HOW adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s) impact your health
The most memorable in all of my learnings over the years has been on trauma and its impact on people’s behaviour and development (if ongoing trauma, also known as complex trauma, has been present). Being in the health industry and how I support people with illnesses (and many of them chronic) came full circle when I learnt about Childhood Adverse Experiences (ACE) and how these experiences correlate with many illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, mental illnesses, substance abuse, and relationship problems (which I understand is not an illness, but a behavioural style most likely due to poor attachment while growing up).
A study was conducted in 1998 from the Centre of Disease Control and Prevention and included 17,000 middle class Amercians. The outcome of the study found that the more people who had an adverse experience in childhood was more likely to suffer from either a mental or physical condition when they were older. This doesn’t mean to say that because you have Type 2 diabetes (T2D) as an adult it is because you had an adverse childhood experience, the research is stating that the correlation is higher if you have had an ACE and the more ACE’s you have had, the more chances of having a physical or mental health condition when you’re older.
What are adverse childhood experiences?
ACE’s include:
Emotional abuse
Physical abuse
Sexual abuse
Emotional neglect
Physical neglect
Mother treated violently
Household substance abuse
Household mental illness
Parental separation or divorce
Incarcerated household member (family member gone to prison)
There are also predictive factors that have not been included in this list such as single, acute events or over a long period of time such as a death of a parent, community violence, poverty, and the impact of war. The high, prolonged levels of the stress response (cortisol) impacts brain development, your immune and endocrine system in adult life. It is the ongoing, prolonged, stress that first begins as an adaptive response and then turns into a maladaptive response, mentally and physically. research is uncovering that these experiences are related to attention deficits (ADHD), emotional dysregulation, and behaviours that are anti-social.
Trauma generally can be misunderstood and people often relate it to either physical or sexual abuse. But what about emotional neglect? Post war babies, the children of those babies have often been neglected emotionally. The ‘if we don’t talk about it, it will go away’ approach didn’t work. The gender stereo typical roles of ‘boys don’t cry’ and ‘be a good girl’ has failed us in so many ways!
I resonate with the question of not ‘What’s wrong with you?’, but ‘What’s happened to you?’
If you would like to take the Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire, you can do so by clicking the link below:
self care
If any of the information that I have shared has been upsetting for you, please remember to look after yourself and speak to someone that can offer you support;
Lifeline: 13 11 14
Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636
DV Assist: 1800 737 732
Kids Helpline: 1800 551 800
References
Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (2019). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2019.04.001