Looking for comments by ACE survivors

Hi, Joan:

It's on ACEsTooHigh, in the Got Your ACE Score? tab -- scroll down to the bottom and you'll see all the comments.

Cheers, Jane

I forgot to look there. Thank you Jane Stevens!

Thanks for your exploration of this Joan. The most incredible thing about the comments section of the ACEsTooHigh Got Your ACE score is that folks also calculate and comment on their Resilience Scores (Jane maybe we should re-title it to Got Your ACE and Resilience Scores?) The stories are intense as well as powerful, transformational, supportive, constructive, and also challenge what it means to create scores around ACEs and resilience. Your comments on the process are valued and appreciated.

I don't want to be the Debbie Downer here but I am going to state --- I really believe we need to do something better than that resilience score. The original videos presented and thinking on having a resilience score seemed to be "we don't want you going home and 'oh I have an ACE score of 10' so we put in a resilience score." For so many of us with a 10 plus ACEs score where the abuse was intense, prolonged and sadistic, that scale has so many questions that are completely out of ones control and it is really hard to read as the first two questions "when you were growing up did your mom love you, did your dad, did you have a special teacher that cared, did you participate in activities outside the home?" Etc. As we move this work to for example kids from foster care or the kids in Florida juvenile justice system, we see much higher ACEs and as I would predict lower resilience on that scale which gives no insight to what or how one is doing in the here and now, it isn't in the present moment. To me it lacks mindfulness. I find it painful to read and as we branch into more deeply traumatized populations, I believe we will want to look at a scale that looks at where an individual is now. Part of resilience is to overcome. I can never overcome or change the truth that while I was growing up, no one loved me, but I can change things now. Hope that makes sense! thanks

Who wrote the questionnaire for the Resiliency Score, and when?

Yes! Thank you Tina.

 

Many folks have voiced concern over the current Resilience questionnaire posted on ACEsTooHigh. Here is an alternative: http://www.centerforresilientc...nt/uploads/DARS1.pdf

with additional info available at: http://www.centerforresilientchildren.org/adults/

 

Please share your thoughts on the alternative and let us know if you are familiar with any other good options for consideration.

I will have to take some time to look at the supplemental information but just looking at the questions on this scale, they are very good. They are present moment and certainly would give an individual taking the questionnaire insight into ways to build resilience if low. I like it! Thank you!!!

Dear Alicia,

       I'm so grateful for your thoughts that many voiced concern over the Resilience questionnaire and perhaps we need something else. I'm grateful you posted the Devereux Adult Resilience Survey (DARS) pdf with different criteria.  But both the current Resilience score and DARS system seem to be rating us survivors on how well we can perform. Which might not be the issue?

     Isn't the issue how cam we get healed? How we can gain secure attachment and community and feel loved?  Sure, after I've done all that, I'll have a better DARS score!  But HOW do I get healing?

       I just looked at the last two months comments on Resilience at the bottom of http://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/ and several survivors are echoing something I wrote two months ago, so I'd like to post here.

      On Mar 10, 2015, Kathy Brous wrote:
   >  I've long had questions about the Resiliency score. My ACE score is 4 and my Resiliency score would be zero (since zero parenting was done in our home, so then I alienated teachers, kids, everyone I met). I had No to each Resilience score item except #s 10, 13, and 14.  
       But my "yes" responses to 10,13 & 14 are also born of dysfunction. #10. Yes, "we had rules" -- nothing but rules, like the rules in prison or the zoo. Rules were enforced abusively to push us away from attachment and feelings.  #13  Yes, I was "an independent go-getter" because with zero parenting, often comes "premature ego development," an attachment disorder, and also comes zero trust of others. So like "The Boy Named Sue," we "grow up fast and we grow up mean/our fists get hard and our wits get keen."  Not mental health.  And #14 Yes, "life is what you make it," can also be produced by abusive childhoods like those of we Boys and Girls named Sue.
>    So I still think my childhood Resiliency score is zero.
>    Now as an adult, "How many are still true for me?"  

