SELF ASSESSMENT | Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) | Resilience

[BPDFamily]

Adverse Childhood Experience

Prior to your 18th birthday:

Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you? or Act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt?
No___If Yes, enter 1 __

Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often… Push, grab, slap, or throw something at you? or Ever hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured?
No___If Yes, enter 1 __

Did an adult or person at least 5 years older than you ever… Touch or fondle you or have you touch their body in a sexual way? or Attempt or actually have oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse with you?
No___If Yes, enter 1 __

Did you often or very often feel that … No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special? or Your family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other?
No___If Yes, enter 1 __

Did you often or very often feel that … You didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you? or Your parents were too drunk or high to take care of you or take you to the doctor if you needed it?
No___If Yes, enter 1 __

Were your parents ever separated or divorced?
No___If Yes, enter 1 __

Was your mother or stepmother:
Often or very often pushed, grabbed, slapped, or had something thrown at her? or Sometimes, often, or very often kicked, bitten, hit with a fist, or hit with something hard? or Ever repeatedly hit over at least a few minutes or threatened with a gun or knife?
No___If Yes, enter 1 __

Did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic, or who used street drugs?
No___If Yes, enter 1 __

Was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide?                        
No___If Yes, enter 1 __

Did a household member go to prison?
No___If Yes, enter 1 __

Now add up your “Yes” answers: _ This is your ACE Score[/size]RESILIENCE Questionnaire

1.  I believe that my mother loved me when I was little.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

2.  I believe that my father loved me when I was little.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

3.  When I was little, other people helped my mother and father take care of me and they seemed to love me.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

4.   I’ve heard that when I was an infant someone in my family enjoyed playing with me, and I enjoyed it, too.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

5.  When I was a child, there were relatives in my family who made me feel better if I was sad or worried.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

6.   When I was a child, neighbors or my friends’ parents seemed to like me.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

7.  When I was a child, teachers, coaches, youth leaders or ministers were there to help me.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

8.  Someone in my family cared about how I was doing in school.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

9.  My family, neighbors and friends talked often about making our lives better.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

10.  We had rules in our house and were expected to keep them.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

11. When I felt really bad, I could almost always find someone I trusted to talk to.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

12.  As a youth, people noticed that I was capable and could get things done.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

13.  I was independent and a go-getter.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

14.  I believed that life is what you make it.
Definitely true         Probably true         Not sure         Probably Not True        :)efinitely Not True

How many of these 14 protective factors did I have as a child and youth? (How many of the 14 were circled “Definitely True” or “Probably True”?)   _______
Of these circled, how many are still true for me? _______

www.acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/

See list of all self-assessment surveys

[Visitor]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 4

I’m sure many of you have come across this before but taking this test was the turning point of me understanding my true core trauma issue.

I’m not sure if I can post links here but if you google it, take the test and research your score I’m sure you will start to find the answers to some of your deeper questions.

When you get your score there are some very interesting presentations on youtube.

I scored 4

I would be interested to know your score and your opinion on the test and research.

[disorderedsociety]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 4-5

Resilience: 4

4, maybe 5. I'm not sure on one of the questions.

Resilience score is 4.

I would say considering my age and my experiences I'm doing extremely well.

[polly87]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 8

Resilience: 3

My score is 8. As a kid you think your world is normal. Only when you move out of your parent's or parents' house you start to realise that it was not normal.

I scored a meagre 3 on resilience. Food for thought. As a kid I felt like there was no way out and indeed there wasn't. But there is now.

[Turkish]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 4

Resilience: 2

Questions 6 and 7 aren't relevant since my mother adopted me and always stayed single and had no boyfriends.

4. Did you often or very often feel that ... .No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special? or

Your family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other? Yes No If yes enter 1 ________

This is a wash for me, due to my mom's splitting. I think I was wise enough at a young age to know that something was seriously wrong with my mom. I could lean towards a 1 on this, which would make me a 5. How about 4.5?  

I can't score myself on the resilience, since too many questions are related to family, which I didn't have. Edit: not having family support is relevant. I re-scored it.

My mom would be an 8, based upon what she told me about her FOO. My Ex would be a 7 or 8. The correlation between a higher score being a risk factors for adult dysfunction and health issues are sobering.

