The boy with an ACE Score of 10 (2024)

From Dec 31st, 2015. I've never posted this here before. My life is very different today but this was a pivotal moment in my healing journey because for the first time I didn't have to carry all the pain of trauma and abuse alone. I hope that if you are reading this that you can find strength in knowing that you are not alone. -M

I am literally terrified right now. This is hands down the scariest thing I have ever done. I have spent my life being prideful and never asking for help. I have always thought that I was strong enough to get through anything and the truth is I am but there have been some intense sacrifices that have come along with that pride. I ask that if you know me you take a few minutes and read this. I decided that I will no longer be in hiding and I will no longer carry my undeserved burdens. 2016 had been a year of transformation for me and I want 2017 to be a year for healing. Thus letting go of my demons. I am also doing something I have never done in my life and that is asking for help. So please help me and read this. This will not be easy to read but if what I write helps 1 person then it is worth all the fear I have behind sharing this with the world.

My childhood was stolen. Like so many millions of adults living in the world I had pieces of me ripped away and was left holding the remains feeling the shame, guilt, and sorrow that come along with it. For the past 26 years, I have held onto countless secrets that I can no longer keep to myself. I have reached my tipping point and have lost the strength to continue the facade of strength that so many of you believe that I have. The truth is that I have been an amazing liar and the courage and determination I have shown has only been a curtain hiding the fact that I am dying inside, both figuratively and literally. While this is only a very small glimpse into my life I think that it is also the hardest thing that I have ever done by sharing it and putting it into the universe. Behind truth comes freedom.

Most people who know me know about my accolades and accomplishments, the charity events I have created, and my willingness to help my community. They see the good in me. The truth is that I struggle on a daily basis to get out of bed. I struggle with never feeling like I am good enough for anything or anyone. I fight the feelings that come along with success and accomplishment and generally don’t feel good about anything that I do despite the effects of my efforts. I most of all struggle each waking moment of my day with intense fear, anxiety, panic, and shame. These are things that until a few months ago I thought were things that people created as an illusion because they wanted attention. The morning that I woke up on the floor after suffering my first panic attack made me reconsider.

The build up to this moment was almost three decades in the making. The first 5 years of my life were in tune with most children. I laughed, played, and learned. I spent my time being creative and being a joyous child despite having lost a finger in a violent attack and never meeting my father. Overall life was good, My grandma taught me how to find my bike and tie my shoes. My Preschool teacher taught me how to write my name and count to ten, both things that I vividly remember. All in all my first few years were the way that childhood should be. Then came the day that I met my father for the first and only time. He took me to the mall to buy me a new bike as a birthday present. What I got instead was the first real beating of my life. A moment that is frozen in my mind that shakes me to the core every day. A stranger in all sense of the word took something precious away from me in that instance, my joy. To think all I did was ask for a penny to ride a train. From that moment I have lived with constant fear and anxiety. As I transitioned into being an adult I thought these feelings were normal for everyone. That is simply not the case.

After coming to on the floor the morning of my first panic attack I decided to dig deep into myself and discover what was happening to me and how I could find a way to work through the newly reemerged memories and feelings that had suddenly risen to the surface. The panic attacks began to happen every day and the feeling of fear that someone or something was going to hurt me became overwhelming. I even began to have night terrors much like when I was child followed by intense migraines and insomnia. My body and mind had decided that it was time to purge the trauma that was my life. This was three months ago.

In my search to understand what was happening, I came across a study done by the CDC and Kaiser Permanente in California called the ACE Study or Adverse Childhood Experience Study that was a series of 10 questions. This study was set to find a possible link between traumatic childhood experiences before the age of 18 and the effect that they have on adult health. On average 64% of people in America have an ACE Score of 1. If you have 1 there is an 87% chance that you have 2 or more. The more ACEs you have, the greater the risk for chronic disease, mental illness, violence, and being a victim of violence. People have an ACE score of 0 to 10. Each type of trauma counts as one, no matter how many times it occurs. You can think of an ACE score as a cholesterol score for childhood trauma. For example, people with an ACE score of 4 are twice as likely to be smokers and seven times more likely to be alcoholic. Having an ACE score of 4 increases the risk of emphysema or chronic bronchitis by nearly 400 percent, and suicide by 1200 percent.

