November 2017

Focusing on your health is important as you heal after trauma. I had learned a lot about trauma. I understood the impact but having been fortunate with a healthy body, the long term impact had not showed up in my biology except for very painful migraine headaches and depression. But the toxic level of stress I had lived with my whole life had not registered yet. Back then, my self-care mostly consisted of numbing the pain. It just hurt too much to think about it. I was in too much pain and...

Since August 2016, more than 300 three-year-olds who visited Kaiser Permanente’s pediatric clinics in Hayward and San Leandro have been screened for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as living with a family member who is an alcoholic or losing a parent to separation or divorce. But when the idea to screen toddlers and their families for ACEs was first broached at the Kaiser Permanente Hayward Medical Center, the staff were, in a word, “angsty,” says Dr. Paul Espinas, who led the...

I just had to cradle a bundle of books when my publisher showed me the first 1000 copies that arrived from the printer. A thousand copies! At this very moment the most important thing is they exist. Not if or when they’ll be purchased. Not who will get a copy or what they’ll think of it as they read it. What’s happening is I am telling. A thousand times over, I am telling. A lot of people already know that after every rape my father said, “You tell anyone and I’ll kill you.” And I’ve worked...