Let’s Be More Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs) Aware!

It took me until I was 20 when I took my first Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) self-screening. ACEs are scored based on ten questions on potential traumatic events a person experiences before a child’s 18th birthday (<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/aces/pdf/vs-1105-aces-H.pdf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Center for Disease Control (CDC) Vital Signs, 2019</a>). These experiences are separated into three categories: abuse (physical, emotional, sexual), neglect (physical, emotional), and household challenges (i.e. divorce and substance abuse). But looking back, I wish someone had told me about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) earlier (<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/injury/pdfs/priority/ACEs-Strategic-Plan_Final_508.pdf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">CDC Vital Signs, 2020</a>) . At this point, I accepted that I could love my family at a distance while accepting my emotional abuse as a form of abuse. Emotional or psychological abuse is a type of abuse where the victim is gaslit, groomed, manipulated, blackmailed, or threatened <a href="https://assets.speakcdn.com/assets/2497/domestic_violence_and_psychological_abuse_ncadv.pdf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">(National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 2015</a>).  <a href="https://medium.com/@Rennae/lets-be-more-adverse-childhood-experience-aces-aware-43da297cf4eb">Click Here</a>