An excellent video about child abuse and trauma.
Child Abuse is much more common than we think. The statistics are staggering, with 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys being molested by the age of 18. “End It Now” gives us an inside look at this silent killer, and the dramatic effect it has on a person’s life as they mature into adulthood. The video seeks to raise awareness and train audiences how to respond if they witness abuse, or if they’re experiencing it themselves.
End It Now: Understanding and Preventing Child Abuse
h/t ACES to High
Childhood abuse is “unpalatable” and so the epidemic of abuse goes unchallenged.
The conundrum with the advice to “go get help” is that there is not always someone safe with whom to share this sort of information. This too needs to be acknowledged, but in general, telling someone what is happening is most likely a good idea more often than not. The more people become aware of trauma and abuse the safer it will become. So part of raising this consciousness is becoming aware ourselves and sharing the information we learn.
When we start listening to people’s stories of pain rather than numbing them out and effectively silencing them with neurotoxic drugs we will start healing them. Until then people will remain broken. One of the most basic needs for a wounded human being to heal is to be seen. Recognized. Validated. Yes.
As a social worker and clinician working with “the seriously mentally ill” for many years, I never came upon someone who didn’t have fairly severe traumas in their histories.
More info:
● For men and women who hold toxic secrets that are making them sick – I suggested in a post a week or so ago that many people who are medicated for so-called mental illness are holding traumatic secrets. We live in a culture where it’s often not safe to reveal these things. The mental health system largely likes to pretend these things don’t happen or they pretend they have nothing to do with the depression and/or psychosis someone is experiencing. This means that the very place people in distress are expected to get help often actually retraumatizes people.
● The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study – The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) is the product of collaboration between Vincent J. Felitti, MD, who founded and directed the Preventive Medicine Department at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, CA, and Robert F. Anda, MD, MS of the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who designed, analyzed the data and prepared numerous scientific publications from the ACE Study.
● Childhood trauma once again linked to mental health issues in adulthood
● The legacy of childhood trauma
● “Uneasy in good times and overwhelmed in bad. This is the legacy of childhood trauma.”
● Childhood trauma and psychosis
● The Toxic Stress of Early Childhood Adversity (trauma)
● Adverse Childhood Experiences: Risk Factors for Substance Abuse and Mental Health
More info on Trauma and PTSD in general, commentary and links
Everything Matters 