The human brain is the most impressionable during its developmental stages. While we are in the early years of our life we are developing biologically, psychologically and socially through internal and external processes and experiences. What makes up these experiences is not just the event that occurs at a particular time in our life but how our brain perceives that event and gives it meaning.
When a child is exposed to situations such as abuse, violence, crime, etc, then being in these situations can cause extreme stress and can result in trauma. This trauma can result in some mental illnesses such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety among others and it can also cause mental health concerns such as difficulty in maintaining interpersonal relationships, trust issues, etc.
These bad experiences that a person goes through as a child are classified as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). According to Bellis et al “ACEs are stressful experiences occurring during childhood that directly harm a child or affect the environment in which they live.” These stressful life events can be traumatic to a child who has experienced them. ACEs can include the following:
- Verbal abuse: Abuse consists of verbal cues that are abusive and taboo.
- Physical abuse: This comprises if the child has been directly hit by someone resulting in physical abuse.
- Domestic violence: Witnessing domestic violence or being abused in a domestic set-up directly would result in ACEs
- Alcohol or drug misuse: If the child has been exposed to drug abuse directly or indirectly by a caregiver or parent.
- Sexual abuse: Any form of physical touch that violates a person’s body is classified as sexual abuse. For children specifically, the POCSO Act covers all the physical signs that are classified as sexual abuse.
- Physical neglect: A child has a lot of physical needs that are expected to be fulfilled by the caregiver. These needs would include having a house, clothes, food etc. An absence of these basic necessities results in physical neglect.
- Emotional neglect: Emotional needs being neglected may look like a lack of emotional and physical attention, feeling unheard, and feeling unloved while growing up.
- Parental separation: A child who experiences their parents getting divorced may be affected by it as they may have a lot of emotions coming up that if not addressed could result in mental health issues.
One of the standard scales used to measure ACEs is The Adverse Childhood Experiences Scale by Felitti et al. This scale has been used with adults of all ages socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnicities. The basic understanding of the results when this scale is administered can be understood by understanding that the scale has 17 questions with a ‘yes’ or ‘ no’ response to each of these questions about an individual’s childhood. The higher the person scores on this scale the higher the probability of them having gone through traumatic experiences and the higher their chances are of developing a mental illness or mental health issue.
The research article “Childhood Adverse Events and the Long-Term Effects on Mental Health” published in the Journal of Mental Health and Clinical Psychology found that Adverse Childhood Experiences can lead to specific mental illnesses. A correlation was found between increased risk of symptoms of depression and adverse childhood events. The results further stated an association of ACEs with clinical outcomes of bipolar disorder.
Even though a person may have experienced an event in childhood it could still have a major impact on their adult personalities and personal and professional lives. If a person has more than 4 ACEs then they should be assessed for trauma and other mental health issues.
It is also true that not everyone who has experienced ACEs has PTSD and the reason behind this is resilience and individual differences. Resilience is the capacity of a person to bounce back from an adverse situation what this means is that if two people have experienced an earthquake at the same moment, in the same place, they both may not perceive the situation similarly which in turn will result in different response to the same situation. A few things that can help a person manage the outcomes of these ACEs and help build resilience could be:
- Talking to a mental health professional to get a proper assessment and then get the right tools to help them deal with the issues they have faced in the past and their present life.
- The way to build resilience would be to work on one’s perception which can be achieved by practicing various psychological tools and techniques.
- One can also work with a therapist and learn how to build up their resilience.