>    I don't think my current situation is really any Resiliency score -- it seems more like an "earned secure attachment" score which could only be earned by years of incredibly painful therapy, emotional work, and bone-crunching scary body work. For "earned secure attachment," see footnoted on it at bottom of http://attachmentdisorderheali...tured-topics/dating/

    > I can now claim #11, "When I feel bad, I can find someone I trust to talk to," but that's my therapist and my Recovery partners after a 6 year Recovery journey of incredibly painful hard work. And such folk are few and far between; most folk haven't the guts to listen as we talk about what deep childhood trauma does to us. You can't just call up any old person and spill the real stuff that must be shared "in dyadic consciousness" to be healed.
>     And sure, as an adult, #12 "people always noticed I was capable and could get things done," but again that's the pre-mature ego development which kept me grinding out high-tech documents for the Pentagon and working 2 jobs to support my ex's addiction for the last 15 years of my abusive marriage.  #12 in my case did not indicate mental health, far from it.
>     Maybe we could add a third survey, an "Earned Secure Attachment Score (ESAS)"?  I'd bet a lot of high achievers on ACEsConnection and in the responses below are in my boat.  If we all could start to  discover the difference between being The Boy Named Sue, and actually doing the deep emotional work it takes for people like us to fully attach to other humans, we all would benefit enormously.
>    - Kathy

 

      Lastly,  I can't find it searching this site, but Christine Cissy White wrote something recently asking why are we rating the survivors at all; survivors don't need to be graded like misbehaving kids taking a difficult test; they need compassion. I recall she wasn't too keen about scoring on resilience and I've sent her a dialogue message to see if she'd like to post a reference to it here.

    Thank you again for all you do!

    Kathy

Here is another view on resilience.

I don't know enough about all this TO endorse anything--but this writer has done serious work on her ACEs:

 https://stopthestorm.wordpress...d-ignorance-does-no/

 

 

Kathy,

Here's the link you asked about. I had pulled the original piece because it was so long. Cissy

http://healwritenow.com/shes-such-a-victim/

This discussion strikes a nerve with me.

 

I have a high ACE score (8), but also a high resiliency score, according to the Resiliency Questionnaire quoted in the "Got Your ACE Score" article at this link: http://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/  

 

While I respect the work that went into the questionnaire, and I love the idea of resiliency, my score has always nagged at me ... Felt like just another aspect of "What is wrong with me??" With such a high resiliency score, why then had I sunk so deeply into the depression pit?    

 

WHY, then, if I had so many protective factors going for me did I still have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars in therapy including EMDR, (on and off for more than 20 years), and untold hours reading self-help books, researching brain science, etc., and doing yoga, meditation, spiritual healing, and anything else I could think of (except drugs, thank goodness) to feel better?  

 

To me, it feels like saying if you have a high resiliency score, then your ACEs were somehow negated, and they don't count. That's certainly not true for me. My ACEs continue to affect me, and while I've learned to manage them, their effects still rear their ugly heads, and that's when I catch myself ... Stop. Breathe. Consciously, consciously, mindfully ... PAUSE. Regroup. And don't pass this history on to my daughter.     

For me, the thing to do is to be resilient now - to put all of the protective factors into my life now, i.e., love, support, surrounding myself with healthy people, etc.

 

 

 

 

T

PS: Great post by Kathy Brous, and I can relate to it. My high resiliency score seems like a fraud because the reasons underlying it are dysfunctional. Yes, I was seen as "capable" and "an independent go-getter" too, ... but why?

 

Because my parents were nurturing my strengths?

 

No. Because I was a capable go-getter out of sheer necessity. Behind the closed doors of the nice house, there was no parenting going on, only chaos, and the children had to figure out how to raise themselves. Yes, neighbors, teachers, and my parents' friends liked me, too, because I was "so responsible."

 

Yes, "when I was a child, teachers, coaches, youth leaders or ministers were **there** to help me, " ... BUT they didn't. Because when I was little I never told anyone what was going on at home. I had no idea at the time how dysfunctional our household actually was, only that it felt different and much better not to be there, so I joined every school club I could think of and spent tons of time at my friends' houses.

 

As for the question  "I believe that my mother loved me when I was little," what does that even mean? Does it mean, "Did I feel loved as a child?" Answer: I don't know what I felt as a child. Does it mean, "As an adult looking back, do I believe that my mother loved me when I was a child?" The answer to that is: I believe my mother was mentally ill --"damaged" as my therapist likes to delicately put it -- and incapable of loving anyone other than than herself. 

 

So, the questions on the Resiliency Questionnaire ...? I can speak only for me. But I've concluded I have no idea what they mean or how to answer them.  

 

Hi Cathy. I didn't understand what you mean so I deleted the post.  I hope that is okay.  That link and the discussion was really traumatizing for me.  And I didn't mean to post anything incorrectly.  I don't even know if I did that.  

