An important piece of knowledge that can help folks articulate to themselves this connection is the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study. People often don’t connect the abuse and hardship they’ve encountered to behaviors and material circumstances that they struggle with. Layered on top of these symptoms can be financial strain, early dropout from school, unhealthy relationships with food, difficulty forming relationships, substance use, homelessness, difficulty maintaining employment, as well as with core beliefs of worthlessness, or a general sense that they are bad, wrong, or tainted. These clients may struggle with common trauma reactions, like anger, difficulty with relationships, fearfulness, tension, and low self-worth. My role here as an Outreach Counselor at Our VOICE is to work with the people at the margins of society, survivors of sexual abuse who often struggle with many of those stigmatized behaviors and situations. The conclusion is then to blame the individual, assuming that they must not want to get better, and chalk up their struggles to a lack of willpower, or a flaw or defect in their nature. How many times have we heard someone say “Well, if they would just….” and then insert the “obvious” solution: get a job, reconnect with family, go on a diet, just stop drinking, just stop using. The stigma against people who are in poverty, who struggle with addiction, homelessness, mental health issues, lack of education, even things like obesity, and smoking. This shadow often takes the form of stigma. However, its corollary contains within it a shadow that affects many whose lives seem to fall short of the idyllic vision of self-determination. Taken on its own, this belief appears encouraging, hopeful, and positive. Anyone who works hard can become whoever they want. Many of us have inculcated in us through media messages, friends, family, schools, that we are individuals who all have an equal chance in life. This might seem self-evident, but so many cultural attitudes we encounter (and perhaps even hold ourselves) fail to acknowledge that people became who they are somehow. What we’ve been through shapes how we are the in the world.
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