Childhood Disrupted

Former PACEs Connection employees Dana Brown (L) with Vincent Felitti, MD, co-author of the 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences study, and Carey Sipp (R) in San Diego in January, 2024.

The last few months have been quite challenging, but we pushed, persevered, and didn’t give up hope.

The “we” is Carey Sipp and Dana Brown. We were long-time staff members of PACEs Connection determined to reinstate the website and the resources and information we provide to communities after the platform went dormant in April when our funding stream dried up.

We both vowed to do whatever we could to keep PACEsConnection.com from slipping away because imparting information about the lifelong effects of positive and adverse childhood experiences and ways to promote nurturing conditions for children, families, and communities is too important to leave to chance. So over the last six months, we’ve spent countless hours working to keep the site and the organization alive.

With encouragement and support from two key organizations—National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives (NPSC) and PACEs Connection’s former fiscal sponsor, Third Sector New England (TSNE)—as well as from many individual supporters—PACEs Connection’s doors are again open!

Our new mission-aligned home!

“We understood the importance of PACEs Connection to have a nonprofit organizational home with similar goals under which it could operate and bring in funding to continue its work,” Diana Fishbein tells us. Dr. Fishbein is founder and co-director of NPSC.

“NPSC and PACEs Connection had worked well together on several projects over the last couple of years, so having PACEs Connection become a division of NPSC made perfect sense,” Dr. Fishbein added.

(Graphic is an example of our work together on the 2022 webinar series on Building a National Movement to Prevent Trauma and Foster Resilience.)

As its website shows, NPSC is “a professional organization dedicated to translating scientific knowledge from the field of prevention science into effective and sustainable practices, systems and policies.”

Among the 70+ organizations affiliated with NPSC is the Campaign on Trauma Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP), with which PACEs Connection has partnered for several years to advance the trauma-informed movement.

"We are thrilled that Jesse Kohler, who sits on the NPSC board and is executive director of CTIPP, will be the board liaison with PACEs Connection,” Dr. Fishbein adds.

We are happy and grateful to continue the work with CTIPP and Jesse Kohler, too!

We welcome back our 60,900 members engaged in the important work to prevent ACEs and promote health and wellbeing!

Please feel free to start posting again! Let the PACEs world – and us – know what you’ve been up to. (Posting instructions and trauma-informed community guidelines remain the same.)

Amidst the celebration of being back, we must also share this reality: We’re not out of the woods yet.

Our previous fiscal sponsor (TSNE) is kind enough to keep the social networking platform that drives PACEsConnection.com running until November 11. By November 5 (allowing time to process funds), we’ll need nearly $15K for PACEs Connection to stay afloat until March 31, 2025.

We’ve already heard from prior donors that they are ready to support the cause but we need more. The donor button is accessible here!

Also, several content contributors we've alerted are planning and preparing posts to gin up support for PACEs

Dr. Lori Dorfman, director of the Berkeley Media Studies Group, a project of the Public Health Institute, was delighted to hear news of PACEs Connection’s revitalization, and is eager to see the network continue to grow and thrive.

“BMSG has conducted research on media portrayals of ACEs science for many years. BMSG found that the number of (ACEs) stories increased dramatically after 2012 – the year science journalist Jane Stevens founded the social network comprising ACEs Too High and ACEs Connection – especially in local and regional news outlets, even though the number of stories was low compared to other topics, particularly considering how impactful ACEs are,” said Dr. Dorfman.

As we think about new blog posts and resources to add to our Resource Center, the research on media coverage and subsequent studies are on the list to help show how important news coverage is to expanding awareness of the science.

Every blog post our members share on social media helps build awareness of the need to prevent and heal trauma; to foster resilience.

Support, patience, and some of what’s ahead!

You can support PACEs Connection today by making an online donation here, or mailing a check made out to the National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives – with “PACEs Connection” on the memo line – in care of Dana Brown, 4364 Bonita Road, PMB322, Bonita, CA 91902. To make a wire transfer or other type of gift, please email Carey Sipp at carey.pacescommunities@gmail.com to receive NPSC’s wire transfer or other electronic funds transfer information. No amount is too small!

We ask you to be patient with us as we update our social networking site. There are broken links and scores of communities with new leadership. We’ve also been working on a business and sustainable funding plan so we can overhaul the site, be paid for our efforts, and hire staff as needed.