 

Alicia, thank you for the alternative questionnaire, and Tina, I agree with you about the resiliency info needing to be in the present moment.  

 

You may know that I'm an attorney (retired), parent educator (www.txparent.com), and CASA volunteer for abused and neglected children in Austin Texas. Presently I am writing a basic parenting course series (Protective Parenting and ACE Awareness: Effects of Household Dysfunction on the Brain) designed especially for teenage and young parents, and parent-to-be.

 

In my work, I've seen first-hand that so many parents have NO IDEA what their actions (or neglect) are doing to their children's very brains -- and their offspring's chances for a happy life in general. From my view, the parents seem to believe 2 things: 1) the children are born already knowing right from wrong, no teaching is needed, and if a child cries or misbehaves, that misbehavior is PURPOSEFULLY defiant to annoy the parent, and it deserves ranting and punishment; 2) the household environment (yelling, violence, chaos, no food, sex abuse, alcoholic rages, etc.) has NO EFFECT on the children ... I mean, obviously the children are fine ... See? still so sweet, and cute, and bouncy ... they still have 2 eyes, 2 arms, 2 legs, so what's the problem ??! [Obviously this not true. I am saying it to make a point - some parents have a shocking lack of insight.]

 

To me, education is the only real answer.

 

And for me, the place to start is with the teen and very young parents. Yes, many of them come from abusive backgrounds themselves. And in so many instances, without some guidance, their babies and children may be be headed for the child welfare system where they can be further traumatized, as I have personally seen. 

Some parents won't hear, but I've also seen so many people who do want to learn. They do want to heal themselves and make things better for themselves and their children. I believe that, like me, they will be liberated by the ACE info, which has clearly explained what happened to me. Yes, I will give them the ACE info and ACE questionnaire wrapped in a compassionate way, but not the resiliency questionnaire, I don't think. Or maybe I will call it something else, such as "Building My Family" ... I get weary of trying to explain the term "resiliency" is to them, anyway. "Building" and "eliminating dysfunction" are more readily grasped, I think ..  

 

The idea is to take my workshop to schools, churches, and community groups that are helping teenage parents, young parents, and parents-to-be. When I get farther along in writing, I can reach out to you for your input, if that's ok. thanks - Joan

Alicia, thank you for the alternative questionnaire.

 

Tina, I agree with you about the resiliency info needing to be in the present moment.  

 

You may know that I'm an attorney (retired), parent educator (www.txparent.com), and CASA volunteer for abused and neglected children in Austin Texas. Presently I am writing a basic parenting course series (Protective Parenting and ACE Awareness: Effects of Household Dysfunction on the Brain) designed especially for teenage and young parents, and parent-to-be.

 

In my work, I've seen first-hand that so many parents have NO IDEA what their actions (or neglect) are doing to their children's very brains -- and their offspring's chances for a happy life in general. From my view, the parents seem to believe 2 things: 1) the children are born already knowing right from wrong, no teaching is needed, and if a child cries or misbehaves, that misbehavior is PURPOSEFULLY defiant to annoy the parent, and it deserves ranting and punishment; 2) the household environment (yelling, violence, chaos, no food, sex abuse, alcoholic rages, etc.) has NO EFFECT on the children ... I mean, obviously the children are fine ... See? still so sweet, and cute, and bouncy ... they still have 2 eyes, 2 arms, 2 legs, so what's the problem ??! [Obviously this not true. I am saying it to make a point - some parents have a shocking lack of insight.]

 

To me, education is the only real answer.

 

And for me, the place to start is with the teen and very young parents. Yes, many of them come from abusive backgrounds themselves. And in so many instances, without some guidance, their babies and children may be be headed for the child welfare system where they can be further traumatized, as I have personally seen. 

Some parents won't hear, but I've also seen so many people who do want to learn. They do want to heal themselves and make things better for themselves and their children. I believe that, like me, they will be liberated by the ACE info, which has clearly explained what happened to me. Yes, I will give them the ACE info and ACE questionnaire wrapped in a compassionate way, but not the resiliency questionnaire, I don't think. Or maybe I will call it something else, such as "Building My Family" ... I get weary of trying to explain the term "resiliency" is to them, anyway. Though definitely I will talk about healing, and how I did it, and am still doing it. Teens will want practical HOW TO info they can immediately apply. "Building" and "eliminating dysfunction" are readily grasped, I think .. As in please do more of this (Becky Bailey I Love You Rituals) and less of that (Screaming and hitting children out of frustration) ...   

