesday, June 13th at 10 AM PST / 1 PM PST. The topic is Parenting with PTSD & ACEs. Dawn and Joyelle are artists, activists and parents. They met a few years ago and set about creating an online community for parent survivors to working to break the cycle of abuse. Here's a small sample of the work they have done and are doing: Wrote a resource about Parenting as an...
Mayo Clinic researchers report that women who suffered adverse childhood experiences or abuse as an adult are 62 percent more likely to have their ovaries removed before age 46. These removals are for reasons other than the presence of ovarian cancer or a high genetic risk of developing cancer, says the new study published today in BMJ Open. In previous studies examining the effects of removing the ovaries of younger women, the research team has demonstrated a myriad of health risks...
Around 10:30 one night, I walked across the emergency department to see my next patient, a woman who’d had a panic attack. I took a deep breath before turning the corner, partly because you never know what you’ll see next, and partly because I was three months pregnant and a little queasy. I found a worried looking young woman with an eight-month baby bump. “Hi, doctor” she said. “I’m sorry about this. My boyfriend lost his job and I got overwhelmed.” [For more of this story, written by...
The ready availability of tools to hide teen social media use can be problematic, leading teens to overshare images, videos and commentary. But that privacy has long been proven to be unreliable, because information shared within a private group can be easily captured in a screenshot and shared with a wider audience. The notion of privacy online is only as reliable as teens relationships with other users, and that combined with general privacy concerns provides little guarantee that online...
"Why don’t you love me? Why don’t you care enough to care?," writes the high school girl who wrote a letter to her alcoholic father but never mailed it. She asked me to share it on my blogs, instead. It’s the rawness of her hurt, so many years into her life, that drew me to share her letter. Helping children and adults understand the secondhand drinking (SHD) impacts a child experiences when growing up with a parent’s alcoholism* is essential to helping a child (or an adult child) heal from...
"You know. I feel like people are blessed to have both parents in their life. Um... I wasn't. My parents have always been separated and you know, as a kid, to have your mom 1000 miles away and your Dad 1000 miles away. Apart.... So you know, no matter how far apart they are, I always just tried to be the one in the middle bringing them together. You know, it's just tough for a kid." Fik-Shun I like dance videos the way some like cat videos. Here's one of my all-time favorites. It is the of a...
I wonder if ACEs science is known, considered or used by a neuroscientist such as Insel? I read stories, like the one below as a parent and a trauma survivor and am as fascinated as I am troubled. My hope is that technology and health data tracking will be used to better treat people and to treat people better? Here are some excerpts from an interesting article in Wired which was written by Adam Rogers: Insel’s hopes for research have always been outsized. You might remember the...
This is an interesting piece of research that shows how parenting is harder for some of us than others, not just psychologically but neurologically. The effects of our own early experiences of abuse, neglect, or other family adversity has long reaching effects into the future. A good place to start is to recognize it is harder, and be kinder to ourselves and offer ourselves the much needed support we require. # ParentingwithACEs is # ParentingwithaDisability and it is time we show...
Our next online chat event is fast approaching. All are welcome. Date: Tuesday, June 13th, 2017 (10 AM PST / 1 PM EST) Topic: Parenting, PTSD & ACEs. Guests: Dawn Daum & Joyelle Brandt are parents, writers, advocates and trauma survivors. Together, they edited the forthcoming Parenting with PTSD anthology and created an online community for parents recovering from childhood abuse. They educate mental health, human service and other professionals about the challenges and lived...
Note: I saw this article by Robyn E. Brickel, MA, LMFT on my Facebook newsfeed today. Times have changed! How great to find resources more readily available. Many of us are not only trauma survivor parents but we are related to, in love with or partnering with adults who are as well. This is a helpful resource to help us better understand our/their sometimes fearful and withdrawing reactions. I'm also sharing that I got an email from someone at 2 a.m. last night who said that research...
Why do people cut themselves? Here's a story of my work with Renee and how we helped her find better ways to deal.
I learned about a new research paper entitled, "Modifiable Resilience Factors to Childhood Adversity for Clinical Pediatric Practice" co-authored by Flora Taub and Renée Boynton-Jarret (pictured above). It was just published in Pediatrics which is the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics). Here's the link to the abstract. I'm not going to pretend I subscribe to Pediatrics. I don't. However, I have been interested in the work of Renée Boynton-Jarret ever since writing a...
This blog post is about the complex relationship between a parent’s incarceration and a child’s academic success. For me this relationship is personal and scholastic. I was in fifth grade when my father, a lawyer, received a two-to-five year prison sentence for larceny. Although my family was confronted with the same challenges other families face when a parent is incarcerated (i.e. housing and food insecurity, inadequate heath care, childcare challenges, etc.), we also had considerable...
Wonderful piece of writing on the ATN blog. It's by Janyne McConnaughey, Ph.D. Here's an excerpt: Staring at the analog clock in my therapist’s office, I wondered which hand was the big hand and struggled with my need not to go over my time. “I can’t read the clock,” I said. It was awkward because I was 62, but I really wasn’t. This awkward therapy moment is brought to you by my dissociative disorder. It was a watershed moment in understanding one possible reason for uneven learning in the...