We are determined to continue to raise awareness of the impacts of adverse and positive childhood experiences. The benefits of preventing trauma and increasing positive experiences must be considered in all of our decision making, especially by parents, educators, child-serving entities, and policymakers. All organizations, including those in healthcare, business, education, childcare, and all levels of government, need to be aware of the causes and effects of trauma and well-tested approaches to prevent it.

Dr. Fishbein agrees: “We are excited about the opportunity afforded us to play a role in keeping this vitally important social network—the primary source of news and connection in the trauma prevention community—online and leveraged to further the movement to prevent trauma and build resilience.”

For more information about the origins of PACEs Connection and the history of the relationship between Vincent Felitti, MD, co-author of the 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, and Jane Stevens, founder of PACEs Connection, please click hereor visit ourHistory of PACEs Connection.

To all of you, who, like me, love this website and want to see it and its communities flourish as we work to prevent and heal trauma; build resiliency: please know there is a move afoot by a small group of strategic partners to find a suitable host for PACEs Connection.

More will be announced in the coming days. In the meantime, friends, we are figuring out email addresses and other communications logistics and opportunities.  

PEACE!

Carey Sipp, former director of strategic partnerships  

csipppaces@icloud.com

I got a big splinter in my index finger recently when I was lightly sanding door trim in preparation to prime it. It hurt and I cursed, which is a very satisfying bit of fight response that arises spontaneously now, and that I don't suppress when I'm in my own setting such as at home with no witnesses. It's a response to being hurt and "attacked," such as by the door frame I thought would be happy with its makeover.

I took the splinter in stride as just a part of painting project mode. It was so large that I pulled it out easily without even needing tweezers.

I treated my finger with soap and water, a little homeopathy with a dose or two of Arnica to support healing and minimize the pain, and a bandaid to protect it until it healed over. After it stopped hurting a day or two later, I forgot about it. This is a typical and normal response to an insignificant seeming physical trauma that is common in every day life.

Meanwhile, I kept going with my projects, including with beautification of the bathroom that I walk through on my to work in my Studio, which you see in the background.

The skin on my finger was well on its way to healing with just a shallow little bit of opening left so I didn't worry about as I worked in the dirt. Because we know from past experience that these kinds of little things happen all the time, it's normal to not worry about them. We know our bodies know how to heal.

It's when the wound still wasn't healed 2 weeks following the event that I gave it any attention again.

It didn't look infected as a potential cause for the lack of recovery. It seemed well on its way to being healed because it was small and shallow. But it really should have been covered by normal, uninterrupted skin by then. I poked around it a bit, couldn't feel any remaining splinter in there and watched some more.

The Splinter Metaphor

What follows with this splinter story is an APOE metaphor, a term I have coined as "adverse pre-onset experiences" aka APOEs. This builds on the term for our knowledge that ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) influence risk for chronic illness.

This is about how chronic illness starts for many of us within weeks or months of a stressful or traumatic event. And how we think, very normally, that this particular event is the cause. It's then bewildering when our new, quickly-becoming-chronic-from-out-of-the-blue symptoms don't resolve even when we address that triggering event by: treating the infection, which for some people never goes away (or resolves but leaves us still chronically ill), detoxing after an exposure, making time and being careful to allow our bodies to physically heal after surgery, grieving after the loss of a loved one...

I suspect most of you reading my blog have had some kind of experience similar to this, because who would spend their free time (and time we have to carve out from other things) reading about trauma if we weren't trying to figure out symptoms that haven't responded to the seemingly logical, sometimes easy, sometimes scary, but typically straight-forward things?

This splinter APOE metaphor dives deeper into what I think of as underlying drivers of chronic illness: the earlier, unresolved, invisible adverse experiences and traumas that happened long before the triggering event / APOE. In this context, the APOE is the straw that breaks the camel's back. It's the last event in a series, rather than the first or the only traumatic event.

This APOE metaphor is also about what can support the healing.

Paying Attention

With my focus now on the fact that I had a symptom, I looked more closely and paid more attention. I noticed there did seem to be slight swelling. But that seemed potentially normal following a big splinter experience.

I wondered if there remained a bit of splinter in there as the seemingly most logical cause of this problem.

I opened it up and dug around a bit with a sterilized needle, used a magnifying lens, had David take a look in case he could see better, but there was nothing.

