The Bomb In The Brain

I found this study done on Adverse Childhood Experiences based upon Childhood Abuse. There is a ton of information in this presentation but it really shows the affects of child abuse on the person as they grow older.

To find out what your Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) score is, go to the following link: www.acestudy.org/calcuator

According to the website of this information, www.acestudy.org , an ACE is described below.

Please note that the above links are no longer valid.  For detailed information on the study, go to http://mindbodythoughts.blogspot.com/2017/01/adverse-childhood-experiences-ace-study.htmll

Growing up experiencing any of the following conditions in the household prior to age 18:
-Recurrent physical abuse
-Recurrent emotional abuse
-Contact sexual abuse
-An alcohol and/or drug abuser in the household
-An incarcerated household member
-Someone who is chronically depressed,mentally ill, institutionalized, or suicidal
-Mother is treated violently
-One or no parents
-Emotional or physical neglect

The ACE Study used a simple scoring method to determine the extent of each study participant's exposure to childhood trauma. Exposure to one category (not incident) of ACE, qualifies as one point. When the points are added up, the ACE Score is achieved. An ACE Score of 0 (zero) would mean that the person reported no exposure to any of the categories of trauma listed as ACEs above. An ACE Score of 9 would mean that the person reported exposure to all of the categories of trauma listed above. The ACE Score is referred to throughout all of the peer-reviewed publications about the ACE Study findings.

Here are some major points highlighted in the presentation that I found of great interest on this topic.

1) Two thirds of girls and one third of boys have been sexually abused.

2) Two thirds of British mothers said they hit they routinely hit their child in the first year of life.

3) Of participants struggling with obesity, 66% reported 1 or more types of abuse.

4) Physical and emotional abuse were most strongly associated with obesity.

5) People with more than a 5 ACE score were 7 to 10 times more likely to have problems with illicit drug use.

6) People with a score of 4 or higher, 16.1% became alcoholics as adults.

7) Adverse child experiences increased the attempted suicide rate two to five times.

8) Adverse child experiences showed a strong relationship to the presence of adult diseases including ischemic heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, skeletal fractures and liver disease.

9) Likelihood of becoming an adult smoker having a score of 4 or greater was 12 to 16%.

10) Chronic Depression accounted for 58% of women and 35% of men with a score of 4 or higher.

11) After 50 years from the time of the adverse childhood experience, more than 97% with a score of 4 or higher used antidepressant medications.

12) The more that people have experienced adverse childhood experiences, the more prevalent it is that they have unexplained symptoms when visiting the doctor that cause them pain and discomfort.

13) For a score of 4 or higher, 34% had impaired childhood memory issues.

14) The greater the number of childhood adverse experiences, the higher the absenteeism on the job, the more serious financial problems that exist and the greater the job problems for that individual.

15) The greater the number of childhood adverse experiences, the higher numbers of teens having sexual intercourse by the age of 15, the higher the number of teen pregnancy and teens becoming parents.

16) Having more than 50 sexual partners in your life time (sexual promiscuity) is greater with the increased childhood adverse experiences.

17) For those with a score of 4 or higher, COPD and breathing difficulties are found in 17.5%.

18) The greater the number of adverse conditions, the lower the life expectancy and by a very significant amount. About 20 years gets shaved off of the life expectancy of those with severe child abuse. It is not inevitable and you can do things about it but if you don't, than it is chilling what happens.

19) Exposure to physical abuse, sexual abuse and intimate partner violence in childhood were 3.5 times more likely in women to report victimization and men to be 3.8 times more likely to report intimate partner violence perpetration.

20) Child abuse by relationship to the victim is mostly by the parent (78%). Unknown abusers account for 3.9%, doctors and professionals at 1.1%, and relatives at 6.5%. Clearly, of the people in this study, the parents who are known to the children are the biggest perpetrators. Most child abuse victims know their abusers.

Much of this information is not surprising to me for I have lived through it and know it all too well. Some of the results were more dramatic than I realized but they make perfect sense to me.