My kids were a 2 until a couple of months ago. Now they're at 3.    

[vortex of confusion]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 6

Resilience: 10

Wow, I scored a 6 on the ACE test. That is very, very sobering for me.

I managed a 10 with the resilience stuff. Not sure how that happened.

[Kwamina]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 4-5

Resilience: 3

The Ace study is very interesting indeed and that test is a good starting point for people who suffered childhood abuse.

I watched the Dr. Nadine Burke Ted Talk and she made many good points. I like how she stresses the importance of not (just) focusing on the symptoms but to also look at the root causes. She uses a great analogy:

"... .one of the things that they teach you in public health school is that if you're a doctor and you see 100 kids that all drink from the same well, and 98 of them develop diarrhea, you can go ahead and write that prescription for dose after dose after dose of antibiotics, or you can walk over and say, "What the hell is in this well?"

She also highlights the significant effects that stress can have on you, again with a great analogy:

"Well, imagine you're walking in the forest and you see a bear. Immediately, your hypothalamus sends a signal to your pituitary, which sends a signal to your adrenal gland that says, "Release stress hormones! Adrenaline! Cortisol!" And so your heart starts to pound, Your pupils dilate, your airways open up, and you are ready to either fight that bear or run from the bear. And that is wonderful if you're in a forest and there's a bear. But the problem is what happens when the bear comes home every night, and this system is activated over and over and over again, and it goes from being adaptive, or life-saving, to maladaptive, or health-damaging. Children are especially sensitive to this repeated stress activation, because their brains and bodies are just developing. High doses of adversity not only affect brain structure and function, they affect the developing immune system, developing hormonal systems, and even the way our DNA is read and transcribed."

I have been very aware of the (possible) link between stress caused by growing up in a BPD environment and health issues in later life. I for instance have chronic muscular problems which are at least partly related to the stress my uBPD family-members caused me. I also suffered from an auto-immune disorder which started two years ago, fortunately have been symptom free since last year. I of course cannot prove that there is a causal relationship between this auto-immune disorder and the stress I'm dealing with. What I do know however is that it started on Mother's Day 2013 and I feel that this was more than just a coincidence.

My own Ace Score is 4 (out of 10), leaning towards 5.

My resiliency score as a child is 3 (out of 14) which is quite confronting.

Near the end of her Ted Talk, Dr. Nadine Burke made some comments I find very profound:

"You know, at first I thought that we marginalized the issue because it doesn't apply to us. That's an issue for those kids in those neighborhoods.

... .

But then, the more I talked to folks, I'm beginning to think that maybe I had it completely backwards.

... .

Even in this room, this is an issue that touches many of us, and I am beginning to believe that we marginalize the issue because it does apply to us. Maybe it's easier to see in other zip codes because we don't want to look at it. We'd rather be sick."

So the question we (individually and as a society) must ask ourselves is, do we come out of denial and choose healing or do we bury our heads in the sand and choose to remain sick without trying to do anything about it?

[Lifewriter16]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 2

Resilience: 4

Having said that, I suspect that having a mother who may have Asperger Syndrome could have the same kind of impact on me as having a parent who had depression or a mental health problem, so my ACE score could be 3.

I think my BPDxbf's ACE score would be 8. No wonder he's struggling and has made a number of serious suicide attempts.

Lifewriter

x

[HappyNihilist]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 1

Resilience: 14

I was a fortunate child; I had a good family.

That didn't mean that I didn't turn out neurotic, though.  

[rotiroti]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 0

Resilience: 12

Thanks... .

[Meadowslark]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 6 (7)

Resilience: 9

I would probably have scored higher on the ACE section if sibling-on-sibling violence and abuse was counted (well above and beyond the "normal" sibling rivalry - I was beaten, stolen from, my belongings destroyed, attacked and abused by my younger sister throughout childhood). But just going by the questionnaire, I got a 6. The only abuse I didn't get was sexual.

I was lucky enough to have outside help - mostly teachers, friends' parents and other adults. Our blood family is very fractured and we have no relationship with anyone outside the nuclear family.

