Article By Cayla Dee
Sometimes children are brought up in homes that, even despite best intentions, put them into scenarios that challenge their sense of safety in the world. This can include things like parental divorce, addiction in the home, and witnessing violence. In everyday conversation, we tend to brush off these kinds of experiences as common, saying that “kids are hardy.” However, research is showing that adverse childhood experiences have deep and lasting impact on mental and physical health later in life. If you are experiencing mental or physical health issues as an adult, it may be worth talking to a therapist about what your childhood was like.
A Difficult Childhood
When children go through difficult or traumatic things in the family household, researchers call these ACEs – Adverse Childhood Experiences. In such situations, the child’s body and brain are developing in non-ideal circumstances. This results in a dysregulated stress-response system that later in life remains primed to stay vigilant and react to danger.
The term “Adverse Childhood Experiences” was coined by researchers from the Center for Disease Control to describe the childhood factors that were usually present in people who had physical and psychological illness later in life. They came up with ten categories of ACEs that may be experienced by a person before the age of 18:
- Emotional abuse (recurrent)
- Physical abuse (recurrent)
- Sexual abuse (contact)
- Physical neglect
- Emotional neglect
- Substance abuse in the household
- Mental abuse in the household
- Mother treated violently
- Divorce or parental separation
- Criminal behaviour in the household
Generally, these ten categories encompass the biggest impacts on lifelong health, but there are also some community factors that have been shown to have an impact.
Why do these things happen?
ACEs are generally passed down through generations. This is partly because lower-income areas experience toxic stress at a higher rate than those in higher-income areas due to a lack of resources and stress buffers. In addition, in order to develop a healthy stress-response neurobiology, a child needs to have secure attachment to at least one available, protective, and reasonably non-stressed adult. So, if a traumatized child grows up to have a child of their own, but never deals with their own childhood experiences, they can inadvertently cause their child to grow up in toxic stress as well. Our interactions with caregivers shape the way we interact with and navigate the world, the way we view ourselves, and our ability to handle stress. Thus, the cycle generally continues from parent to child until someone is able to break it.
What effects do ACEs have on the body?
Immune System. Childhood stress is correlated with an increased likelihood of being affected by common childhood health issues, viral infections, increased inflammation, and even autoimmune disease later in life.
Health Issues – Research has shown higher ACE scores to be correlated with a higher risk of disease, including heart disease, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, obesity, emphysema, ischemic heart disease, and premature birth, miscarriage, low birth weight, and more.
Behavioural Effects – Research has shown higher ACE scores to be correlated with a higher rates of learning and behavioural problems, juvenile incarceration, psychiatric care later in life, self harm, financial problems, lower life-time income, workplace absenteeism, depression, suicide, alcoholism, drug use, mood swings, attention problems, and sleep disturbance.
Stress Disorders – Two stress disorders, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Acute Stress Disorder (ASD), tend to frequently be found in people who experienced ACEs.
So what can I do about it?
In her book, The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity, Nadine Harris recommends certain strategies and best practices that can help mitigate the effects of ACEs and promote lifelong healing. She recommends six main things for adults dealing with a history of ACEs: sleep, mental health, healthy relationships, exercise, and nutrition. She explains,
- Exercise moderates the stress-response system and helps the body recognize which experiences actually warrant a stress response.
- Sleeping enough and eating well results in huge improvements to the body’s ability to regulate itself.
- Meditation has been shown to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and helps undo the negative chemical changes made to the body by stress.
- The development of healthy relationships later in life can help one relearn how to feel safe in relationships.
Therapy
In our modern medical system doctors tend to treat a person’s symptoms without investigating the underlying cause of their woes. However, given the correlation between childhood trauma and illnesses later in life, researchers argue that a first-line response to health issues should be having the patient attend psychological therapy. Talking through childhood trauma and adversity with a trained psychologist can help a person to reframe their understanding of safety in the world and in relationships, which then allows the body to let itself relax out of its dysregulated stress-response state. Positive mental and physical health changes follow.
In order for someone to heal from trauma, they have to learn to see that it was the event(s) that happened to them that is the issue, rather than seeing themselves as diseased or deficient. A helpful first step is learning how to recognize irrational thoughts and behaviour. Another important step is learning how to mitigate intense sensations with self-regulation and self-nurture. Some effective techniques include EMDR, neurofeedback, and yoga (HRV training). Talk to a local counsellor to see if they offer any of these services.
So, What Now?
The experience of trauma and adverse situations during childhood has lifelong physical, psychological, and spiritual consequences on a person’s total health. These experiences are referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). When a child experiences such a trauma, their body’s stress-response system becomes dysregulated. This has extensive impacts on their health and functioning later in life. Although we may wish for every child to have had a healthy, whole childhood, the fact of the matter is that we have much healing work to do with adults today. However, make no mistake – although a difficult journey, the effects of ACEs can be healed later in life.
If you think you may have experienced ACEs, visit togethertalk.ca to see how we can help.
Bibliography
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