Transcript
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A listener production, Welcome to another episode of Crappy Are
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Happy Today. What I want to talk to you about
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is something that actually came up in an episode that
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I did recently, an interview that I did with Rick Morton.
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You may have listened to that episode. It was about
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Rick's experience and the book that he wrote called My
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Year of Living Vulnerably, and Rick shared about his early
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childhood experience traumatic experiences that he had during childhood. Rick
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and I share the opinion that most of the problems
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that we see in the world, that we witness in
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the world, all can be boiled down to one common denominator,
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and that is childhood trauma or early adverse experiences. And
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it prompted me to want to create this solo episode
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to talk a little bit more about that and the
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impact that early childhood experiences have on our physical and
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our emotional wellbeing. So, if you have not ever heard
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of the ACES study, the Adverse Childhood Experience Study, that
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is what I want to share with you today. You
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may be familiar with it, maybe you know some of
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what it's about, but you don't really know where it
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came from or what the implications of that study were.
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So I would love to share that with you. I
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was a little reluctant to talk about this because it
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can seem kind of depressing. Truth be told, it can
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feel a little bit depressing when you realize what some
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of the long term implications are of early childhood experiences.
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Of course, as children, we don't have any real control
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over these things that we experience and the implications they
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have for our physical and mental health many many many
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years down the track. But this is crappy to happy.
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So I will also share with you the positive impact
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of positive childhood experiences and the role that they can
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play in counteracting I guess some of these negative consequences
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of difficult childhood experiences. So start of the ACES. So
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back in the nineteen nineties, the ACES survey was first conducted.
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There's an interesting backstory to how this came about. So
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doctor Vincent Feliti was running an obesity clinic. He was
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getting really frustrated because a lot of his patients were
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experiencing really good results. They were losing weight, and these
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were people who were at significant health risk because of
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how overweight they were. Following his program, they were getting results.
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But then what was happening was they were suddenly dropping out,
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and many of them were very quickly regaining a lot
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of the weight that they had lost. He was getting
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really frustrated that well, in particular, that people were dropping
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out of the program, and so he started to dig
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into what was going on, and long story short by
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a slip of the tongue. One day, when he was
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asking some routine questions of one of his patients, he
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asked her about her first sexual experience, or what age
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she was, or what she weighed I think, and she
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said that she weighed forty pounds, and then it came
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out that she had actually been sexually abused as a child,
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and he was quite struck by this, And then he
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started asking other patients and they had a similar response.
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So he found out a lot of these people who
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were experiencing difficulties with their weight, they had often very
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suddenly gained weight. He noticed this in their personal histories.
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These weren't people who gradually put on weight each year
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and each decade. There was often a very sudden turn
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around it where they suddenly put on weight. And also
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as they started to lose weight and they started to
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have results, then they were either dropping out or piling
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the weight back on, and the more he explored this,
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the more he found out that this was quite common
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and there was a very clear link between gaining weight
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or holding on to excess weight or not wanting to
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lose weight, and having experience of sexual abuse in childhood.
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So essentially, what he found and what his patients began
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to tell him once he started to ask them about this,
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was that for men, they were less likely to be
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bullied often they had had early traumatic experience as a
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child as well, they were less likely to be bullied
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if they gained a lot of weight if they were
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a larger person, And for women they were much less
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at risk of unwanted sexual attention if they were overweight,
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and they very explicit stated this that being overweight and
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being considered to be physically less attractive to the opposite
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sex was how they stayed safe. Doctor Feliti then teamed
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up with another guy, doctor Bob Arnder, and they went
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ahead and conducted the Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey to find
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out what other long term effects what they were seeing
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as health problems in adults were actually underpinned by early
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traumatic experiences. They surveyed seventeen thousand people initially, and they
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asked them questions about a range of particular adverse experiences
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that were commonly reported. They didn't just pluck these ten
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items that were on the survey, and there were things
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like physical abuse, sexual abuse, having a parent who had
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a substance problem, alcohol problem, witnessing domestic violence, having a
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parent in prison. So these were the ten survey items. Basically,
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there were ten items on the original ACES survey, and
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they came up with those ten items because of what
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they were being commonly told, kinds of experiences that seemed
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to be the most commonly reported amongst their patients at
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the CDC and in the Kaiser Permanente, which is this
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health clinic. Now, the interesting thing about these seventeen thousand
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people and what they reported was that these were predominantly white,
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middle class, well educated, well employed people. And prior to this,
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most of the interest in early trauma and the impact
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that that had on psychological wellbeing or problem behaviors was
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mostly focused on poorer communities, lower socioeconomic and disadvantaged kind
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of community. So this really shone a light on the
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fact that the population, the group of people that were
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well off doing well in life succeeding in life, very white,
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middle class that they were reporting pretty high levels of
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early childhood adversity. So in fact, what they found was
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that sixty one percent of adults reported at least one
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of these aces. They found that most people didn't have
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just one. Usually if there was one, there was more
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than one. They didn't usually happen in isolation. Over eighty
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percent had two or more ACES, and sixteen percent had
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four or more. What they also found was with the
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higher number of ACES, the more significant health risk for
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these adults. If you had four or more ACES, you
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were basically twice as likely to experience heart disease, around
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twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer, two and
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a half times more likely to have a stroke, four
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times more likely to have chronic bronchitis or mphysema, six
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times more likely to have diabetes. And then there are
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the psychological issues, So four and a half times more
