4 Quotes by Donna Jackson Nakazawa

Interestingly, recurrent humiliation by a parent caused a slightly more detrimental impact and was marginally correlated to a greater likelihood of adult illness and depression. Simply living with a parent who puts you down and humiliates you, or who is alcoholic or depressed, can leave you with a profoundly hurtful ACE footprint and alter your brain and immunologic functioning for life.

In other words, Kat has a very high ACE Score of 5. And yet if you had met Kat at twenty or thirty, it’s unlikely that you would have recognized the link between her childhood trauma and the many adult health – and life – hurdles that would later challenge her.

It was as if I’d been running from my past, my story, my pain, and I’d run smack into myself again,” she says.

Adults with Adverse Childhood Experiences are on alert. It’s a habit they learned in childhood, when they couldn’t be sure when they’d face the next high-tension situation. After her terrifying childhood illness, Michele never felt at peace, or whole, as an adult: “I was afraid I could be blindsided by any small medical crisis that could morph and change my entire life.