What happens in childhood doesn’t stay in childhood.
For many adults silently struggling with anxiety, chronic stress, relationship challenges, or unexplained health issues, the root cause isn’t laziness, weakness, or poor choices—it’s unresolved trauma. Specifically, trauma from Adverse Childhood Experiences, also known as ACEs.
At The Social Work Concierge, LLC, we believe in treating the root, not just the symptom. Understanding ACEs is a vital step toward compassionate, culturally responsive healing.
🧠 What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?
ACEs are potentially traumatic events that occur in a child’s life before the age of 18. These include:
- Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
- Physical or emotional neglect
- Domestic violence
- Substance use in the household
- Mental illness in the household
- Incarcerated family member
- Parental divorce or abandonment
Research from the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study (1995-1997) showed a powerful connection between the number of ACEs a person experiences and their long-term mental, physical, and emotional health.
📊 The ACEs Score: What It Means
Each ACE counts as one point. While a score of 4 or more is considered high risk, even one ACE can have an impact—especially when trauma is unacknowledged, repeated, or compounded by racism, poverty, or gender-based harm. There’s a trauma screen for both adults and adolescents on our Resource Page.
🧬 How ACEs Show Up in Adulthood
Adverse childhood experiences shape the way a developing brain views safety, trust, and identity. Without intervention, those early wounds can become long-term survival patterns.
🔥 Emotional & Mental Health
- Anxiety, depression, PTSD
- Panic attacks, mood swings
- Emotional numbing or dissociation
- Low self-esteem or perfectionism
🧠 Thought Patterns
- Difficulty trusting others
- Negative self-talk or shame
- Chronic guilt or imposter syndrome
- Difficulty regulating emotions
🩺 Physical Health
- Chronic illness (heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders)
- Sleep disturbances
- Gastrointestinal problems
- Increased sensitivity to pain
🛑 Behavior & Coping
- Substance use or compulsive behaviors
- Workaholism or people-pleasing
- Relationship instability
- Difficulty parenting or being parented
🌍 When ACEs Are Combined With Systemic Trauma
For many Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), childhood trauma doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s compounded by racial trauma, intergenerational grief, and structural violence.
At The Social Work Concierge, LLC, we recognize that ACEs intersect with:
- Racism and racialized stress, gender discrimination, and religious abuse
- Poverty, war, food insecurity, and housing instability
- Cultural invalidation, fear of deportation. forced assimilation
- Lack of access to culturally competent mental health care
🌿 Can You Heal From ACEs?
Yes. While you can’t change the past, healing is absolutely possible—especially when you’re supported in a space that honors your lived experience.
🛠️ Healing Strategies:
- Trauma-informed therapy (e.g., EMDR, ACT, DBT)
- Somatic practices and body-based healing
- Culturally affirming support circles
- Journaling, inner child work, and creative expression
- Nervous system regulation (breathwork, grounding, mindfulness)
- Setting boundaries, reclaiming rest, and rewriting your story
✨ Final Thought
You didn’t choose your trauma.
But you do deserve your healing.
Understanding your ACEs score isn’t about blame—it’s about naming what happened, reclaiming what was lost, and choosing how you evolve.
📍 Virtual therapy across Michigan
🌐 http://www.socialworkconcierge.com
📧 leonica@socialworkconcierge.com
📞 (616) 345-0616
🖤 Healing should never be a privilege. Let’s make it a priority.
The Social Work Concierge, LLC 
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