March 2018

A new paper confirms what many Americans likely suspected: A mass economic downturn—on the scale that occurred during the Great Recession—makes people physically sick. Past research has been surprisingly mixed on the effect of economic downturns on physical health. A review paper published in 2016 found that though alcohol use and traffic fatalities declined during the Great Recession, overall, people had fewer babies, had worse mental health, and were more likely to kill themselves. But...

A woman receives a breast cancer diagnosis and opts for a mastectomy — only for her doctor to object: “But you aren’t married.” A young girl suffering from endometriosis, a condition in which uterine cells migrate to other areas of the body, is informed by her doctor that childbirth will ease the pain. “I’m only 11,” she later tells her support group, baffled. A woman complains of vomiting uncontrollably, up to 100 times a night. She is offered antidepressants. When it finally occurs to a...

For the past year, Lois Beckett [ @loisbeckett ], senior reporter at The Guardian US , has been showing up at white nationalist rallies, taking their pictures, writing down what they say. And she finds herself thinking: How did we get here? How did her beat as a political reporter come to include interviewing Nazis? And what are the consequences of giving these groups this much coverage? In this week's program — the culmination of a months-long collaboration between On the Media and The...

Training to help children who face early childhood trauma is to be offered to all schools in Wales. Teachers will be taught how to support pupils who have adverse experiences such as family breakdown, bereavement or physical, sexual or substance abuse. It follows a pilot project at three primary schools in Bridgend county. [For more on this story, go to http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-43345927 ]

NEW CASTLE (March 12, 2018) – The Department of Health and Social Services is partnering with Wilmington University to train more than 1,000 frontline DHSS staff in better assessing and addressing the needs of clients statewide, many of whom have experienced trauma in their lives, during the kickoff of a yearlong Trauma-Informed Approach initiative. Wilmington University’s nine-week training session for 26 supervisors and trainers from the DHSS Divisions of Social Services, Child Support...

When Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 people, mostly students, in a Parkland, Fla., high school on Valentine's Day, the shooting became a rallying cry for gun control. For those familiar with ACEs science, however, the details of Cruz's life, including the recent death of his mother, were warning signs. ACE is short for adverse childhood experiences. Kathy Powderly, executive director of the Hagerstown Area Religious Council, recently attended a training session about ACEs. She remembers...

Initially when I started visiting my Memory Forest I was compelled to wander down the same path. But as I got more comfortable and felt safer among the memories, I started venturing off the well-worn paths and started making new trails. This has been my experience of neuroplasticity and recovery from interpersonal trauma and ACEs.

Recently I finished J.D. Vance's excellent Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis , a book that's part sociological analysis about poor white Americans, and part memoir about growing up with a drug-addicted mother and all the crappy crap that goes with that. I come from the opposite corner of the socioeconomic spectrum (well, the "socio" part of the poor spectrum). Vance was Hillbilly Poor and I was Hippie Poor, but my experience was about 90% the same as his. When media...

Good morning! Did anyone see this study? https://www.inc.com/dana-severson/after-studying-lives-of-724-men-for-79-years-harvard-reveals-1-biggest-secret-to-success-happiness.html It is more supporting documentation to the Enjoy Life Community® concept that I had developed and would love to work with people of like mind as I have found here in the AcesConnection network to implement. I truly believe it is a solution for any community -- a school community, neighborhood or workplace. The...

Recovery is not a term reserved only for those who choose and maintain the path of complete abstinence. Inside a theatre, a stark visual appears: Each year, only 1% of addicts are able to kick heroin and stay clean. This quickly cuts to images of my former self deliberately counting syringes at the needle exchange site. I see a shadow I recognize as myself in active addiction. I can barely discern my gender, my clothing keenly styled to blend into the streets that I called home. As the...

More people in the United States are on antidepressants , as a percentage of the population, than any other country in the world. And yet the drugs’ efficacy has been hotly debated. Some believe that the short-term benefits are much more modest than widely thought, and that harms may outweigh benefits in the long run. Others believe that they work, and that they can be life-changing. Settling this debate has been much harder than you might think. [For more on this story by Aaron E. Carroll,...