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Scientists from the Desert Research Institute (DRI) and the University of Nevada, Reno, led the study, published on Oct. 6 in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry. More than 16,000 people from the Reno area volunteered for the research as part of the Healthy Nevada Project, one of the most visible genomic studies in the United States, powered by Renown Health.

Participants answered questions about their social environments before age 18, including experiences with emotional, physical, or sexual mistreatment, neglect, and substance abuse in the household. The researchers combined this information with anonymized medical records to build on existing research about how childhood traumas affect health outcomes.

"The study provides insight as to how social determinants of health may influence adult health disorders," said Robert Read, M.S., a researcher at the Center for Genomic Medicine at DRI and one of the study's lead authors.

Nearly two-thirds (66%) of participants recalled at least one type of trauma, and almost one-quarter (24%) reported experiencing more than four. Women and people of African-American and Latinx descent reported a higher prevalence of traumatic experiences than men and those with European ancestry, but people in low-income households were the most impacted.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-11-childhood-traumas-strongly-impact-mental.html

Could it be that the people who don't report traumatic events which happen to them also don't get diagnosed with PTSD even if they suffer from it?

I believe this was on a self reported basis. Participants were asked if any of the ACE applied to them and if they felt that they suffered from any of the conditions. No diagnosis needed.

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I think what I'm saying is that the personality of the participant will at least in part determine whether they interpret a particular incident as adverse, and will also be a factor in whether they suffer from PTSD as a result. So it's not entirely the actual incident which is the issue, but also the response to the incident.

I live in Reno and would be highly interested in an opportunity to talk to the participating UNR side of this study. For.. science reasons.

It’s also not surprising men didn’t report nearly as much as women did.. I’m sure pride and shame heavily play into this.

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http://americanspcc.org/take-the-aces-quiz/

This is a link to the type of questions used, it might help answer you question a little bit more

Girls are more often victims, iirc. Which makes sense Imo as there are more straight men when it comes to sexual violence. Not saying that under reporting for men/boys isn't a thing.

According to this study I should be 100% dead.

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There are certainly questions here for which the answer is subjective rather than objective and will be influenced by the personality of the participant.

Change that to guilt and shame, and you're dead on.

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Personality has nothing to do with it. An adverse event is one which causes abnormally long periods of cortisol in the developing brain. There are studies and scientific evidence of how a persons brain develops differently.

You feel alive? Weird I'm just ghouling around

So when asked a question from the ACE test such as:
> Did you often or very often feel that … a) No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special?

.. the response will be objective and not affected by the personality of the person answering?

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I believed my parents loved me, even though my dad knocked me through the banisters. I thought I was important to them even though they never made me feel that way. The affects still exist.

For years I had difficulty in relationships because of how I was raised. Thinking I was raised normally didn’t save me from the side effects. Regardless of my answer, cortisol poisoning was still happening.

Scientific studies aren’t just a quiz and that’s it. The World Health Organization followed thousands of candidates over the course of 20 years before they published their study about ACEs.

OP's study, though, is based on answers to the ACE test, not on assessing participants' cortisol levels.

My point is, whatever a person’s personality is does not determine the health affects of the adverse events. What you are referring to is under reporting, or normalizing trauma. That’s why these questions are asked in several ways and with different wording. The results aren’t unreliable.

I mean exactly what I said. I feel no guilt over being molested as a child. There are a lot of men out there that have a hard time facing sexual trauma over pride issues, we’re taught to be “strong”, sexual abuse is humiliating and makes you feel defenseless and weak. Whole lot of shame mixed up in there. Maybe it’s just me, but I have a good grip of male acquaintances in my life who have also experienced sexual abuse or been molested.

Why are we trying to correct what others say? I mean what I said, you’re allowed your opinion, but please don’t correct what you think I meant.

>Why are we trying to correct what others say? I mean what I said, you’re allowed your opinion, but please don’t correct what you think I meant.

Because I DO feel guilt about the rape I endured as a child. That is all.

I get what you’re saying, but please don’t downplay the significance and frequency of male sexual abuse or assault.

> That’s why these questions are asked in several ways and with different wording.

Not in the test I was looking at. They looked for different effects, but didn't repeat questions with different formulations to try to pick up issues which might have been passed over.

Yes, my concern is that normalised trauma may introduce a bias in the results. In particular, that the sort of people/families that may normalise trauma may well be the sort of people/families who would not identify PTSD and hence it would not be detected. This would appear in the records as people without detected trauma having a lower incidence rate of detected PTSD, as such introducing a bias in the results.

