Empires of the undergrowth split stacks
Everyone deserves to live their best life. We have a powerful ability to break the cycle of ACEs by teaching our community to recognize the signs that someone is experiencing an unbalanced life and to help them find stability.
It is especially important to adolescents since the strength of their resiliency skills can influence their future opportunities.
#Empires of the undergrowth split stacks series
The intention of this series of articles is to show there are simple exercises we can use to dramatically lower the impact of ACEs on affected young lives. The long-term goal here is to improve the mental ability to handle, or recover quickly, from hardships. Working to build resilience is important when we are doing well so that we can use it as a reserve when we need it, like charging a battery. Feeling safe and protected by an adult in the homeĬoncrete examples of things that can build resilience are finding connections with family and friends, performing self-reliant activities such as exercise, music, or drawing, or having optimism, calmness, and/or confidence.Having at least two non-parent adult’s interest.Having a sense of belonging in high school.Having family support, participating in community traditions.Being able to talk with family about one’s feelings.Well supported research teaches us about seven positive childhood experiences that can successfully build resilience throughout adulthood (Ranch, 2020). Resilience, as defined by Phillips, Reipas, & Zelek (2019), is the positive adaptation used in the face of adversity, that mitigates the negative effects of stress, and promotes lifelong physical and mental wellbeing. One thing that researchers have found to work as a protective factor against ACEs is resilience. As the ACEs study has shown, child abuse and neglect are the single most preventable causes of mental illness, the single most common cause of drug and alcohol use disorders, and a significant contribution to leading causes of death such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, and suicide (Kolk, 2014). Repeated exposures to ACEs have detrimental long-term health consequences, including the development of SUD. However, more important than exposure to any specific event of this type, is the accumulation of multiple adverse experiences during childhood. ACEs can have negative lasting effects on the health and well-being of children during childhood or later in life. ACEs are potentially traumatic experiences and events, ranging from abuse and neglect, to living with an adult with a substance use disorder (SUD) and/or mental health issues.
In the past two months we have discussed how there is a growing body of research which has made it increasingly apparent that Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are a critical public health issue. Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of columns to be shared with Mount Airy News readers by the Surry County Substance Abuse Recovery Office.