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likely to have suffered from depression in the past twelve months,
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twelve times more likely to have attempted suicide, seven times
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more likely to have an issue with alcohol problem with alcohol,
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and ten times more likely to have injected drugs. So
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I think what we probably intuitively understand is that if
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you've had a difficult childhood, if you've grown up in
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a dysfunctional family, if there has been alcoholism, if you've
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been abused as a child neglected, if you've witnessed domestic violence,
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if you've had a parent with a mental health issue
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and alcohol issue. These are all of the kinds of
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things that are on the ACES seven. Oh, by the way,
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parental separation or divorce is one of them, So that
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might account for the fact that over sixty percent of
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people have had at least one. We intuitively kind of
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understand that that is more likely to lead to having
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more emotional psychological issues. You're more likely to experience depression
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or anger or anxiety later in life, and therefore this
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is likely to lead to risky health behaviors. You're more
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likely to drink, you're more likely to smoke, You're more
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likely to use food for self soothing or or comfort eating,
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stress eating, those kinds of things that we kind of
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connect with early childhood adversities. But what they found was
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even after they controlled for those risky health behaviors, even
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when they took the people out who had never smoked,
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who weren't over eating, or using food or using substances,
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or drinking too much. Those people still had significantly increased
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risk of health issues heart disease, stroke, cancer. These early
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childhood experiences were impacting health outcomes many many years down
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the track, even in the absence of risky health behaviors
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that you might associate typically with early childhood trauma. So
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that's kind of interesting and kind of a little bit
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scary for a lot of people, right what they think,
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what they've ascertained. And there's been many, many, many studies
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done since that original ACES survey, and the results are
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pretty much the same. No matter where they survey people,
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they find these same sorts of rates of ACES in
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the population. But what we know now is that early
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childhood stress affects children's developing brains and bodies. It absolutely
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affects children's brain development. Therefore, that impacts how well children
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can pay attention in class. We know that there are
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links between early trauma and ADHD, and we'll talk about
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that in another episode. Absolutely, because the rates of ADHD
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diagnosis are just phenomenal at the moment. So when little
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children during those formative years, and most children have experienced
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these aces prior to the age of three if they
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have experienced them. But in those really early years, when
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children exposed to issues at home, if they're exposed to
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abuse and neglect, or parnal alcoholism, or domestic violence, all
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of those things, their little bodies are flooded with stress hormones,
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with cortisol and adrenaline. Stress hormones are designed to help us,
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to prepare us to be able to fight off an
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attacker or to run. And if those stress hormones have
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nowhere to go and they stay circulating in your body,
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and if that threat is ever present, you're living in
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an environment where there is toxic stress, chronic unrelenting stress.
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And that is what we're talking about here, toxic childhood stress.
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So it's not a one off event, it's not a
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one off traumatic experience. This is an environment where this
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threat is ever present and that stress is ever present.
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Then that impacts little bodies, and it puts stress on
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every system in your physical body. So it impacts immune system,
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it impacts metabolic system, it impacts respiratory system. Every part
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of your developing little brain and body is impacted by that,
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and that can have long lasting negative consequences to your health.
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In addition to increased risk of unhealthy behaviors, smoking, drinking,
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all of those sorts of things, depression, anxiety, which are
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going to predispose you to be turning towards substances nicotine, alcohol.
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You know, when you get to be a teenager and
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you start discovering all of those things, unhealthy or risky
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sexual behaviors, all of those kinds of things. So in
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addition to those health risks, just the stress on your
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body what we call the allostatic load for stress load
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on your internal organs and your system is going to
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have long term health consequences. Just on that. By the way,
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there has been some discussion and people will often say
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the ten items that were included in the original ACES
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survey were probably quite limiting, really, and I can tell
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you what they were, in fact, I'll tell you right now.
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But they didn't, for example, take into consideration things like racism,
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being in foster care, being bullied, living in an unsafe neighborhood,
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and all of these things we know a traumatic for
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children and for adults. Later, separately, there was a project
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called the Philadelphia ACES Project, and the Philadelphia ACES Project
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expanded the original questions and included six additional items such
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as growing up in foster care, living in an unsafe neighborhood,
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being discriminated against, experiencing bullying, And based on those additional questions,
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they found that more than eighty percent of people had
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experienced at least one So the original TENK questions, we
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know that over sixty percent two thirds roughly of the
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population have experienced at least one ACE and more than
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eighty percent have experienced two or more. When you expand
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the definition and you add those extra items, than the
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numbers shoot right up. So most people in the population
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have experienced at least one and usually more. They usually
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do not occurred on their own the original ten Because
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I know that you're interested, were prior to your eighteenth birthday?
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Did a parent or other adult did they swear at
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you and salt you, put you down, humiliate you, make
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you feel afraid? Did they push, grab, slap, or throw
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something at you hit you so hard it left a
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mark or an injury. Did an adult or a person
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at least five years older than you touch or fondle
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you in a sexual way? Did you ever feel that
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nobody in your family loved you or thought that you
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were special? You didn't feel like people were looking out
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for you. Did you often or very often not have
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enough to eat, have dirty clothes, had no one to
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protect you? So that is a question relating to neglect.
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Were your parents separated or divorced? Was your mother or
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stepmother very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, basically domestic violence? Did
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you live with somebody who was a problem drinker, alcoholic,
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or who used street drugs. Was a household member depressed
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or mentally ill? Did a household member ever attempt suicide?
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Did a household member ever go to prison? So I
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guess one important thing just to note here on that
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if you weren't aware of the ACIS study, if you
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weren't aware of the negative and very significant health implications
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of those early childhood experiences, then that's useful information to have.
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Usually we go to the GP and we have a