Often people think that the unknown sex offender or child abuser living somewhere down the street is the biggest threat and time and time again, I continue to tell people, it is not so! Yes, they do abuse children and they should be watched closely. The bigger problem though is that most child abuse victims no the people abusing them and in this study, 78% of the abusers were parents.

All too often, we fail to open up to what is really going on in our society and until we remove the log from our eyes, child abuse is going to continue. Too much in our society is set up to give protection to those who do this. From churches offering forgiveness hoping the abuser will sin no more to the laws of our land favoring the abuser over the victim.

Please take a moment and view the presentation on YouTube that I have posted below. You will see first hand the stats I was trying to highlight in this blog post. The details are more chilling but again, we as a society need to wake up and say no more! We need to say, no child is going to be abused. Unfortunately we focus on everything else rather than what truly matters and so our children continue to be less than human in the eyes of our society.

How much longer can we continue to hide from the effects of childhood abuse and trauma?


Presentation Video on Youtube: The Bomb In The Brain, Part 1

Happy Endings NOT

Like many other massage therapists, there comes a moment when a client or potential client feels that a massage is nothing more than something sexual. Some may just assume since you are a massage therapist that it is a front for some type of sexual business. Some may refer to it as a massage with a happy ending. There are many different ways and forms that this takes from the very subtle to the outright direct requests.

I do know some massage therapists will cave in to the pressure of extra money while disregarding their ethics, morals and the real purpose they most likely wanted to learn massage. In fact, I remember one former massage therapist telling me of one of his adventures that he bragged about until I said, look - I don't want to hear it! Fortunately he is no longer a massage therapist.

It wasn't easy for me to bring this up on this blog because I'd like to pretend in many ways that it does not exist or it only exists in a few cases. Yet, I know and I get confronted with it even if it is in a somewhat joking manner. I did not go into massage to do things sexually for others. I am so repulsed by that thought that I can barely find a coherent sentence to say what I want to say.

My father used to get me to always massage his neck or back when I was a kid. While I now am understanding that I had a special touch and sense in my hands, it was how my abilities got mangled up into something I had no desire to do that caused great distress for me. While the initial request to massage his neck or back which hurt, was most likely legitimate, there were times that it led to things, no child should ever have to do with a parent. And for many years, the healing ability that I was given was mixed up with the not so good things I endured. It took a long time to get myself to the point of being able to go to massage school and learn this skill without the sexual stuff trying to take place.

One of the types of body work I prefer is the modalities that allow the person to keep their clothes on. I'm so much more comfortable working with someone in this way than having a draped but unclothed person lying on a massage table. Maybe the triggers of my past are still very prevalent. I have found that I can be just as effective through the clothes of someone as I can without the clothes. There is no difference for me in that. And it allows me to escape past some of the sexual innuendos and games that too many want to play when getting a massage.

More importantly though than my own triggers that I face is that so many in our country do not understand what massage is really about nor what it means to live in our bodies. To be touched in a safe, supportive and non-judgmental way is one of the most healthiest things we can give our bodies. Yet, many of us have been taught that to be touched is something that is equal to sex and sex is touch. While that may be true, touch in its purest form is what should be the norm in our society. There are so many examples of this around us if we only open our eyes and look at them.

I'm here to say, that if you allow yourself to be touched in a safe, supportive and non-judgmental manner, your life will positively change in many ways. The knowledge that we can gain from ourselves through touch and the metamorphosis that can take place are far greater gifts than we could ever give ourselves. Touch may be a part of sex but wholesome touch is not sex, it is much greater than that.

My hope is that anyone reading this will be a little more informed as to what massage is and what it is not. Most massage therapists do not like to have clients confuse sex and massage because it diminishes the gifts they have. Those massage therapists that do cross the lines are not only violating the code of ethics they adhere to as part of their license but they are degrading one of the most basic human concepts which is touch. Please don't fool yourself or others into thinking that crossing the line is ok.

If you do not get regular massage or bodywork done, you are missing out on so much. The body is a storehouse of so much information and sometimes that brief moment of touch can yield so much for our lives. It can truly be a beautiful thing if we allow it to be. If you're unsure about what massage should be or have questions, please feel free to ask me. I'll do my best to answer it.