In 1995, the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) was launched, probing the histories of 17,000 children and adolescents. This is the largest and most influential study of the relationship between childhood adversity and long-term health. It showed that exposure to overwhelming and traumatic experiences in one’s childhood has lifelong consequences for individuals. The more trauma a child experiences, the more they are at risk for harmful thinking and behaviour patterns. Findings in the study showed that early-life adversity increased the risk for several of the leading causes of death in adults, including depression, anxiety, diabetes and heart disease.

What is Trauma

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are stressful or traumatic events, including abuse and neglect. They may also include dysfunction in the home such as witnessing domestic violence or growing up with family members who have substance use disorders. ACEs include: – Physical abuse – Sexual abuse – Emotional abuse – Physical neglect – Emotional neglect – Parental separation or divorce – Substance misuse within household – Household mental illness – Intimate partner violence – Mother treated violently – Incarcerated household member

The Impact of Trauma

The ACE Study demonstrated that childhood trauma is pervasive, among all ethnicities, regardless of education and household income. The study helped us see that childhood trauma does not discriminate, it cuts across multiple populations. The medical community is beginning to acknowledge that adversity and trauma increase the risk of disease later in life. Health researchers are working to understand the psychological and biological connections between trauma and adverse experiences on health. Here are some of the stats from the research on how adverse childhood experiences affects our mental health and physical well-being: – Approximately two-thirds of children have experienced at least one major traumatic event in their lives.  – Approximately one-third of children have experienced two or more major traumatic event in their lives.  – Individuals who lived through four or more adverse childhood experiences are six times as likely to struggle with depression and other mood disorders, than those with no adverse childhood experiences.  – Individuals who endured four or more adverse childhood experiences also are more likely to have cancer, diabetes, lung ailments, arthritis, strokes and a host of other health ailments. 

The Impact of Trauma on the Brain and Body

The stress of overwhelming or traumatic experiences in childhood, such as being regularly slapped or hit, being belittled and berated, or watching your father hit your mother, releases hormones that physically damage a child’s developing brain. Flight, fight or freeze hormones work well to help us run when we’re being chased by a bear, fight when we’re cornered, or stop and become undetectable by a threat. But the hormones become toxic when they flood the body for too long. If a bear threatens you daily, your emergency response system is activated over and over again. You’re always ready to fight or flee from the bear, but the part of your brain (prefrontal cortex) that’s needed to stay calm or read a book becomes stunted. This is because the emergency (fleeing the danger) take precedence over reading a book. Children with a lot of stress spend much of their lives in fight, flight or freeze. Their experience is that the world is not safe. Their brain is flooded with stress hormones preventing them from functioning appropriately. They might fall behind in school or have difficulty developing healthy relationships with peers or teachers because trusting adults can be challenging. They are left feeling depressed, anxious, angry, ashamed, guilty and/or afraid. To escape these emotions, they find comfort in food, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, inappropriate sex, high-risk activities or work and over-achievement. As you can imagine, these coping methods aren’t the root problem, consciously or unconsciously, they are attempts at being a solution to the feelings they are trying to escape.

The Intergenerational Impact of ACEs

If parents experienced trauma or adverse experiences, ACEs could be passed on to the children. One way is through their biology because “we now understand that effects of adversity exposure can begin immediately when an organism is conceived and begins to develop,” says Nicole Bush, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics. Bush states that maternal stress hormones impact fetal development and a mother’s own early childhood adversity can impact her biology throughout her life including into her pregnancy. The other way ACEs can be passed on is from the environment the parents create for their child.

Healing from Trauma and ACEs

While it may be easier to turn away rather than face these issues, we no longer can afford to do so. Stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, substance abuse (to name a few) are all health outcomes linked to childhood trauma. And they are occurring at very high rates. We often think that the individual should just be able to get themselves together and move on, but research overwhelmingly shows that the experiences we have in the first seven years of life play a significant role in who we are as adults. We do not merely outgrow the impact of trauma and ACEs. In fact, when a person is exposed to multiple ACEs, the impact increases and the individual often feel worse over time. This doesn’t mean that children who suffered childhood experiences are doomed for life. Humans have the innate capacity to adapt and positively transform, despite the stressful and traumatic events in their past. Positive, supportive relationships can contribute to positive well-being in the lives of these individuals. By starting with ourselves, we can provide the safety, love, protection and support children need. Want to know your ACE score? Take the quiz.