Adverse environments early in life have lasting
consequences for children’s health and development.
Katie McLaughlin. PhD, Clinical Psychology and Chronic Disease Epidemiology
(The long Shadow of Adverse Childhood Experiences)
With a title like ‘The long shadow of adverse childhood experiences’ it’s a fair guess this Science Brief written by Katie McLaughlin PhD isn’t going to be easy reading . It is of course a bit challenging but after reading it (and many others in the same field) I have to say I feel a little better. If you’ve been reading my posts that shouldn’t come as a surprise, pretty much the entire purpose of writing this blog has been to do a bit of a personal archaeological dig of my past. I don’t quote the bible all that much these days, not because I don’t value it, not at all. It’s because I’ve often found religious scripture gets weaponised to attack others or gets taken out of context and sadly trivialises the scripture being quoted. That said I still do have the bible washing around in my thoughts most days.
“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness…
A bit of Isaiah 52
…Look to the rock from which you were cut
and to the quarry from which you were hewn;
In its context that old testament verse is talking about Abraham when it mentions the ‘Quarry’. Basically it’s telling these people to remember Abraham and how he operated if they want to live a good life. I have often been surprised at how many people have no idea the Abraham of the Old Testament is a common reference point for Judaism and Islam and later Christianity. If you find that interesting a google search to find a reputable site makes for interesting reading and reflection on the flaws of humanity. (Total digression)
What I take from that verse and why I’m quoting it here is that if I am going to have a future or, in the words of that bit from Isaiah, if I want to ‘pursue righteousness’ then going back to the quarry I was dug up from might be of good start. To make that clear, I am understanding this to mean go and reflect on my life to understand what drives now, why I do and don’t do the things I do and don’t do. Why I care about some things but not others, and why I repeat the same mistakes over and again but also why I’m good at the hand full of things I do pretty well.
If you’ve never heard of Adverse Childhood Experiences and you are a parent there’s a good chance it’ll make for some uncomfortable reading. I hope though that in the long run it is helpful. even encouraging. The basic understanding we now have, after decades of research is this:
Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years)……ACEs are linked to chronic health problems, mental illness, and substance use problems in adulthood. ACEs can also negatively impact education, job opportunities, and earning potential. However, ACEs can be prevented.
The Centre for Disease Control
There are lists of the kind of expediencies that are considered ‘Adverse’ and some pretty scary effects later in life. It would be wrong to think that similar experiences will necessarily effect everyone the same way or that they will produce the same outcomes. It’s also not about blaming parents or extended families for whatever I’m dealing with now, at least it’s not what I what to do. I’ve never found blaming my parents to be very helpful. In my case they did what they did and while I was too young to be able to know for sure, I have always believed that they did the best they could do especially considering they had their own ACE’s that effected them.
I also haven’t found bashing myself with my mistakes very useful either. I find it hard to move forward when I’m in a hating myself phase. That said, there is a vast difference between bashing myself with my mistakes and being unwilling to take responsibility for my mistakes. I know it’s difficult but somehow owning my past mistakes can, in the end, be a freeing thing to do.
RD
Long story short there are a number of things that are identified as potential ACE’s and the more you have the greater the likelihood of it messing with your life as you get older. The thing these learnings have taught me most is that you never know what is behind a persons behaviour. None of this means all behaviour can be excused because of past trauma but what it might do is give a person some understanding, perhaps some insight and maybe some tools to change the destructive behaviour that might have been harmed themselves and others. Theres nothing more empowering than being able to, with confidence explain ‘why I didn’t what I did’.
