 Hey there Psych2Goers, welcome back to another video. Here at Psych2Go, our mission is to make psychology and mental health accessible to everyone. Thanks so much for your love and support. Let's begin. Have you ever felt that your past experiences have negatively affected your current state of being? Your childhood plays a major role in shaping the person you become as you grow older. Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs for short, are traumatic events that occur before the age of 18. If you experienced ACEs, you may suffer from poorer physical and mental health and emotional trauma. According to the National Survey of Children's Health, over 61% of adults in the United States reportedly experienced at least one type of ACE, while approximately one in every six people experienced as many as four or more. With that said, here are the seven most common kinds of childhood trauma, or ACEs. Whether it's physical, emotional, or sexual in nature, abuse takes a serious toll on your mental health, and is by far the most harmful of all adverse childhood experiences. Being abused or watching a parent or sibling being abused, especially at a young age, can lead to a number of serious, often long-term psychological consequences. It gives you a negative outlook on life, damages your self-esteem, and leaves you struggling with constant feelings of loneliness, emptiness, and hopelessness, even as you grow older. According to a study conducted by Teacher and Anderson, child abuse and domestic violence also puts you at higher risk of developing clinical depression, PTSD, and tendencies of self-harm and suicidal behavior. Statistics also show that approximately 30 to 40% of children who were victims of abuse grew up to become abusers later on in their lives, too. An equally dangerous and traumatizing kind of ACE is neglect, an often overlooked form of abuse. Neglect is defined by researcher Dr. Glasser as a deficit in meeting a child's basic needs. Child neglect refers to parents' failure to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, educational, emotional support, and medical care to their children. Some of the most common examples of child neglect include the following, abandonment, irresponsible supervision, severe punishment such as starving a child or threatening them with violence, and emotional neglect such as dismissive behavior, being unsupportive or being absent at important life events. If you're a victim of child neglect, you may find that you have difficulty forming healthy and stable relationships as you grow older, or maybe you're already experiencing this issue now. Check out our video how your childhood affects your love styles to learn more about the impact of early childhood experiences shaping your adult relationships. Mental health issues considered to be adverse childhood experiences mainly refer to the mental illness of a parent and how it can negatively affect a child's life. According to the Yale Medicine Child Study Center, over 15 million children in the United States live with a parent who has been diagnosed with severe depression. Because depression compromises parental bonding and nurturing, depressed parents have been found to interact with their children in ways that seriously impair their development. They tend to be less supportive and less affectionate with their children and as a result may severely neglect your emotional needs and cause you to grow up to be emotionally stunted. Risky behaviors are defined as any potentially health or life-threatening behaviors that endanger the safety and well-being of both the parent and their child. The most common kinds of risky behaviors are alcohol abuse and substance abuse. Because children are so susceptible to the examples and influences of their parents, it's no surprise that if you have an alcoholic or drug-dependent parent, you're more likely to develop substance abuse problems of your own in the future. You're also more likely to struggle with feelings of shame, guilt, and isolation. Suffer from lack of attention, have a fear of anger and conflict, and suffer from depression or anxiety. Have you ever been in an accident or gotten hurt badly? Do you have childhood injuries that still haunt you even to this day? Car accidents, falls, explosions, animal bites, and other kinds of accidents are incredibly distressing experiences to go through and the injuries you get from them can be irreparable. Bractures, burns, the loss of a limb, brain damage, and the loss of major senses such as hearing or sight are all examples of adverse childhood experiences. Aside from injuries and accidents, being diagnosed with a serious illness can be considered a traumatic childhood experience as well. If you're a child who has battled deadly or infectious illnesses such as cancer, heart problems, and malaria, you may have often felt isolated from your peers because you spent so much of your time being treated at hospitals or clinics. According to a study conducted by Schilling, Ascultine, and Gore, the severity of your symptoms might also restrict your lifestyle and keep you from doing the things that you want while your parents may suddenly become more controlling and protective. Lastly, but not least, adverse childhood experiences don't only take place at home. Many school-related problems can also be traumatizing for children at a young age, especially bullying. Because a child lacks the emotional maturity to understand that it's not their fault for falling victim to bullying, most of them internalize the experiences, and you may have wrongly come to believe that you somehow deserved it. It warps your view of others and of yourself and leaves you struggling with feelings of loneliness, helplessness, depression, and anxiety. The emotional and psychological scars carved into you by your childhood can be so deep that they stay with you well into adulthood. Acknowledging your pain and understanding your trauma is the first step into the journey of healing from it. By learning to accept your past, no matter how terrible it may have been, you're making a conscious effort to move on and keep it from defining your future. Have you experienced any of these traumatic events when you were a child? Are you still struggling to get over it? Reach out to a mental health care professional today and get the help you need. 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