Okay, that’s what you feel, not me. We don’t speak for each other, I’m not telling you to change your guilt to pride or any other emotion. All I’m saying is people experience different feelings and emotions.. but I’m not going to tell someone to change how they view their own personal trauma.

“Many previous studies observed that traumatic childhood events are linked to long-term adult diseases using the standard Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire.”

“…volunteer-based population health study in which each adult participant is invited to take a retrospective questionnaire that includes the Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire…”

“Using participant’s cross-referenced electronic health records, a phenome-wide association analysis of 1,703 phenotypes and the incidence of ACEs examined links between traumatic events in childhood and adult disease.”

So, this is science. They have to be thorough. Also consider that the hypothetical person who has normalized trauma would not be volunteering to be in a study like this. All in all, I just think that means that there are likely more abuse victims out there than we know, but that really doesn’t affect a study like this.

Trauma affects personality development, so I'm not sure your question makes sense.

Besides which, if they've already correlated the scoring on the questions with people diagnosed with trauma, then I'm unsure what other validation you're looking for.

But you're only 100% PTSD

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Is this supposed to be sarcasm?

“Girls are more often victims”. We don’t know that, due to the underreporting you are downplaying.

I don't have a problem with the idea that trauma and PTSD are connected - that's a truism. I just feel that to quote numbers in the way this article does is slightly questionable.

Obviously trauma affects personality development, but I think it's folly to suggest that pre-existing personality doesn't influence the extent to which a given event will traumatise a person.

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laughs nervously I'm in danger.

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What really sucks is that it also impairs ability to create lasting memories, and also kills the “mind’s eye”

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Seems like that could fall under both “emotional neglect” and “mental illness in the household”, no?

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People often think ”I just had an average childhood”. How would you even know that what happened to you was out of the ordinary if no one points it out to you? And your personality developes based on your experiences and becomes normality. I didn’t know I had C-PTSD until I was in my late thirties.

Reminds me of this: "Pride isn't the opposite of shame, it is the source" - Iroh

You seem to be implying that personality is purely environmentally conditioned. This would imply there is no genetic element to it. I doubt that, I think both play a part.

> What really sucks is that it also impairs ability to create lasting memories, and also kills the “mind’s eye”

Source? I remember my trauma like it was yesterday.

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New study shows trauma induces trauma response, more at 11.

Trauma causes post TRAUMAtic stress disorder? Who’d’ve thunk

There's a lot of childhood trauma that's not included on ACEs such as death of a parent, being in foster care, terminal illness, significant car accident, etc. The authors only included the MOST common adverse childhood experiences.

Read the myth of normal. Trauma is more normal than not.

Same here, but I can't remember anything else.

I think what happens is that our minds only remember the dangers in our lives.

It is still unhealthy. We should not throw up our hands and give up on reducing trauma - especially in children.

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Oh yes. Many men have PTSD without realizing it. In a lot of cases it’s bc they keep things to themselves as kids. Since many boys are expected to behave a certain way - we believe having a valid emotional reaction to something that doesn’t seem Okay is invalid. Or we should be ashamed to be emotional about it. That can cause PTSD later bc those experiences don’t just go away.

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Source? I have the worst memory ever. However, other than that I think I'm pretty normal despite childhood trauma.

I read the title and thought loudly: Ayo?

self-report doesn't necessarily mean they were asked if they "felt" they had particular conditions; the wording of the question matters heavily (e.g. it could have said "have you ever been diagnosed," "have you ever suspected," "has any friend or family member ever told you," etc which would all have dramatically different effects)

edit: exact wording for the study was "Have you ever been diagnosed with, or treated for, any of the conditions" with a set of nine conditions participants could select. I suppose people could lie or misremember, but it's not particularly subjective.

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What are you getting at? Some people are weak minded so PTSD affects them more?

I didn't get diagnosed until I was 29. Child abuse from when I was 7 was the main catalyst.

I could have quite easily gone my entire life struggling without a diagnosis, none the wiser.

I only ended up getting diagnosed because whilst trying to get some help with depression, one of my doctor's mentioned I could use my abuse to get an ACC claim (NZ universal accident insurance) for therapy. Through that, I discovered I had PTSD.