I Googled and didn't see much beyond what I was doing although some people did have success soaking in warm salt water. I tried that a few times. No change. Still not healing.

It wasn't red, or painful and there was no other evidence of infection, but that seemed a reasonable next cause of the problem.

So I decided I perhaps needed to help it a little more overtly.

As many of us do, I chided myself.

Given the persistence of a symptom my body should have been able to easily take care of, I figured maybe I had done something wrong. Maybe I hadn't been careful enough in the beginning with my little treatment plan. Or maybe I was being averse to antibiotics and that would have been an appropriate thing to do. For those of us who go into self-blame, it's typically from a set of negative beliefs learned from experiences with our caregivers in childhood (ACREs ie: adverse childhood relationship experiences).

I applied a little topical antibiotic cream for a few days. Covered it with a bandaid. And once again carried on with daily life.

It healed completely within a few days.

It was April. Spring and the earth were calling. I created a new path with heavy flagstone. Then, after having a great time at the local nursery, I planted an entire flat of baby perennials that would stay short and bloom. I didn't worry about my newly healed finger.

A Little Fear

And then not only did the little wound reappear, it looked worse. This time, there was clearly infection.

As is also common when we have unexpected symptoms that aren't resolving with traditional approaches, that's probably when I started to feel a little fear.

It was still a really small symptom but something was clearly not right.

There was no redness or pain to suggest the infection was expanding beyond the little bit of active white cells that were gathering at the trauma site (the pus).

Not Doing it "Right"

Part of the fear was that I might not being doing this right (sound familiar?). Or that I might need to see my family doctor for a little help.

It's wonderful to have good people for support and treatment, but who wants to spend time in a medical setting when it's not necessary, even for little things? I treated with a slightly longer additional round of topical antibiotic.

I worried that perhaps I would eventually need oral antibiotics. I didn't like the idea of a course of systemic antibiotics given all the challenges I've had with constipation and the health of my gut. It fed the fear that I needed to catch this soon. Act with perhaps a little more urgency and not let things get out of hand.

Our minds can go to all kinds of scary places when we try to figure something out that is outside of our understanding. Whether the issue is big or small, it sets up residence and takes a chunk of our attention and emotional bandwidth.

Making the Time to Listen

The fear and lack of symptom resolution finally motivated me to sit down and spend a little more time with this issue. I decided I needed to really check out the fear, acknowledge it, see if it needed me to take action of some kind, or if I could let it get out of the way so I could make room to listen for my intuition.

Feeling Into Intuition

My feeling after pausing and listening more attentively was to soak my finger in hot salty water.

Salt water feels healing. The gentleness appealed to me. As did the slowing down. I figured I would just see what happened with this next step.

I soaked my finger multiple times a time a day until it was all wrinkly and prune-like. I gave it more care. Support. Tenderness. Paid close attention.

I was also more curious. The fear decreased because I was doing something, part of which was simply keeping myself campany during this process. Even though I didn't know where this would lead, it felt good as a next step.

After a few days, my finger looked better. There was still an open area and a pinpoint of something pale within it, but no progression of infection. Still no pain.

Rocking in my chair in the back yard while appreciating the gentle spring sun, I had the impulse to squeeze it. Like a pimple. To my utter surprise, a long thin beige-colored thing started coming out of my finger. I thought it was a solidified tube of pus.

When I touched it I realized it was actually a remnant of the original splinter. If you need a little forewarning, the picture after next might "gross you out" a little when you see the size of the splinter sticking out of my finger pad (there's no blood or anything else if you are queazy). So the picture below is easier to look at next.

The narrow piece of splinter was so long I couldn't believe I had never felt it, even when I had gently squeezed my finger and pressed around. I had only felt a thick widened area of firmness that I assumed was inflammation linked to healing the physical wound from the large splinter.

Even though I find the picture below shocking at some level, it is still remarkably satisfying to think I captured a series of pictures that depict what this healing journey can be like. Because this chronic illness onset journey is so typically invisible on so many levels.

The Root Can Be Invisible

Like old traumas, the root of my symptom had been invisible.

