The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity—A Transformative Guide to Understanding Childhood Trauma and Health

by Nadine Burke Harris

It wasn’t one or two labs doing cutting-edge research that tipped the scales. It wasn’t the development of a single pill that made the difference. It was the spirit and practice of collaboration across the United States and, indeed, the world.

In 1955, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) decided that the study of leukemia could move forward more quickly if researchers came together in “cooperative groups.”

All the antibiotics in the world won’t solve the problem if people continue to dump raw sewage into the water supply. Similarly, even with the most advanced sanitation practices, some people will still get sick, so we need ways to treat infections.

We have yet to develop fourth-generation antibiotics in the fight against toxic stress, but we can use the knowledge of how the stress response triggers health problems to institute some basic hygiene: Screening, trauma-informed care, and treatment. Sleep, exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, mental health, and healthy relationships—these are the equivalent of Lister dipping his instruments in carbolic acid and requiring his surgical students to wash their hands.

The cause of harm—whether that’s microbes or childhood adversity—does not need to be totally eradicated. The revolution is in the creative application of knowledge to mitigate harm wherever it pops up.

That otherworldly clarity, that extra level of focus and performance, is what my brothers, who are football fans, call Beast Mode.

I know that the long-term impacts of childhood adversity are not all suffering. In some people, adversity can foster perseverance, deepen empathy, strengthen the resolve to protect, and spark mini-superpowers, but in all people, it gets under our skin and into our DNA, and it becomes an important part of who we are.

If you’re a parent with ACEs, or even a parent without ACEs, you have a double challenge because you have to worry about taking care of yourself and protecting your child.

I caught a glimpse of what it might be like to lose the ability to be the parent we all want to be.