Vulnerable Not Damaged: 30 Days After Oprah

Survivors OWN ACEs, 30 Days After Oprah (Day 4,  Day 3, Day 2, Day 1/Intro)

Day / Aha 5: Children are Vulnerable and Not Damaged

Trauma that happens during development is developmental trauma.

Or, as Dr. Bruce Perry said: “That very same sensitivity that makes you able to learn language just like that as a little infant makes you highly vulnerable to chaos, threat, inconsistency, unpredictability.”

Here’s how I think of it.

The brain is an elevator and the body is the building it’s in. Adversity, during childhood, is capable of taking out the elevator’s ability to work on certain floors. Think of trying to get to floor ten, from the ground, in an elevator that stops on floor four or-or six or eight. Think of how frustrating and panicky it is when the elevator stops, stalls, shakes and has lights out. Imagine that happens all the time and you have to stop, get out, take the stairs and try the elevator on another floor.

It’s a lot of work. Imagine you are doing that in heels, with toddlers and groceries and are already late for work. And you never know which is the floor that is going to fail on any given day.

A brain bathed in toxic stress that’s not buffered or protected can’t get to all the floors in a direct up and down way. It can’t do as easily or seamlessly. Those without elevators that work can’t just mindlessly get from here to there but have to find all these tiresome, cumbersome, and exhausting routes and pathways just to do what takes others twenty-nine seconds while they only have to deal with lousy elevator music.

They don’t know they have it easier and arrive at the floor all sweaty, agitated and disheveled. And not sure why others seem so rested and well rested. We know we’ve been working hard but the journey is up is labored. Our elevator really doesn’t go the top, at least not on the same pathway. But it’s not damage but manufacturer error, a system failure that needs repair.

Our journey up is different, longer, can be bumpy and not a straight shot. We don’t complain and people aren’t compassionate. Often, they are mad at us for taking so long to “get it” or “get there” without understanding what holds us up in the first place.

What helps is access to other elevators we can get a lift on. If we have another who has access to working elevators or has a GPS and can show us the tricks to maneuver with the equipment we have – it’s easier. We can rest and ride. That’s all the love, attachment and buffering stuff people talk about.

Without that, we have all of these intense and compelling data points about the dose-response impact that show that more less is best when it comes to ACEs and bad is dose-response predictable.

The fab news for no-ACE privilege (that’s some motivation for parents!)

The less fun stuff is that high ACE scores carry greater health risks, eespecially for depression and death by suicide.

What the what?

There’s literally hundreds of more slides that look the same for social, emotional and financial outcomes, for learning issues, for disease, for mental health struggles, for on and on and on and on. These slidses made me cry because I couldn’t believe mood struggles were so common for people with my ACE score and I’d felt so alone.

But it’s not just about mood and pscyh issues but learning and health as well. In fact, do a Google search combining “ACEs” and “Dose Response Curve.” You’ll find slides that have a consistent pattern.

More ACEs = More risk & Low ACEs = less risk

Learn more or to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or all things ACEs journalism site ACEs Too High)

Day 6 Preview: Survivors, Teachers & Parents OWN ACEs / No More Edupuking