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Adverse Childhood Experiences: Today and Forever's Effects on Health
Tuesday, February 9, 2010, 5:43 am, by Mardy Ross
I'm very much looking forward to the continuing education at our local 'big hospital', St Mary's, today. The topic is 'Child Abuse' and I hope to see Chris and Cheryl Young there, since that is 'her thing'. Just over two years ago, she was scheduled to present at the Fibromyalgia Forum we held in 'our building' where we saw patients two floors apart yet managed to communicate effectively due to my willingness and time availability to run up the stairs or take the elevator up to catch them. Suffice it to say that her powerpoint presentation on Adverse Childhood Experiences and the relationship to chronic illness in adulthood, which is based on the work of a neurologist named Bruce Perry, and the 'aha moments that happened for so many of us in the room and knowing how many MORE people wanted to be there that night but could not: they weren't feeling well, it was dark, it was cold outside, their kids had something going on at school --- was a contributing factor to my creating Lumigrate when I had the opportunity. Cheryl had a cold and laryngitis so set up her husband, Dr. Chris Young, with the information and he did a marvelous job of presenting something he was familiar with yet hadn't ever presented -- demonstrating his 'chops' for public speaking.
He then got intrigued with the concept of applying it specifically to chronic pain, which is something he's specialized in long enough that the manual we were using with our patients was from 1999. I even shared some materials with the OTR from St Marys and included was that manual, which she'd received at an inservice in years past. I sent many patients her way for driving assessments; we're EXTREMELY fortunate to have a hospital-based driving program in this community as they are rare anymore due to funding issues.
Last month, I attended the open house for the expansion -- a tower which now breaks the previously undisturbed view of the Colorado National Monument to the west of town. I feel blessed to have had a private tour with friends who worked on the project's management team and to have happened to the deck of the helipad at the time of the blessing ceremony. At my side, 'coincidentally' was Ivan Alkes, CEU chairman for St. Mary's Hospital. It was the first time I'd been on a hospital helipad and to share that sacred moment was very special to me. When I grew up in the mountains outside of Denver, the orange helicopters for St. Anthony's regularly flew over as there were a lot of car crashes due to the increasing cars on our rural roads and highways that were not designed for it. Since moving to Grand Junction and driving past the temporary helipad that was off campus, and knowing the people who work in the hospital and outpatient clinic eventually -- myself being one of them in the past -- I now make a habit of always pausing when I see the helicopter in the air and being thankful for what all we have in our medical industry for support when we need it.
I also know that this community provides wonderful connections for the most advanced 'progressive' thinking, and I am very grateful to be included and part of it and am now being called 'the funnel'. So off I go to the CEUs and finding another thread to bring into what we are weaving potentially. Seeing the people who helped inspire and create Lumigrate's base content and videos, and see where we go from here!
Link about something I learned from Cheryl and drafted up with her review last fall:
www.lumigrate.com/forum/let-go-shameblame-game-better-health
Link to public higher education research foundation website with a LOT of REALLY GOOD links related to adverse childhood experiences and Dr Perry's ACE work: www.uwrf.edu/wwpartnership/trauma.html
From the above website, a link to a national association with wonderful PDFs of how the brain works, intended for the lay person: FREE: www.sfn.org/index.aspx
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Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!
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I am not a professional but I can speak from going through sexual molestation, abuse, whatever you want to call it from the time I was 3-5 yrs of age , and then ended because we moved away. I can vividly recall the dreadful things that happened to me. It took my childhood away. I can visualize how depressed I was and my mother wondering why I was so miserable and angry. Since the age of 3, I believe I have been depressed. Yes, I finally got help dealing with this enough that I was able to live with the emotional pain but it is something I will never ever fully heal from. I absolutely believe that my health issues (which are many) and including fibromyalgia, are due to the child abuse I suffered. I believe, due to the stress from that abuse, which a child should never have to suffer, it took its toll on my health.
Suffice it to say, it has been a journey that I never thought I would be going on...so many other stresses in my life happened, including the loss of 2 children to Cystic Fibrosis, an accident w/my car that ran over me (and that's a whole other story!!! lol) and it has all culminated to where I'm at now.
Do I like how my life turned out? Not especially. But I have learned to accept what I couldn't change and to find other ways to deal with life and its stresses and health issues. I found out a long time ago that laughter has special qualities! In the Reader's Digest, there is or was a page titled "Laughter is the Best Medicine!" With all my heart, I believe that statement is true. Of course, along with whatever your doctor prescribes!!!! lol I'm no dummy! Reality is reality. But, there are other venues we can use that can possibly help and one for me is laughter!
I was SO pleased to see Sandy's post here! She is very new to using the computer for such things as this and was very brave to have gotten on board ALL that can come from using the tool as a device for learning! AND now she becomes a teacher and contributor and was also very brave, as she shares, with saying something that was going to be 'hard' to share. So thank you for being here, Sandy. (I helped a little bit with her registration process -- just knowing how to pick a name was her biggest quandry!)
I want to suggest people take a minute and follow the link, below, to something I wrote in the Psychology Forum about how to process something that has happened to you and get out of the cycle that holds people captive to letting it go and being free from it. What people do from one place to the other can have many different components to it, and we hope that eventually Lumigrate has a whole 'cafeteria' of information from a wide variety of valid, progressive, streamlined (as we have limited time and energy) and FUN (overall) resources, so that you come often, learn lots. There already is a LOT of information on Lumigrate, and I'm feeling frustrated that people aren't delving into it much sometimes. However, when I see someone like this new gal (who then posted something in the hypothyroid area I just saw and will go respond to there as well), it lets me know that this process is working for those who chose to recognize that Lumigrate is essentially a rope that has been thrown to you. If YOU are here reading it means you have the rope in your hands. Then it's up to YOU, and you alone, whether you commit to using it to pull/learn or just hold onto and stay where you are. (or drop it and never come back). As for Sandy -- it appears she's pulled on ropes in the past and has come a long way up! I hope this new rope she just discovered will take her beyond where she is today. She perhaps has gone as far as her resources in the past have allowed. I used to get people who had been in horrendous car crashes back to driving, and how I learned from the brilliant owner of MasterDrive was through meditation. We have Paula King on here with a wonderful video about guided imagery and making changes in your life. And I have other providers invited to come write in the Forum areas that will offer MUCH MORE about the power of the mind. "What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve". And in theory, the body will follow. "Engage the mind, and the body will follow" is the premise of occupational therapy. I suggest people rent/buy/watch (over and over perhaps), the independent film 'What the #$%^ (Bleep) Do We Know?', about quantum physics. I'll put the link to that below as well, and hope that it makes as much difference in Sandy's progress of health in the future as it did mine in the last five years, since the movie came out.
Link to what I wrote this fall about getting over things that are unfortunate:
www.lumigrate.com/forum/let-go-shameblame-game-better-health
Link to What the Bleep: www.whatthebleep.com/
Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!