 

The idea is to take my workshop to schools, churches, and community groups that are helping teenage parents, young parents, and parents-to-be. When I get farther along in writing, I can reach out to you for your input, if that's ok. thanks - Joan

I have to say, I agree with you totally Joan. I have seen these problems too. That is why, I want to try to educate our OB department and Peds that giving information early is really important. I would like the negative impact on children's brain development to be provided to all pregnant woman seeing their OB.  Not because I want parents to be to become depressed but to have the information they will need to know that if they expose their kids to these toxic environments, kids brain development will be harmed and their mental and physical health will be very compromised. I would love to see your information. It might be something we can build into our trauma-informed schools initiative. This knowledge is so powerful for parents because most want to do right by their children but if you don't know how can you.  Before I learned about the ACE study --- and having had terrible ACEs exposure --- I just wanted to learn so I read all kinds of stuff. I got the most out of a General Theory of Love (it was a long time ago) and I picked up a basic parenting book and read it.. I was shocked and stunned (the book was nothing special) but I had no idea of how loving adults should care for their children. I was 33 years old at the time and to me getting my first taste of what a caring parent should do at the age of 33 was simply very sad.  

 

Yes, keep me informed.  Thank you

 

Leif posted a link somewhere on ACEsConnection to the 2011 World Health Organization (WHO) ACEs screening questionaire, which includes some added supplementary questions and the wording of the questions seems less ambiguous to me. The WHO also recently [2015] completed an ACE screening of Turkish College/University students, but I haven't yet read whether they used the 2011 version which Leif posted the link to here, or if it was the ACE screening tool the used in the 2013 WHO Assessment of the World's Healthiest Children (Netherlands was #1, followed by most of the Scandinavian countries,..., U.S. was 25th, and Canada 26th-if I'm not mistaken).

Kathy Hentcy [also ACEsConnection member] of Vermont was working on a re-wording of the screening questionaire, following their state legislature's passing House bill 762, requiring ALL Vermont Health Care providers to screen for ACEs of All patients.

Joan, There maybe numerous private dialogues, and public dialogues, .between two or more participants, noting their ACE and/or Resiliency scores. Perhaps those of us with substantive ACE scores ourselves, could ask Jane Stevens if there's a way we can get all of a private dialogues participants to permit some of those private dialogues to be "copied" in a "limited access" file. I, and one other High ACE scoring member, were in a dialogue with two therapists who are also ACEsConnection members. One ACEsConnection member I know, has not posted much of late, and a [private dialog] "Peer support system" may be one option.

 

About 15 years ago, one of my co-workers asked if I'd go with her to Foster Parent training and Certification, and we both successfully completed the course, and certification. I thought about providing temporary relief for current Foster Parents, as I didn't have a suitable dwelling/living situation to undertake being a single Foster Parent. As I now think about my current circumstances, and my own personal [unrecovered] Co-Dependency and/or [unhealed] Attachment  and Family-Of-Origin challenges, as well as that "Generativity" developmental task during "twilight years"...... 

 

Leif posted a link somewhere on ACEsConnection to the 2011 World Health Organization (WHO) ACEs screening questionaire, which includes some added supplementary questions and the wording of the questions seems less ambiguous to me. The WHO also recently [2015] completed an ACE screening of Turkish College/University students, but I haven't yet read whether they used the 2011 version which Leif posted the link to here, or if it was the ACE screening tool the used in the 2013 WHO Assessment of the World's Healthiest Children (Netherlands was #1, followed by most of the Scandinavian countries,..., U.S. was 25th, and Canada 26th-if I'm not mistaken).

Kathy Hentcy [also ACEsConnection member] of Vermont was working on a re-wording of the screening questionaire, following their state legislature's passing House bill 762, requiring ALL Vermont Health Care providers to screen for ACEs of All patients.

Wow this dialog has about as many looks as a NCAR discussion. Looks to me like there is quite a bit of interest in ACEs stories/resilience questionnaire concerns. Maybe a private group? There are chat boxes on the groups?

But why I really jumped in here was to ask you Robert or anyone -- I thought only 1 minor section of Dr. Till's bill passed in VT? If there is universal aces screening in any state, let me know.. I'd be the first doc to move there!

Joan,

 

I would like to invite you to post your parent ed info and comments on the ACEs in Parenting group. We are in the process of advancing the convo on what it means to provide ACEs, trauma-informed, and resilience-building parent education. We are currently compiling programs, curriculum, and language and your work would be an incredible addition.

 

Many thanks.