The emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults but also affects our physical health and overall well-being. Scientists now know on a biochemical level exactly how parents’ chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent, physical “fingerprints” on our brains. When we as children encounter sudden or chronic adversity, excessive stress hormones cause powerful changes in the body, altering our body chemistry. The developing immune system and brain react to this chemical barrage by permanently resetting our stress response to “high,” which in turn can have a devastating impact on our mental and physical health. Donna Jackson Nakazawa shares stories from people who have recognized and overcome their adverse experiences, shows why some children are more immune to stress than others, and explains why women are at particular risk. Groundbreaking in its research and inspiring in its clarity, Childhood Disrupted explains how you can reset your biology—and help your loved ones find ways to heal.
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"I live with a formidable perfect-storm combination of adverse childhood experience trauma, autism spectrum disorder and high sensitivity, the ACE trauma in large part being due to my ASD and high sensitivity.
Thus it would be quite helpful to have books written about such or similar conditions involving a coexistence of ACE trauma and/or ASD and/or high sensitivity, the latter which seems to have a couple characteristics similar to ASD traits.
Childhood Disrupted fails to even once mention high sensitivity and/or autism spectrum disorder. [As it were, I also read a book on ASD that fails to even mention high sensitivity or ACE trauma. That was followed by a book about highly sensitive men, with no mention whatsoever of autism spectrum disorder or adverse childhood experience trauma.]
I therefore don't know whether my additional, coexisting conditions will render the information and/or assigned exercises from such not-cheap books useless, or close to it, in my efforts to live much less miserably. While many/most people in my shoes would work with the books nonetheless, I cannot; I simply need to know if I'm wasting my time and, most importantly, mental efforts.
Really, it’s no secret that ACE abuse/trauma is often inflicted on autistic and/or highly sensitive children and teens by their ‘neurotypical’ peers, so why not at least acknowledge it in some meaningful, constructive way? "
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Frank Sterle Jr. (4 out of 5 stars)