I consider myself lucky. _@

[claudiaduffy]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 4

Resilience: 9

ACE score 4, Resilience score 9. Though some of the indicators on each are odd to me. Sure, I believed my mother loved me; but I also knew that her loving me didn't mean she wouldn't go crazy on me. The loving almost made it worse, in that I felt guilty if I didn't respond positively to her loving-ness when she wasn't angry. And there wasn't a place on the ACE test to indicate that my father was hit and otherwise assaulted at times by my mother.

I was really fortunate to have an extended family (on my dad's side) that were mostly healthy and encouraging, even if they downplayed the things that were happening between my parents. They could have done more to help intervene, but their healthy presence was a big help that I know others have not had.

[Harri]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 6

Resilience: 4

It is interesting to me that while my mother was my biggest abuser, she was also the one who I knew without doubt loved me and is responsible for my score of 4 on resilience.

When she was good, she was good.

[Woolspinner2000]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 6

Resilience: 5

This is quite an interesting study. I read it a couple of times before I came back and answered and added up my scores. Sobering indeed, for all of us.

Wools

[genny867]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 8

Resilience: 12

My ACE score was an 8 and my Resilience score was a 12. My oldest sister was my support as a child, but she was hit by a drunk driver when I was 11 and was in a coma for 3 years before she died. All of my support and protection went away after her accident. So my resilience score after that would have been an 8. The first year was hell, but for the next 2 years, my BPD sister was hospitalized for her mental health issues, and life was a bit more bearable. However, I felt like a couldn't confide in anyone because of the responses I would get. I also felt that if people knew all the crazy going on in my family, they would not want to be around me. I never was able to have friends spend the night or come over, because of what might happen in front of them. I left home at 17, lived in the walk in closet of a friend's apartment, went to school full time and worked full time. My drive to get away from the environment was the key to my resiliency. I never stopped believing that there was something better out there for me, and I longed to live a normal life.

[isilme]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 7

Resilience: 6

I got an ACE of 7, but a Resilience of 6.  I am not sure how that "stacks up", as the linked article just stopped at the Resilience test, but had no further information.  

[Harri]

Here is more information on resiliency and how to view your resiliency score:

Putting resilience and resilience surveys under the microscope

Excerpts:
“Resilience is a message of hope,” says Debbie Alleyne, a child welfare specialist at the Center for Resilient Children at Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, located in Villanova, PA.“It is important for everyone to know that no matter their experience, there is always hope for a positive outcome. Risk does not define destiny.”

“There’s always the debate about what’s called state versus trait: Is (resilience) something enduring in a person or is it going to come and go from week to week? The answer is somewhere in the middle,” says Dr. Jonathan R.T. Davidson, emeritus professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center and co-creator, with Dr. Kathryn M. Connor, of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC).

“What we often considered to be enduring characteristics in people can, in fact, change over the course of several weeks in response to some appropriate prompting. So resilience is a bit of both.”

“Resilience is the ability to bounce back, pick yourself up from the ground if you’ve been dealt some blows, to be able to cope well or effectively with adverse conditions,” he explains. “It certainly includes various properties like being optimistic, having confidence in yourself, or belief in yourself to overcome things, to have the skills you need, social support, ability to find some meaning or purpose in life. Probably one of the most important or critical things of all is something called hardiness,” which is thought to be a mix of commitment, control and challenge.

For more, read the above linked article.

[HLB]

Omg. Im posting my husbands results.
Ace score: 9
Resilience: 2
No wonder he developed bpd.

[Kwamina]

Omg. Im posting my husbands results.

Hi HLB

Pretty high on the ACE indeed and not a lot of protective factors.

Did your husband take the test himself? Or did you answer the questions for him to assess his situation?

[purekalm]

ACE: 9

Resilience: 4 (as a child)

I found it interesting that a good friend of mine actually told me about this test quite a few months back but I forgot about it after we shared our scores. Taking it again here, I realized my score was the same as then. I had a whole host of issues I was partially and very unaware of before coming here looking to find out about my son's dad years ago. I have since done a ton of painful work to accept and grow. I'll always be grateful to the amazing members on this site who helped me through when I was at times stubborn and ridiculous. 

[Kwamina]

Hi purekalm

Although it's about the ACE test which is quite a serious topic of course, it's always nice to hear from you old friend

Thanks for sharing your score with us.

The Board Parrot

[HisHarmonicGirl]

Adverse Childhood Experience: 7

Resilience: 10