While the healing occurred because I actually removed a physical object linked directly to the triggering event (this kind of experience is why I think we so naturally trust we'll heal if we can just fix the issue linked to the onset trigger), I want to speak to the APOE metaphor. The experience caused by that seemingly invisible splinter remnant represents how past traumas can be so hidden and seem so subtle. It represents how, over time, they can prime our nervous systems to respond to that final triggering event in ways that lead to chronic symptoms. These symptoms occur when pathways of fight, flight and freeze become established as our new norm. The final event seems to be the last piece of a puzzle that solidifies something that has been evolving, often for decades according to the literature.

Even when I had carefully and specifically looked for another piece of the splinter, even with a magnifying lens in hand, even when I had dug around and stirred it with a needle I hadn't found it or seen it.

Just like the nonphysical aspects of trauma, poking around in a wound hurts, so I hadn't dug very deep. But it had also been tucked away at an angle and really narrow. Like so often with trauma - it had been submerged.

Also like old trauma, it was so much larger than I could have ever imagined.

And as we are learning the more we understand trauma - in our personal lives and as a culture - trauma in our lives is not something we can ignore if we want to heal symptoms. It was affirming and reassuring to find that when I actually found the root cause AND was able to address it, my symptom resolved.

That's when my body's innate capacity for healing was able to do what it knows how to do. What it WANTS to do. Because our bodies want to heal, given the chance.

An Intelligence in Symptoms

My symptom had been an intelligent response to a real issue. It had been a sign that something was unfinished, incomplete, unresolved. It felt like a way my body could ask for my help.

As with my experience of chronic illness, my little symptom persevered and scared me just enough to invite me to dig deeper. It asked me to pause long enough to listen to potentially difficult emotions (in this case to a little fear and a light dose of self blame, and in the case of chronic diseases to often bigger feelings such as anger and grief, and more fear because what we are trying to heal is often so unknown).

This was a tiny example of how something old and invisible can drive a healing response. One that serves a purpose we don't often recognize. Maybe with enough time my finger would have worked the splinter out on its own. Maybe healing would have been through a fight, flight or even freeze response that was active at the cellular level (white blood cells coming to the rescue).

As it is, the process from day 1 until I helped expel the splinter took a month.

Symptoms as Motivators

My littlest symptom motivated me when I had really just wanted to keep going with my projects, my planting, my daily life. It called me away from what seemed much more interesting, interrupting the flow to have me focus on something that I expected to heal on its own. It helped me listen so I could find a way to help.

My finger healed fully within days after that. The way I had expected it to. The pad of it is covered with healthy skin, there is no pain and I've been able to resume playing and painting and more.

Here's to finding our ways to keep healing the impact of the old stuff. May the process keep helping our bodies so they can do what they know how to do so well when given the chance.

Resources and Related Blog Posts

Adverse Childhood Relationship Experiences (ACREs I): Intro to Invisible ACEs

ACREs II (How I Overcame Severe Food Intolerances)

ACEs: Adverse Childhood Experiences with examples from the movie Boyhood

Free ACE Fact Sheets and other Fact Sheets to educate your Doctor

Emotion has an enormous impact on imprinting memory in our brains. I had an experience when I was 6 years old that included emotion and I have the memory of it all of these many years later.

It was a 6 year old birthday sleepover party. There were 7 girls invited that lived near each other and played together most days. A girl new to the neighborhood was invited only due to the requirement of the birthday girl’s mother. I was also invited. I lived a block away but did play with these girls fairly often. Being an extremely shy girl, I really liked being accepted by this group and was excited to be included in the party.

The party progressed and it was now time to begin preparing for sleep. The new girl found a spot and laid out her sleeping bag on the family room floor. As she did this, one girl ran into the other room exclaiming how she was not going to put her sleeping bag anywhere near this new girl.

The other girls followed, running into the other room expressing the same plan. Even though I was silent, I also followed the group into the other room. As I stated, it was very important to me to feel a part of this group.

Once in the other room, I turned around and saw the girl sitting all alone on her sleeping bag looking very dejected. At that moment an intense feeling of empathy overcame me. With this strong feeling, I picked up my sleeping bag, went into the other room and laid it out right next to the girl who was being excluded. To my surprise, the other girls followed and the party resumed.

The ability I had to see things from her perspective and the resulting empathy I had for this girl in this situation strongly overcame my need to be accepted by the group.

Brain research demonstrates that even very young babies have a capacity for empathy. This is an extremely essential life skill and is at the heart of social skills and success in life. It is a skill like any other, it needs to be developed.

As Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D., states:

"One of the most important aspects of being a human being, is being able to be in a relationship. Being able to successfully form and maintain a relationship. And at the heart of that capability is the capacity to put yourself in somebody else's shoes, to see the world how they see it. That capacity is empathy."

As my career unfolded, I became extremely interested in early brain development research and ever since have had the (not small) goal of making it commonly understood…. and to have it understood by EVERY adult that directly or indirectly influences the lives of children and families. Realizing the significant influence of early relationships is an area of major focus in meeting this goal.

The brain is experience dependent, meaning development doesn’t just magically happen. A brain develops based on the combination of the genes a child is born with and the experiences that a child has. The earliest time in life is like the fourth trimester in rapidly connecting the 86 billion brain cells a baby is born with. Experiences create a direct and physical impact on the way a brain is wired. And the repetition of experiences strengthens the neural connections to create pathways for functioning in life.

The brain is designed to adapt to whatever type of experiences are repeated most frequently…. whether positive or negative. Even though it takes about 25 - 30 years for the brain to fully mature, the early, days, months and years are the time for the most rapid amount of growth and development of the brain.

We are biologically designed for relationships. We are born with a primary need to have someone care for us. We are completely dependent on at least one relationship with another person. Through the ideal situation of having someone lovingly and consistently respond to meet our needs in a nurturing way, brain pathways for empathy are being created.

If an infant is responded to repeatedly and predictably with care and understanding, this creates the feelings of safety and pleasure that the brain craves and requires. This begins the wiring in the brain for relationships with others in life. So, when infants consistently experience the give and take of a responsive interactive relationship, the basis for the ability to feel and express empathy occurs. Interestingly, research findings demonstrate that the brain areas for both empathy and violence are partially similar. These findings lead the researchers to state:

"We all know that encouraging empathy has an inhibiting effect on violence, but this may not only be a social question but also a biological one -- stimulation of these neuronal circuits in one direction reduces their activity in the other."

As a result a more empathetic developed brain will have more difficulty behaving in a violent way. While attending the sleepover party, my brain pathways likely fired in a way that found it too difficult to be mean to the new girl.

Various versions of interesting studies reveal that babies as young as 5 months old can demonstrate empathy. However, due to a variety of situations and circumstances some children do not experience the ideal nurturing relationships early in life. A child that does not experience the give and take of a consistently responsive nurturing relationship will have a more difficult challenge in developing the brain connections for seeing things from another person’s point of view.

However the wonderful news is, the brain is always learning, re-organizing and making new connections throughout life. This is called, plasticity. This provides us with the extraordinary opportunity to make changes later. Of course it is best to develop a brain as optimally as possible in the first place, but it is important to realize that changes can be made through learning and repetition at other times in life.

When it comes to empathy and sympathy, research supports that humans can be contagious beings. This contagious aspect seemed to be the case in the slumber party experience where the other girls joined me after I showed empathy for the new girl.

Indicators are revealing that empathetic behaviors are in decline in many societies. There are numerous factors contributing to this occurrence. So, since we are neuro-biologically meant to be connected to others, it is essential that this is realized and an emphasis on early relationships is critical.

In summary

Valuing and prioritizing time for parents to spend with their babies and providing support for the establishment of secure attachment and early healthy and empathetic experiences is essential. Additionally needed, are provisions and policies for child care programs and schools to have low teacher child ratios to increase the opportunity to foster relationships that are built on understanding and empathy with every child.

When it becomes common knowledge that the brain is dependent on trusting, caring relationships and positive early childhood experiences, then babies in homes or child care settings and older children in schools will greatly benefit from supportive environments and will be engaged in inter-personal interactions that ultimately reduce violence and increases empathy for other human beings. This is prevention!

Children have the capacity to learn to read, write and do math … children also have the capacity to empathize. If we truly want to help children thrive in life ….and want to have an incredibly positive impact on our world, it is VITAL that we place an emphasis on healthy relationships with others … This is where it all begins! After all it IS the primary need of the brain!
 
This was a presentation given at Parenting 2.0 Talks, Dublin, Ireland. September 2014

For a FREE Printable on using empathy with children click here.

To book a presentation toward making a difference for your school, organization, agency or company visit www.deborahmcnelis.com