I don't think anyone is intentionally trying to invalidate what you said. t feels more like a matter of semantics. Both guilt and pride can be used differently in different cases. Men and boys are taught to be strong, to be able to defend themselves, to be emotionally in control (boys don't cry), and so on. This may not apply to you, but it is very common for boys who were molested to feel a sense of guilt. The don't feel guilty that it happened, but that they didn't do what they were supposed to do - they were supposed to be strong, they were supposed to be able to defend themselves, they were supposed to be smart enough to see it coming, they should have known better... for a lot of men the guilt is feeling like they should have known better or done something to stop it, but they didn't. Now, like you mentioned there's a sense of shame because the failure to stop it or do something about it made them feel weak, defenseless and powerless. I'll single out humifaction because a person could be (as the word is often used) too proud to admit it. But if a person is saying they are too proud to admit something happened, they are almost taking responsibility for part of what happened. They didn't do the molesting, but they didn't stop it and they are too proud to admit they weren't strong, then some people feel guilty that they weren't strong enough, man enough, etc. to stop it. It's where a lot of men take on a sense of guilt, not over the abuse itself, but because they didn't do what they feel they should have been capable of doing. Again, this may not apply to you, I'm just trying to explain why a sense of guilt is very common and it's not the kind of guilt where you feel like you asked for it, but guilt that you trusted someone or that you didn't fight them off or you got in the car with someone and you should have known better. These are all things that apply to what a person did or didn't do. The feel no guilt over doing the molesting, but they might feel guilt that they didn't do more to stop it and now they are too proud to admit that they feel weak. You can't really feel bad about feeling weak, defenseless and powerless unless you also feel like you shouldn't have been. If you 100% know and accept that it wasn't your fault for trusting someone, or being smaller than someone or being unable to defend yourself... then you are still kind of saying you did something wrong. That's why, for a great many men, sexual abuse carries a sense of guilt. Maybe you are the exception to the rule and that's fine, but being that guilt (over not being a "real man" capable of defending himself) is so very much a common thing for men who are molested, it's not too unfair to think that's what someone might have meant by using the word pride.

I know more about this subject than I wish I did, so I'm not talking all theory.

You keep saying personality, but it's unclear what you mean by that and it's making your question non-sensible.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that you mean temperament or sensitivity. It still doesn't matter, because what's relevant is whether or not an individual experienced an event as traumatic.

Write a paper and get yourself published if it's so obvious. Otherwise, stop with these comments as if you know it all.

Me: Makes a joke about obvious cause and effect

You: gets offended and tells me to publish a paper about obvious cause and effect despite there already being hundreds (one of which is literally linked in the post on which is being commented on)

Not once did I say or imply that I “know it all”.

Edit: Pointing out that many studies are conducted to prove thing we already know to be true was the intent of the original comment.

I'm wracking up the Ws ain't I

The thing about recalling memories and self-reports is that there is high risk of bias.

I see people’s anecdotes where they claim certain childhood events as hyperbole of trauma. There is such a thing as false memories.

Isn't this what Freud discovered?

I agree that both play a part, I’m just saying traumas can heavily skew it.

So I'm like, what 30,000% likely to commit suicide?

Then you're admitting to breaking the sub rules.

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Oh absolutely I’m not saying we just accept that trauma is normal that’s the point. For too long we’ve accepted a lot of not normal things to be normal. That’s why the book by Gabor mate is called “the myth of normal”. I just started reading it and I can’t put it down.

I hope therapy is helping. I found one way to heal childhood trauma is to pinpoint the earliest memory the abuse started, the one that really made you react or think “this is not right.” And imagine yourself as 7yo and forgive your abuser. Most trauma comes from acts that our ego cannot fathom as forgivable bc the acts come from behavior that is logically senseless & unfair for a child to experience. Unfortunately people are weak, gone thru sh*t & aren’t always the best decision makers. When no one can rationalize what you went thru, ironically depression becomes the only anecdote; like the only thing that makes sense. Our ego understands something not right is happening & we internalize the unfairness.

A child’s most basic need for nourishment aside from food & hydration is love. And when it’s given to us in the most atrocious, unfair way, we don’t understand how we can accept that kind of love.

So with the exercise, I would first be in a quiet place, imagine being your 7yo self, face your abuser (as they were then) & say “I know you were trying to do your best with the tools you had then and I forgive you.” If they were an addict I’d say “I know you were not strong enough to make the best decisions & you depended on [substance] to make those decisions for you, they weren’t helping you make the best decisions for me but I forgive you because I realize now you were weak, and not the strong person I thought you were, and you believed the [substance] was good for you & would make the best decisions for you with the resources you had at that time.” Something along those lines. If you are open too it, this exercise helps a lot. Bc most traumatic experiences are unkind, to counteract, forgiveness is a powerful act of kindness & a strong anecdote to heal.

Men/male children do underreport. Most men who were sexually abused or molested as kids keep it to themselves. Many girls also keep to themselves but I believe more girls will report bc they know that’s what they should do, whereas boys believe that’s what they shouldn’t do. As the internet expands & resources become more avail, maybe the way our culture embraces discussions like this will help adults to provide more safe spaces for children to address what they experienced.

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