How many ACEs did you experience and has it affected you?

[ElevenGreenBottlesOnAWall]

Adverse Childhood Experiences. https://www.acesaware.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/ACE-Questionnaire-for-Adults-Identified-English-rev.7.26.22.pdf

10 here. I think I’m generally OK and capable, good job etc but anxious. Have always tried not to repeat the generational stuff, sometimes unsuccessfully.

I’ve read the studies about health outcomes, etc, but at the same time think it’s a blunt tool and other things, eg protective factors, must make bad outcomes less inevitable, surely?

Zero for me but I have experienced significant trauma as an adult (domestic abuse) and am now too ill to
work.

4 and I have diagnosed cPTSD

None thankfully, but I can fully understand how these things happening in your home during your formative years would have a huge impact on the rest of your life.

My DP scores highly on this list and has gone on to struggle with substance abuse, relationship difficulties and a host of MH issues. It does also feel a little bit self fulfilling though, as he’s so ‘aware’ and educated about the impact of ACEs that he is convinced that he is irreparably damaged and incapable of a normal loving relationship, which has become somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He likes to quote that almost everyone struggling with opiate addiction had a dysfunctional childhood. But I have tried to counter that not everyone who had a dysfunctional childhood struggles with substance abuse. People find their own ways to deal with it, and there isn’t just one way of living if you haven’t experienced childhood trauma, and one way of living if you have. Everyone’s lives are unique and we play the hand we’re dealt.

I didn’t think those were supposed to be used on an individual level, just a population level.

7 for me , have always been a people pleaser and hyper vigilant if people are behaving aggressively around me , had periods of very bad anxiety but also hopefully managed not to expose my own children to any of them

I only scored 8 on the list attached but there were a host of other issues. I spent time in and out of foster care, always with the same family. There were loads of us, ALL of whom have gone on to develop addiction issues of some sort except 2 of us. Most of the kids I grew up with experienced adverse childhood experiences and most are pretty fucked tbh.

it’s not inevitable but it certainly seems to be the norm.

Strange that there are no questions whatsoever about being bullied at school or hit by other children.

Yes, I was also in foster care and tbh a lot of that was just as bad or worse than the stuff we were taken away from.