How Adverse Childhood Experiences Affect Relationships
Childhood trauma is surprisingly common and understandably painful, but healing is possible. I didn’t figure out what love wasn’t until I went through my tsunami of a divorce and came face-to-face with the ongoing trauma causing by experiences of childhood abuse — all at the same time. You see, I was a victim (sorry, I hate that word, but it is what it is) of childhood abuse, what those in the clinical world refer to as Adverse Childhood Experiences. What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences? According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) definition , “Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) is the term used to describe all types of abuse, neglect, and other potentially traumatic experiences that occur to people under the age of 18.” The term originated in the 1990s, after Dr. Vincent Felitti, head of Kaiser Permanente’s Department of Preventive Medicine in San Diego, discovered a correlation between childhood trauma and unhealthy coping mechanisms “for depression, anxiety, and f...