People with an ACE score of 6 or higher are at risk of their lifespan being shortened by 20 years.

These are the ACE Study Questions:

Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you? or Act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt?

Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Push, grab, slap, or throw something at you? or Ever hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured?

Did an adult or person at least 5 years older than you ever… Touch or fondle you or have you touch their body in a sexual way? or Attempt or actually have oral, anal, or vagin*l intercourse with you?

Did you often or very often feel that … No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special? or Your family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other?

Did you often or very often feel that … You didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you? or Your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you or take you to the doctor if you needed it?

Were your parents ever separated or divorced?

Was your mother or stepmother: Often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, or had something thrown at her? or Sometimes, often, or very often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist, or hit with something hard? or Ever repeatedly hit over at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or knife?

Did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic, or who used street drugs?

Was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide?

Did a household member go to prison?

I have an ACE Score of 10

My mother was an alcoholic, drug addict, narcissistic, bipolar, manic depressive who thrived in bending the will of others to get what she wanted. Mothers are meant to protect and harbor love for their children. She was not that person. As a toddler, she cut my right index finger off. She would constantly berate my brothers and I in an attempt to get us to fight over her favoritism. She would do things like take one of us out for special surprises and leave the others behind to wait. She would constantly drive drunk or high and on more than one occasion she almost drove us off a bridge. I recall the time that she said, “Do you know how easy it would be for me to just wreck this car and kill us all?” This was constant. She would find any way that she could to bring me down and some memories are stuck to me like glue. One particularly that I have struggled with for years was when I was 11 and mentioned that there was a girl in school that I liked and I didn’t know how to talk to her. My mother responded with “Oh, a girl? I thought you were a fa*g.” This was when she was being kind. Eventually, I became incapable of loving her.

For most of my childhood I would happily accept the verbal berating over the complete ignoring that would follow later into my adolescents, at one point being left by myself for just over 3 weeks with no idea where she was and only surviving by eating school food and bringing what I could home to survive the weekend with no running water, heat, or electricity. For me this was common. I thought this was how all kids grew up. When she wasn’t using her own mental illnesses against us (or herself) she was using violence against us and more often than not using our stepfather to her advantage to “keep us in line.” I look back on this and have to ask myself how it is that a man needs to do anything but talk to 3 boys under 10 years old to keep them in line.

My stepfather was the person that as a kid you pray that you never meet. He was the kind of person that you hope never becomes your stepfather. He was a person that I feared as a child. A person that had anger which was often misplaced into violent acts against three young boys. He came into our lives when I was 7 or 8 and every day I wished that he didn’t. It’s a strange feeling to see a movie like Annie and cry yourself to sleep at night hoping that some rich guy would come and take you to safety. I envied Annie.

You never forget the first time that your stepfather wakes you up at 3 in the morning, drags you by your shirt into the kitchen, and beats you until you are on the floor shaking and can barely breathe let alone let out a whimper. The thought that something so violent could come from simply putting away dishes that we still wet. You never forget the first that he slams your head into a wall and says “well, you should have gotten out of the way.” You never forget the verbal abuse that comes along with the violence and the fear of living in your own home. “Stupid.” “Lazy” Fat cat” “Worthless” “It’s no wonder your real father left you.” “You’re lucky I'm Not your real dad or this would be worse.” “Keep crying and I’ll hit you harder.”

For me, the worst part of every day was the not knowing. Not knowing if this would be the day that I die or that he would kill one of my brothers. It was the fear in that every time the door would close or open my heart would start racing, my hands would get clammy, and I would lose my breath. It was the fear of going to sleep or doing anything wrong that would equate to another beating. Looking back it’s no wonder that I have had nightmares almost every night since I was 5, wet the bed until I was in my late teens, and have trust and abandonment issues. She eventually divorced him but, the nights of screaming, glasses being thrown across the room, the middle of the night beatings, the constant fear, and the brutal loneliness are feelings that don’t just got away because they do. All they did was fight each other or take their aggression and anger out on us.