When I was a teenager, in about year 8 I developed some self harming behaviour. Mostly cutting myself but also, now that I understand the range of behaviour referred to as Self Harm, there were many varieties that became common for me. The cutting is still hard to explain but doing it gave me a feeling of ‘relief’. It started in a fairly benign way. A few of us decided we would pull apart our pencil sharpeners and use the little blade inside to cut the shape of a cross on our arms. Honestly it was at first an odd way of getting the attention. of girls in the class. It worked quite well, the girls in my class were well trained to being nurturers of boys and it never seemed to occur to them that it was to begin with, a fairly obvious bit of manipulation. They would fuss over us at lunch time putting bandaids on the cuts and generally provide all the attention we could handle. That lasted for about a week until we got hauled into the principles office and told to stop. Everyone did as far as I know but in my case, I continued to do it privately and never told anyone about it after that. Cutting myself continued for a couple of months after which I moved on to other forms of Self Harm.
As I have said it’s hard to explain but I can tell you what it felt like when I cut myself. With each cut it felt like pressure was releasing from inside me, it felt good and I felt better. They were not big cuts and not deep and would certainly never be a threat to my life. I wasn’t trying to end things it is simply that it felt good.
I retrospect I believe it’s possible cutting myself was a way of making sense of the growing number of ACE’s I was experiencing. I’m not an expert but I suspect a young person may not have the capacity to make sense of the ‘non physical pain’ that was, for me, ever present. No doubt an expert in this field could provide more insight but this is my best understanding do date.
Some people have a thing whereby they enjoy pain, that’s called masochism, others enjoy inflicting pain which is called sadism. I don’t believe I enjoy either. I think that in my case, self harm was and is just a way of coping with the intense and prolonged bouts in emotional and psychological pain I have come to realise, has been my constant companion.
I encourage anyone to explore the research done on ACE’s, it is an interesting field and is also useful when it comes to understand some of the ‘Why’ of things. I still remember sitting with a parent who’s 14 year old had done something wrong. I think it was some ‘anti-social’ behaviour at school and they had been suspended. This 14 year old was also sitting with us when the parent, well meaning I am certain, began asking the 14 year old why she had done whatever it was she had done. The girl shrugged and said ‘don’t know’. Plain and simple. Not believing this could possibly be true, the parent continued the interrogation, nicely enough but began asking ‘why are you lying to me, I want to know why you did it’. This continued for a little while until the parent announced the 14 year old would be ‘grounded’ in her room until she explained why she behaved that way at school. I am absolutely certain conversations like this have happened and continued to happen in hundreds of thousands of homes around Australia.
The obvious thing that is missing in this is of course the possibility that the 14 year old was being honest. More than a possibility. in my experience it is a virtual certainty. I think what this, the pressure for a young person to explain the ‘why’ of their behaviour can develop some very unhealthy even self destructive mindsets that can be carried into the rest of our lives.
A teenager when confronted with having to explain their behaviour will, in the end just make sometime up to stop the stress of being questioned. This lie about why they did what can then follow them for their entire life. Sadly it could well have been that they really didn’t know how to explain why they did what they did but the pressure to explain forces them to invent a ‘Why’.
RD
At 57 years old, with more than a little training and experience in social work, youth work, community development, conflict resolution, basic psychology and so on, I can tell you that I am still working out why I have done and continue to do some things, many things probably. I’ve had a lot of therapy over the years and while it has helped me I am still, even now, getting to the bottom of the ‘why’. What I have become fairly sure of along the way is that the answer to the ‘Why’ questions like that are as complicated as they are often inaccessible.
I so often hear people complaining and criticising someone else for ‘making bad choices’.
‘You made your bed now you lie in it’ is one of the most ignorant things I still hear being said to younger people as though this is a great and wise proverb that their teenager needs to hear. The ignorance is in the adults understanding of exactly how those ‘beds’ are made.
RD
A teenager has not just appeared as a 14 year old already cooked, they have been shaped by the home they have grown up in, their character has been built by their parents, teachers and other signifiant and powerful people in their lives and while they have no choice now but to have to live with consequences of how ever they behave, in a very real sense the ‘proverb’ is more accurately said “We all made you bed and now you have to lie in it”. Try saying that to your average parent and they will usually react, they’ll insist they raised this child the best way they could, which I would probably agree with. It’s just that raising them the best way we can rarely means we raised them the best way possible. This is not about blame, this is about understanding, it’s about working through why I am who I am now, this is really about ‘returning to the quarry I was dug up in’ not to blame others or to feel guilty myself. This is to help anyone willing to return to their quarry and make their way to a better life, a fuller and more joyful, even purposeful life. I don’t know if we ever get to become perfect, actually I do know and we don’t. What I do believe we can possibly become is complete.
