Adverse Childhood Experiences and My Number Story
California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris reached out to me last week, and asked if I’d be willing to talk a little bit about my Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) today, to coincide with the launch of NumberStory.org, a new nonprofit organization she founded to help support people like me who had ACEs, and live with the residual trauma as a result.
Before Dr. Burke-Harris reached out to me, I had never heard of ACE in this context before. If you’re in the same boat, here’s what I learned:
“The term ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences,’ or ‘ACEs,’ comes from the 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study). The study, a partnership between Kaiser Permanente and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is one of the largest investigations ever conducted to assess connections between chronic stress caused by early adversity and long-term health.
“The study examined exposure to childhood adversity, including abuse and neglect, and household dysfunction like domestic violence, parental mental illness, or parental substance abuse. Researchers assigned an ‘ACE score’ to each participant by adding up the number of adversities the participant reported.”
Most of you reading this already know my story. For those who don’t: For as long as I can remember, I was emotionally abused by the man who was my father on a daily basis. In fact, I didn’t have a father, I had a bully. Both my parents spanked me all the time, but when I got into my teens, he hit me, he choked me, he shook me in anger, and he never showed any remorse for it. My mother was so obsessed with the attention got because of my work, she emotionally neglected me, used me to chase her dreams of fame and fortune in Hollywood, and protected her husband when he was cruel to me. She gaslighted me about his cruelty and bullying, and frequently made ME apologize to HIM when I got upset after he did something cruel to me. They never treated me like a special son who they loved. He treated me like I was an irritant who was unworthy of his love, and she treated me like a possession she could use for money and attention. I never felt unconditionally loved and supported in my home. After literally a lifetime of trying to make my mother happy and convince my father to love me, I accepted that they were too selfish, too narcissistic, too prideful, and invested in the lie they told themselves and the world about our family, to see and hear me when I begged them to … well, to just love and accept me for who I was. I ended contact with them several years ago, and while it’s a relief they can’t hurt me any more, I’ll always have a painful, gaping hole in my life where the love and support of my parents should be.
Every day, I struggle with the residual trauma from my childhood. Some days are tougher than others, and I am so grateful for the support network I have to help me on the really bad days.
But some people don’t have that support network, and don’t know where to look to build one. That’s where Dr. Burke-Harris and My Number Story come in. MyNumberStory was founded to help adults identify our Adverse Childhood Experiences, so we can begin healing from them.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) directly affect two out of three of us – and impact the rest of us as well. Learn more at https://NumberStory.org
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Sorry you went through those horrible experiences. Glad you are strong enough to power through.
Sadly, you are not alone, Wheaton. The work of Dr. Burke-Harris is both inspiring and heart breaking. For the past 3 years, I have been on the Trauma Informed Care (TIC) learning journey to lead my healthcare organization into the kind of place that both acknowledges ACEs and helps people live with their residual trauma. It’s back breaking work but it’s the least we can do in reparation and solidarity.
I also suffer from ACE, but from a different source than yours. Thankfully I did have parents who loved me and cared for me, though they were divorced. Thank you for your courage in sharing. Know that there are many of us who unconditionally support and love you.
I just took the ACES test and needless to say the results are what I expected. Thank you Will for pointing this out. More work needs to be done on the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness as well as the stigma associated with it in this country. In my opinion as time goes on we will finally figure out that not only is Mental illness responsible for most crimes in this country but most forms of abuse as well.
Hi Wil, I liked you quite a bit in Stand by Me. I can relate a bit to what you describe, though my experiences with my father occurred at a younger age- I was in foster care at 2 and then again from 4 until 11, by which time my father had died.
Then, it was older brothers who were drinking all the time and taking their anger out on the younger siblings. I think that the most traumatic experience I ever had was when I had just moved back to my mother's at 11. I was getting abused by an older brother; my mother told him to stop and it just continued. That was when I realized that I was truly on my own. In some ways, I was lucky- as a kid with (then undiagnosed) Asperger's, I did not bend to peer pressure and follow in their path. I have 2 younger sisters who were not as fortunate.
For a long time, I felt pretty lost in this place. I suppose that sometimes, I still do.
Thanks for sharing your story and the link (the site is great!). I am the permanent foster placement for 2 nephews and a niece and all three score 10s plus some of those extra factors so I’m keenly interested in ACEs and what they mean going forward for these kids.
K wrote: "Hey Susan, I just wanted to tell you about a book on trauma that I read which helped me to better understand the effects of trauma on the brain and how it develops. I worked with students who had e..."Thanks - I will look for it! It’s a fascinating topic and we have so much to learn. Some days I’m amazed that humankind functions at all.
