"That's common sense.", " Putting aside the limited scope of the ACE study ", " That's also common sense. ", " After labeling it a "disorder," the mainstream view of dealing with mental illness (if there even is such a disease) "

Did you really just comment these things on a post about something helping someone? What is wrong with you?

First, from Got Your ACE Score? What’s Your ACE Score? (and, at the end, What’s Your Resilience Score?):

There are 10 types of childhood trauma measured in the ACE Study. Five are personal — physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. Five are related to other family members: a parent who’s an alcoholic, a mother who’s a victim of domestic violence, a family member in jail, a family member diagnosed with a mental illness, and the disappearance of a parent through divorce, death or abandonment. Each type of trauma counts as one. So a person who’s been physically abused, with one alcoholic parent, and a mother who was beaten up has an ACE score of three.

There are, of course, many other types of childhood trauma — watching a sibling being abused, losing a caregiver (grandmother, mother, grandfather, etc.), homelessness, surviving and recovering from a severe accident, witnessing a father being abused by a mother, witnessing a grandmother abusing a father, etc. The ACE Study included only those 10 childhood traumas because those were mentioned as most common by a group of about 300 Kaiser members; those traumas were also well studied individually in the research literature.

The most important thing to remember is that the ACE score is meant as a guideline: If you experienced other types of toxic stress over months or years, then those would likely increase your risk of health consequences.

...

The CDC’s Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) uncovered a stunning link between childhood trauma and the chronic diseases people develop as adults, as well as social and emotional problems. This includes heart disease, lung cancer, diabetes and many autoimmune diseases, as well as depression, violence, being a victim of violence, and suicide.

Now, back to Christine Cissy White's article that you posted:

I HAPPY CRIED when I saw that others my age, with my ACE score, had been prescribed anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medication.

For the first time, I understood it’s not just a personal problem; it’s a social issue. It’s a cause-and-effect thing.

Mood problems are symptoms. ACEs are the problem. I’m not the problem.

I stopped looking at myself to try to figure out what’s wrong IN me and with me. I saw that thousands of other people with ACE scores suffered the same way. I saw that thousands of other people with lower ACEs scores suffered less and led healthier lives.

This changed everything.

...

She then asked again about my childhood.

“It’s in the file,” I said. “Ifyou want to read it, you can; but knowing my ACE score is enough. Over 90% of people in my age group with my history struggle with anxiety and depression. I’m just here to manage my PTSD.”

I was polite and calm and clear that I didn’t want or need to detail my entire life story. I didn’t want to go into daddy issues or feel shame about abuse or talk about the worst things ever done to me. I’m close to 50.

“This is actually just a drug run,” I said. “I need you to fill my prescription. My PTSD is well-managed. I’m not looking to discuss or process or get feedback. I just need that prescription.”

...

I think the ACE questionnaire and study shifts the “what’s wrong with me question?” and changes it to “what happened to me”, as well as:

• What do I not have that I need more of?
• What skills and resources and support did others get, that I can try to give myself now as an adult?
• What do I need to learn so I can teach it to my kid?
• How can I be a parent with high ACEs who has a child with lower ACEs?
• How can I make sure my kid gets all that I lacked?

Here's what I get from reading these articles:

1. There is often a scientifically provable direct correlation ("cause-and-effect thing") between your body's physical health and mental health. That's common sense.
2. Putting aside the limited scope of the ACE study, physical or emotional trauma (from childhood or otherwise) stresses one's mental health, and the more you've had of either, the more stressed you'll feel. That's also common sense.
3. Recognizing you weren't the cause of some traumatic events requires discussions to reason through but the acknowledgment isn't enough to dramatically improve your state of being. You have to take purposeful action beyond that recognition. This scene in Good Will Hunting is a brilliant artistic depiction of "it's not my fault" acknowledgment, but it's Will's difficult choice and purposeful action to do what he really wants (i.e., blowing off a good job, leaving his friends in Boston to move to California, pursuing a relationship with Skylar while she attends Stanford) that is the path to real mental health improvement.
4. After labeling it a "disorder," the mainstream view of dealing with mental illness (if there even is such a disease) primarily focuses on ineffective discussions and "drug runs" to induce chemical changes in the body.

One of the ways I look at life is as a trade of costs for values. I accept the cost of a stressful life because I know the immense wonders, beauty, and inspiration living provides. Cissy's action-oriented bullets at the end, to me, seem a much more positive approach than antidepressants (which highly likely aren't even as effective as supplements and might actually make depression and anxiety worse). Rationally accepting that we "experience a wide range of moral, interpersonal, social and political "problems in living" demands we take personal responsibility for our choices to improve our problem-solving and coping skills as we seek and pursue what makes life worthwhile. In other words, we have limited control over the traumas others inflict but we have a great deal of control over our own choices to deal with them and move forward.

As you continue to work on healing, you may want to check out A Woman's Self-Esteem: Struggles and Triumphs in the Search for Identity by psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden. It's based on what he calls The Six Pillars of Self Esteem (the practices of living consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, purposeful living, and personal integrity). There are sentence-completion exercises at the end of each chapter you might find useful for self-improvement. Although I'm glad Cissy seems to be in a much better place, to stop looking within herself to figure out her own shortcomings seems not only limiting but also would appear to leave her more susceptible to regression. I don't believe there's a silver bullet for getting out of depression but I do believe that focusing solely upon the pain others inflicted while ignoring our own irrational, bad choices as key, contributing factors is not the appropriate path to a healthy physical and mental state.