I wrote the following in 1995. I was six years into a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood. The ACE Study wasn’t yet published. It was the feel-it-to heal days of therapy which were all talk talk talk, which often made survivors like myself feel far worse. I had already survived childhood and was technically an adult but still had no idea how to navigate in a world, family-wise, and society-wise, that seemed so indifferent to the suffering of some children and adults. I share it here because of the way some wonder if, when and how to talk about ACEs as though that have lived through trauma as kids are protected by the silence, fear, uncertainty, shame, and privilege of others. As though, we don’t know in our hearts and bones that what we lived and knew, as children and young adults, are things others can’t talk-think-deal with or address. 

Even before we had the language of ACEs we knew. Even before we called it developmental trauma, complex trauma, etc. it was lived-with real and going on for decades, lives, generations and centuries.

Henry David Thoreau wrote this:

“It takes two to speak the truth –

one to speak and another to hear.”

Breaking silence isn’t about finding our voices, as though they are keys that were lost. Survivors of all kinds have never not been speaking up in words, actions, and symptoms. It’s something else. It’s about being heard.

Asking someone what happened to them as opposed to what is wrong with them is a shift in the right direction but it’s not enough if safety and space isn’t made for survivors to say, “That’s not the way I speak to or about myself.” Survivors might ask, “Where have you been? Why aren’t you listening?” We might say, in fact, that’s not even the way we frame our lives and our experiences. We might wonder why you don’t realize your own ACE privilege and luck, how the absence of adversity and traumatic stress at home or in the community have protected you so much and why you remain smug, uncaring and indifferent, which is how it can feel to us.

To us, you are them and we are us. To you, we know, we are them.

Us and them don’t share safety and space.

Us and them can’t come together until we share the narrative, the questions, the answers and who sets the agenda.

I knew nothing about ACEs in 1995 and was fighting for my life. I’d come through eating disorders, binge drinking, depression, anxiety, dangerous relationships and self-destructive things as well as the more socially acceptable compulsions: overworking and exercising too much. I couldn’t wait to turn 30 so I could be free of the illusion of being considered young which came with pressure to be frivolous, fun and happy which I felt entirely none of.

I felt ancient, dried up, exhausted and old. I had no idea how to stay connected to my family and get healthy at the same time and where one turns while trying to break the cycle in one’s own actual life. So I journaled, raged, questioned and had imaginary conversations with imaginary elders who I pictured were listening. I tried to write myself and my way into a future I wasn’t sure I’d ever reach. I can never forget, never not know how much this work is life and death, survival, urgent, necessary and essential. Survivor perspectives need to be at the forefront, always, centering our work.

It is not academic, clinical, abstract for many individuals, families, and communities and if we don’t know that in our bones we should make sure we are hearing more from those who do.

1995

If money were magic how much would hope cost?

If money could save me how much would I need?

Could I buy back my lost dreams?

Could I have the water of my tears?

Could I drip a faucet to make a moist soul so something good and clean and healthy could grow inside?

I’m tired of crying out. I’m tired of waiting for tears – for they are the only miracle that can pierce my numbness… but they are gone.

I’m 28. It’s my life. The rest of my life is mine. But I feel dried up and dried out.

The world doesn’t care how I was hurt. Who left me, who hit me, who insulted my skin.

The world doesn’t care if I’m afraid of the dark or why.

The world doesn’t care if sleep doesn’t soothe me, if sleep is just a breeding ground for things I can look away from all day, always focusing my eyes in front of me (so not to see what I see, know what I know).

The world doesn’t care what it has cost me to survive, to try to be different, to try so hard that sometimes I sweat from my bones.

It’s selfish, I guess, but I expect the world, the cosmos and maybe God to reward me for enduring, to reward me for living through what I could easily want to die from.

It’s my life. I’m 28.

I’m sad because I’m getting older and I don’t have buoyancy.

I’m like an 80-year old. My steps are careful. I can’t afford to fall and break another bone. I’m afraid of a broken hip.

Harsh weather conditions frighten me.

I know the potential for harm – too often.

I’ve seen too many crushed by coldness, extreme and harsh weather conditions. Too many cars seen sliding off the road and out of control. I can’t not think of them all every time a street must be walked or crossed.

If money were magic how much would it cost for me to be free?

If money were magic how much would hope cost?

How much?

Day 16 of 30 days after Oprah on 60 Minutes. Days 15 14, 13, 12, 11 & all days prior

#ACEs