Looking Beyond the Score: Understanding the ACE Test and Your Story
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) test is a short, 10-question tool developed in the late ’90s to explore the link between early adversity in the first 18 years of life. Things like neglect, abuse, household dysfunction, and loss are noted and then it’s examined on how that impacts health outcomes later in life.
Most people find the ACE test because something inside them is quietly asking, “Why do I feel this way?” Maybe it’s persistent anxiety, trouble trusting others, or just a sense that life has always felt heavier than it should. The ACE test offers one step towards understanding. It is a starting point that can show where the pain has come from and what you might have to face moving forward. This can feel like a lot of 'maybes' and uncertainty, leaving you without a clear understanding of your experiences or a path forward.
A number cannot tell you the story, the journey, or the heartbreak you have had to endure in order to feel somewhat normal. The scale can be gratifying to see that you feel damaged and the score proves as much. For those that have a low number it can create a lot of invalidation and second guessing that maybe I don’t deserve to use the term trauma or that I get triggered because in this day and age they can be words overused.
The honest truth to all of this? The ACE test does not tell you the full story. It is not YOUR story.
What Is the ACE Test, Really?
Research shows that a higher ACE score can correlate with increased risk for depression, chronic illness, or relational struggles. It is a great starting point to see how commonly known challenges in childhood can impact one’s life so that when it is plain and simple, it can be addressed and worked through. An important factor that this test doesn’t show is where the self-discovery and courage comes from because that kind of “soul searching” can’t be as simple as a 10-question test.
What Your ACE Score Can’t Tell You
Beyond the raw score that you can generate in a matter of minutes, there are crucial aspects of your story that the ACE test simply isn’t designed to capture. It doesn’t measure your resilience. I have done some amazing trauma-based therapy training that has put a lot of focus on understanding the origin of trauma. We are facing an equation here that can help define what sticks and what thankfully can “roll off our shoulders.” This equation is based on the amount of exposure to the traumatic event and what coping mechanisms were available to the event. So let's put that into perspective with one of the questions from the ACE test. “Did you live with anyone who had a problem with drinking or using drugs, including prescription drugs?” This question can have a lot of layers to it. For instance, what if the child did go through this but had a great support system outside of the home where they were able to learn coping skills, or detach other’s actions from their own value and worth, they would ultimately find acceptance to that form of grief in childhood. Chances are that severity ranking would be way down because they had the means of addressing the trauma.
Now let’s say you scored a 1 or a 2 or, if sometimes life seemed so simple, you scored a 0 on the test. This can’t mean that you didn’t go through anything. That you were living in a bubble. What if your parents did everything in their power to provide the best childhood and you don’t have any complaints? But, along the way, you developed a need to be as perfect as them? You had an expectation to do things close to perfection. What if the bar was set so high that you are constantly comparing yourself to your parents and how you were raised that you never allowed yourself to make mistakes?
Or perhaps your parents weren’t considered abusive, but they were constantly yelling at you or each other. Or your parents did great but you grew up with siblings that were emotionally abusive or withheld love because of sibling rivalry. The test doesn’t show those “lesser” impacts on people because it would be an incredibly long test if they included all potential challenges that could impact the rest of your life based on the experiences in your childhood.
It doesn’t see the words you had to tell yourself growing up to ensure you could survive. It doesn’t show the resilience you had to create to keep going day in and day out. It doesn’t show the blame you may have taken from others because you were considered “difficult” because you were silently suffering. Our families don’t have to be to the point of disaster to have a challenging impact on our lives. Our parents, and their parents, and the parents beyond them are doing their best to care for their kids, trying to protect their kids from the dysfunction from previous generations. They probably did a great job! It is something beyond their capability. It is our responsibility to understand that impact, accept that it has happened, and forgive so that we can free ourselves. Then we can move forward by continuing that effort to improve future generations and without a doubt improve our lives for a new chapter in our lives. One that has hope, clarity, confidence, and compassion! You deserve to be loved. You deserve to believe in yourself and what you can accomplish. You deserve to know yourself so well that you know what you need to find everlasting peace and happiness.
Healing Isn’t a Test Result, It’s a Process
At Ashrise Therapy, we don’t just tally scores. We don’t run comparisons or try to undermine our experiences because it doesn’t seem big enough. We sit with stories, we search through the many pages in order to find those “ah-ha” that says “THAT is why I feel this way!” “THAT is why I behave a certain way!” “THAT is why I haven’t seen the change I have been looking for.” Because healing happens when we honor where we’ve been and trust in who we’re becoming. Progression over a single destination.
If your ACE score felt like a gut punch or it simply stirred something tender, know that there is space here to explore that. Gently. Intentionally. Without shame. You’ve got this!
A Note From Me to You
You are not broken.
You are not your trauma.
You are not a victim to your past.
You are a living, breathing story still being written!
If you're ready to connect the dots between past and present, I’d be honored to walk with you as you rise from the ashes of what was into the hope of what could be! I am so ready to get started, are you?
