The answer to that question isn’t exactly straightforward. It’s not a black and white, one-size-fits-all situation. That’s because adverse childhood experiences can have a lasting impact on a myriad of areas of your life. And as the impact of childhood trauma affects you, that impact causes a ripple effect in the lives of others, too.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): A Continuing Story
How are adverse childhood experiences (commonly abbreviated as ACEs) defined? The American Psychiatric Association (APA) refers to ACEs as “disruptions to the promotion of safe, stable, and nurturing family relationships and are characterized by stressful or traumatic events that occur during an individual’s first 18 years of life.”
While you may think ACEs may never happen to your children, they are very common in the United States. A study of adults in the US, shares the Cleveland Clinic, reported that as many as 60% to 80% dealt with at least one adverse childhood experience at some point in their lives. Of all the traumatic experiences out there, there are a specific handful commonly associated with ACEs, including:
- Living with someone who has a mental illness
- Divorce or separation
- Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
- Substance use in the home
- A caregiver going to prison
- Physical or emotional neglect
- Witnessing domestic violence
The trauma associated with adverse childhood experiences can have a lasting impact on you; it doesn’t necessarily subside when the traumatic event ends. The story of ACEs in your life usually continues. Considering the nature of trauma, its effects can linger for some time, in fact.
Trauma affects each person in its own unique way but may show up as emotional turmoil, flashbacks, unhealthy attachments, and challenging relationships. What makes childhood trauma so damaging is that it can negatively influence your developing brain. As a result, your adverse childhood experiences can have a lasting impact on you physically, socially, and mentally for decades upon decades if left untreated.
Adverse Childhood Experiences Can Have a Lasting Impact on…Your Social Development
Poor Attachments
You learn how to relate to others and form healthy attachments as a child. However, ACEs can deter this development in your formative years. That’s because the social behaviors you witness in a traumatic household are often unhealthy and hurtful, and these learned attachments can influence how childhood trauma affects relationships when you’re an adult.
Unhealthy Relationships
Due to developing poor attachments, your adult relationships may be marked by anxiety, fear of abandonment, codependency, and more. Or you may isolate yourself socially out of fear of intimacy with others. Consequently, your loved ones are impacted by the unresolved trauma from ACEs in your life—and you may even continue this traumatic cycle with your own children, leading to generational trauma.
Adverse Childhood Experiences Can Have a Lasting Impact on…Your Mental Well-Being
Emotional Dysregulation
The impact of adverse childhood experiences can interfere with your ability to process emotions. Healthy individuals learn in childhood how to manage their emotions (including difficult ones) in a healthy way, developing what are called emotional regulation skills. However, the long-term effects of childhood trauma can lead you to struggle with emotional dysregulation. As a result, you’re less likely to know how to respond and more likely to feel anxious or overwhelmed when stressful or negative feelings arise—even among minor challenges.
Mental Illness
Since adverse childhood experiences can have a lasting impact on your emotional regulation abilities, you’re more likely to deal with mental health disorders later in life. The lingering effects of childhood trauma can also leave your brain in a constant state of fight-or-flight, which may cause long-term mental health issues in its own right. Mental health disorders tied to ACEs may include:
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Depression
- Anxiety
Adverse Childhood Experiences Can Have a Lasting Impact on…Your Physical Well-Being
Ongoing Health Challenges
According to the University of California San Francisco, the long-term impact of childhood trauma can lead to chronic health problems as an adult due to ongoing toxic stress. People with four or more ACEs especially are:
- 1.4 times more likely to have diabetes
- 2.3 times more likely to have a stroke, cancer, or heart disease
- 3 times more likely to smoke cigarettes
- 3.2 times more likely to have chronic lower respiratory disease
Substance Abuse and Addiction
As the effects of childhood trauma grow due to emotional dysregulation and mental illness, you can struggle to cope with everyday challenges. As a way to self-medicate, you may develop coping skills for trauma from childhood that are unhealthy, such as using alcohol or drugs. Because they only provide temporary relief, you use them again and again. Over time, your go-to way to cope turns into a dependency, substance abuse, and addiction.
Heal Your Childhood Trauma and Your Addiction in New England
Adverse childhood experiences can have a lasting impact on your life—but they don’t have to with the help of a professional treatment center. At Sana at Stowe in Stowe, Vermont, we specialize in a trauma-informed approach to healing addictions and co-occurring mental health disorders. Our New England-based alcohol addiction, drug addiction, and dual diagnosis treatment programs are here to help you finally overcome your childhood trauma and reclaim your life. Call us today to learn more about our rehabs in Vermont.
Unsure if you’ve dealt with ACEs in your past? Take our FREE adverse childhood experiences test to find out if you may be struggling with the effects of unresolved childhood trauma—and get the clarity you need to seek help now.
