ACES and Chronic Stress
How to Overcome Chronic Stress and Trauma with DBT
What are Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES)?
ACEs, coined by Robert Anda, refer to the collection of early experiences that negatively affect our life. ACEs include physical, sexual, and emotional abuse as well as neglect. High stress situations such as a family member being incarcerated is considered an ACE.
Our physical and mental health are impaired the more ACEs we accumulate. In some cases, cardiovascular disease and an early death can crop up due to ACEs and chronic stress. Luckily, leading thinkers in the field are actively working on coming up with ways to heal from ACEs.
How does chronic stress and protective factors affect your well-being?
The most damaging effects of ACEs can be avoided by collecting protective factors. Protective factors are supports in our lives that increase our resiliency.
Who in your social support system has your back? Who is it that you turn to when you are struggling and in tears? Those people are your support system that protects you from further suffering. They help make up the backbone of your resilience and well-being.
Chronic stress comes onto the scene when we experience many ACEs that overwhelm us due to the lack of protective factors. Imagine a weight with toxic stress on one side and protective factors on the other. When the stress and suffering outweighs the protective factors we spiral out of control.
How do ACEs and chronic stress impact adults and relationships?
Many go through adulthood with plenty of maladaptive behaviors following unprocessed ACEs and trauma. You may do things like drink, shop, and use drugs to cover your overwhelming emotions.
In adulthood, you may experience great difficulty in regulating your strong emotions. Also, you probably have high levels of distress and intense mood fluctuations. These are all commonly exhibited in people with many ACEs.
Often, challenges in tolerating distress are exhibited in people with a high ACE score. This may look like being easily distressed and lacking the tools to move through the distress.
Also, many ACEs tend to result in emotional and nervous system dysregulation. A series of adverse experiences and high stress leads to an overactive nervous system. Your system makes you search for threats and tells your body to be ready to act for survival.
This constant state of hyperarousal may lead to emotional dysregulation. When we are constantly looking for threats and on edge our emotions become more difficult to regulate. Our body is not meant to be in a constant state of activation and perceived danger. So, you may experience mood swings and strong emotions that influence your life.
Also, intense emotions and mood swings make it difficult to maintain strong, lasting relationships. It is challenging to connect with others when we are under threat and searching for predators.
Your partner may find it extremely challenging to handle the intensity of emotions you experience. Fortunately, there are ways to regulate our emotions and form connections despite ACEs.
How can Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and mindfulness help me heal from chronic stress?
DBT is an evidence-based treatment that allows you to regulate yourself and reach a higher quality of life. It gives you tools to stay resilient in the face of anxiety and distress. The following are a few skills that you can learn with a DBT therapist.
Tolerate distress. DBT can teach you distress tolerance skills that you can use in your daily life. A DBT therapist can help you identify activities that help you tolerate emotional pain. An example of this is listening to soothing music or playing a game to center yourself.
Regulate emotions. DBT gives you tools that help calm your nervous system. This allows you to view your emotions with acceptance and not get activated by them. Accepting your emotions and knowing that they don’t control you allows you to step into joy.
Be present and accepting. Mindfulness empowers us to live in the present moment and meet it with acceptance. Embracing life and yourself with a non judgemental attitude builds inner peace. Mindfulness can teach us how to accept our emotions and not add suffering through rumination.
Soothe yourself. DBT can give you self-soothing strategies that build your resiliency. Our therapists can teach you how to self-soothe while you are experiencing intense emotions. Engaging all of your five senses during an activity is a self-soothing technique.
growgood psychology has a team of therapists that are dedicated to support you during your healing journey following adverse experiences
At growgood psychology we create a safe holding space for you to heal from ACEs and chronic stress. We will help you acquire the skills that will support you in regulating your emotions.
Our therapists will meet you where you are and empower you to self-soothe in the face of adversity. Finally, connect with us now to begin the healing process and embrace growth with our DBT counselors!