A lot of things that happened in my childhood were things that as an adult I can almost rationalize. I can look at the circ*mstance and evaluate what it may have been that caused an action. I knew that my stepfather was a piece of sh*t because his mother and father were pieces of sh*t. That he must have been beaten and locked and closest and starved because his parents did that. Or that my mother must have felt abandoned and pitted against her siblings in a power struggle over getting love and admiration from an abusive alcoholic father who beat his wife. I can rationalize those things because it so much harder to break a cycle of abuse than it is to stop it. Some things I cannot understand. For instance, the moment that you tell your mother that your babysitter had been touching you during nap time over and over again and how she would turn to shrug it off as if you meant nothing and what proceeded was “your fault” That to this day is something that I still can’t wrap my head around.

My grandma eventually adopted me right before my sophom*ore year of high school. This was the best thing that could have happened and not a day goes by that I am not thankful that she did. I owe her so much and despite her own flaws and issues, she was always there for me. Despite her blatant racism, mild alcoholism, and furious temper she only wanted the best for me. Her racist tendencies were likely spawned from growing up in the south during the 40’s and 50’s and It f*cked me up for a while especially as I grew into my teens and had a pretty massive identity crisis. However, regardless of anything that she may have said it was never directed towards me and to watch the strength that she had to not only raise her own children but her children’s children has been an inspiration to me. The day she died I realized that I would never be able to thank her enough for conveying in me the strength to persevere through anything.

As I write this I am sitting in a rented room on the other side of the country far far away from everything that I used to call “home”. I am on a journey of emotional, physical, and spiritual healing and have submerged myself in self-love, understanding, compassion, and most importantly the idea that it’s ok to exist. I have found an amazing men's trauma survivors group and a therapist who is beyond amazing. I have found some peace in daily meditation, yoga, walking, reading, and writing. I have spent countless hours of research into understanding the effects of childhood trauma and toxic stress on the human body and am working on reversing the things that have happened to me in the hopes that I will be able to live a long, happy, and healthy rest of my life. I believe that I am getting a second chance at life and the universe has brought me to my place of healing. Though these things are not cheap and I have found myself running out of money I know that every penny is spent is worth the hope that one day I will walk out of my front door and not feel like someone is going to hurt me or that I am not good enough to be a person.

People who have suffered like I have are often dismissed by what happened to them as “It could have been worse” or “At least I am not a kid in Africa getting my arms cut off.” and that is a disservice to ourselves. I felt that and spoke those words and that is not to discount what happens to other children because it’s f*cked. This is simply to say that it is absolutely terrible and appalling what happens to children around the world on a daily basis. It’s gross and not OK. It’s not f*cking OK. It’s not something that should be rationalized and the transgressions that adults have perpetrated against children should be talked about by us. As adults and as adults who have survived vicious attacks and disgusting travesties we should be able to talk about them without fear of retaliation or further abuse. That is why I am writing this. I am not going to hide in the dark anymore. I am not going to feel shame for things that were not my fault. I am not going to stand idly by as an adult who is dying inside any longer.

Some people find therapy in forgiveness and in fact many therapists recommend that you forgive your abusers and the people that didn’t help you. I’m torn because the same part of me that wants to let go is the same part that wants to rip them apart and destroy them the way they did me. Is this a message of forgiveness? No, it’s not. It’s a message of my promise to break the cycle. It’s my promise to never hit a child, to never belittle a child, to never ruin a child's life, and it’s my promise to the child in me that it is ok for boys to cry. It’s my promise to myself that it’s ok to have love and give love, that it’s ok to be at peace, to be happy, healthy, and strong. This is my promise that if any of you who read this know these feelings, know this pain, or know someone who does that I give you permission to reach out to me. This is also my promise to do something that I have never done and accept help in any form that it comes and to stop pushing away the people that love me.

Life can be a cruel experience and there are millions of people who have suffered in the ways that I have and I could write for countless hours about the experiences that I had and how those have so dramatically shaped the existence in which I now live. I think you get the picture. So I am going to leave it at this.

Find your peace Find your happiness Find your love Find whatever it is that keeps you going one more day

To all of the people who know what it’s like to wake up in the morning and contemplate why just know this:

I love you. I love that you exist. I love that you didn’t give up.

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Thank you for being here. I love this sub and everyone in it.