Most of my days at the moment have about 3 good hours in them. 3 hours where the medication I take works well enough to to reduce the chronic pain to a level where I feel pretty good and even focused. I’m now even having a few coffees with people and enjoying some conversations. Like this morning. A friend is about to arrive at 10am and we’ll spend an hour together. By the time I get home it will be about 1pm and I will need to lay down for a couple of hours, maybe even nod off before thinking about making dinner. Pizza night tonight so I’ll make the dough and let it rise, roll it out and lay it on the trays before loading them up with all the toppings. At 5pm the family will come and the pizza will be almost ready to eat. By 6 or 6:30 I’ll be sitting at the table feeling like a bit of a zombie and will excuse myself and head off to bed. It’s hard to explain what this is like and how I feel about the possibility that maybe this is it, this is what life is going to be like till one day I don’t wake up. Lots of people have answers and opinions, have you tried this or that, a diet or exercise, a pill or meditation or something they have heard that might help. In my experience both as one of those people who hand out advice and one of those who now receive it I think most of us find it difficult to see friends live with difficult things. I see all the ‘Wellness Influencers’ peddle their solutions for a good life, maybe they’re onto something but I doubt it.
So here’s what I’m thinking today. Eventually, sooner or later our lives catch up with us. I see my neighbour, a wonderful guy who has been a concreter most of his life, his body is broken but he continues to head off before dawn to go to work. I can see his life is catching up with him. He’s younger than me but his joints, his back and neck are all pretty well shot. Sooner or later his life will catch up with him. I see sports people on the tv retiring with that brain damage condition they get after having too many concussions, sooner or later life will catch up with them.
Physical, emotional maybe even spiritual trauma eventually, some day, sooner or later finds its way into our present. If I had my time again I suspect I would do exactly the same things again, I would live the same life and make the same ‘choices’ from the same options I was able to see. I currently believe this is because, in reality I’m not entirely convinced we are all really ‘making’ all that many ‘choices’, and even if we are, perhaps some people have more less things to choose from while others have less? This seems true and I’ve certainly observed it over the years. Our ‘choices’ are effected by at least two things: The first thing is the range of options I have to choose from, (some have more than others), and the second thing is the effects of the various trauma we have experienced and continue to experience on our capacity to choose.
If it is true that the way forward is first to ‘Return to the quarry from where I was first dug up’ and get to the bottom of the sometimes good and sometimes not so good things I think, do and say it will take some time and willingness to discover things that may not feel so good. Adverse Childhood Experiences and their life long effects are real things. It’s not ‘Pop Psychology’ or some superficial ‘Wellness Trend’. ACE’s and their effects are a thoroughly researched and well excepted truth that is now being focused on to find solutions and treatments and so far it’s looking pretty good. It is beginning to look as though, like other injuries physical and otherwise, human beings are capable of getting better. We have an amazing capacity to heal and when that healing cannot be fully completed, we can still develop ways around the remaining effects of most trauma.
I my case, and I suspect I’m not alone, the first step are to figure out was is causing the problem. Some of us have injuries that are hard to see and have the tendency to cause more damage along the way. Tricky for sure but I have this hope that my purpose is tied up somehow with embarking on the process, beginning with poking around that quarry, the one I was dug up in, and if possible track what happened next. I may not be able to work on the front lines of social justice any more, that after all might be a younger persons role, but I do hope that doesn’t too mean that ‘This is it’. I guess it might mean that, honestly I don’t know. I guess that’s what makes all this worthwhile, to not simply accept that who I am is who I am and there’s no changing that. I hope, even plan to prove that to be bullshit I think it is.
Some Links you may be interested to read.