It could have been worse...

“You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em.

Know when to fold ‘em

Know when to walk away

And know when to run…”

- The Gambler, Kenny Rogers

(lyrics by Don Schlitz)

 

It started simply enough.

 

The email from my course coordinator for the coming semester asked her faculty to link to a website and list the textbooks we recommended for our courses.

 

The instructions were pretty clear. Go to the college website, find our course, then link to the "…registration/class schedule page." The email went on to say this was "...VERY IMPORTANT..." and needed to be done by the end of the week.

 

I was in the middle of restructuring my course for the fall when the email arrived. It was a good breakpoint, so I stood up, stretched, got something to drink, and returned to the computer. This would take less than five minutes.

 

Navigating to my course was not a problem, but I could not seem to find the "…registration/class…" page. Maybe I would do a quick site search. 

Hmm…that resulted in a blank page saying, "Item not found…"

 

Undeterred, but feeling stress levels begin to slightly rise, I took a deep breath, shook it off, gathered myself, and poked around the website a little more.  Nada!

 

Thirty frustrating minutes later, I managed to find my course through a variety of pathways. But, that pesky ‘registration/class schedule page’ was nowhere to be found.

 

Yes, I could simply have contacted my coordinator, but she was on holiday, and I knew it would take at least a day for her to get back to me.  Plus, I did not want her to think I could not sort out such a simple assignment.

 

"Keep Calm and Carry On" (the phrase from a British World War II poster) wafted through my mind. 

 

I know…sometimes you just need to let things go, but I was NOT going to be humiliated by this. After all, I have a Ph.D.!

 

Like a lightning bolt from the sky, the solution struck me. I would call the tech support help desk and explain my problem. This thing would be done with no one the wiser.

 

I would make a quick call to the college switchboard to get the tech support number and all would be well in my little office in Oro Valley. 

 

The recorded voice was pleasantly welcoming, letting me know I was important.  Reminding me options had changed, so I should listen carefully to the possibilities. "Push 9 for student registration." I, of course, was interested in tech support, not registering. I waited for the other choices when the voice politely said, “Push 1 to repeat the options.” What options?

 

Thinking I had misdialed, I repeated the process and once again discovered ‘9’ was all that was offered. No more and no less.

 

Okay, I’ll play.

 

Having had experience with push-button automated systems, I knew exactly what I would do.  Repeating the call a third time, listening through the introductions again (I was still important), I Pushed '9' and waited. 

A different recorded voice asked me to hold. The anonymous agent indicated the call might be recorded for training purposes, reminding me my call was important. I was inline for the next available representative. After a couple minutes, a real person introduced herself and asked what my questions were about registering.

 "I'm not a student, but faculty," I said.  "I'm trying to get to tech support. Apparently, there is something wrong with the automated answering service, and you were my only option. Would it be possible for you to look in the phone directory for the tech support number?”

 

She hemmed and hawed a bit, giving the impression that this was not her job. A little more officiously, she said, "Just a minute, sir, I'll see if I can find a directory.”

 

A couple of minutes later, she returned with the number for tech support. She also assured me she would get with her supervisor about the automated answering service problem.

 

I didn't care. This thing was as good as done.

 

By now, I was into the game for more than an hour. But that was okay. Tech support was in my wheelhouse. They had helped me several times in the past, and they were WONDERFUL!!

 

Punching the number and humming to myself, a recording answered saying I would get the next available tech. No problem. A few minutes of background music and before I knew it. “Hi, this is Larry, how can I help you?” 

Hot dog!!

 

I introduced myself, indicating I was faculty and had a pretty simple question.

 

“What is your faculty identification number?” Larry asked. Routine...I gave it.

 

“What is your phone number?” You should be able to look that up, but okay. I rattled it off.

 

“What is your birth date?” he asked. Wait! What?

 

I expressed something unkind, indicating I had used tech support repeatedly and never had been asked this. At any rate, if Larry really needed it, why didn't he just look it up?

 

Nonplussed, he repeated the request and then asked about my problem. I told him it was pretty simple. Would it be possible for him to direct me to the college webpage for ‘…registration/class schedule…’?

 

“I don’t exactly know, but I’ll make a ticket for this and get back to you. What is your email address?” It was then I realized Larry was NOT going to be of any help.

 

You know the cliché about the straw and the camel's back? It came when, having been of no help, Larry asked, "Would you be willing to fill out a survey about our call today?"

 

Counting to ten, I took a breath and replied, “Larry, the way this call and my day has been going, you truly do not want me to fill out a survey about anything.”

 

With that, Larry and I were done, and my problem was still unresolved!! (As it turned out, tech support was no longer on campus but had been outsourced to call centers in Texas and Kentucky - I digress).

 

Apologies to the Brits. I was no longer Calm.

 

Just before climbing on the desk, in preparation for jumping to my death, my inbox signaled an arriving email. It was a copy of an email to my coordinator from another faculty member confirming she had completed the task.

 

I am not the sharpest scalpel in the biology labs, but in my utter despair, I realized there was a way out of the cave of ignorance…a path to enlightenment. Plato had written that parable for just this moment - God bless him!

 

Dropping her a note, I asked where she found the page in question. She replied almost instantly, indicating she didn't know either. But if I followed the link in her email (a completely different one), I would be able to record the course materials for my students.

 

Following her instructions, I found the page where I indicated the materials I wanted my students to use.

 

As it turns out, I was wrong how much time it would take to execute the request from my course coordinator. Forget the wasted angst-ridden hour and a half…

 

Making the change took less than two minutes!

 

- ted

Living with the bear...

 “One believes things because one has

been conditioned to believe them.”

‑ Aldus Huxley, Brave New World

The week-long virtual conference was presented by the Peace and Justice Institute of Valencia College in Orlando, Florida. Of the innumerable courses and seminars, I had taken, this would be the first one sitting behind my computer for six-content hours a day. Would it work?

The focus of this course was to sensitize teachers in areas such as race, gender, culture, resilience, and emotional intelligence. These were topics with which I had interest and experience.

Then there was this…

Mid-week, the conference shifted and introduced something called the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)…a link between chronic disease and early abuse in the home. This was brand new and intriguing.

A study was presented based on research by a San Diego Kaiser Permanente physician and a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) researcher (ref 1). They recruited 17,500 subjects, 70% of which were Caucasian, and 70% college-educated, and presented them with the following questions:

Prior to your 18^th birthday:

1.  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?

2.  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?

3.  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?

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?

5.  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?

6.  Were your parents ever separated or divorced?

7.  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?

8.  Did you live with anyone who was a problem drinker or alcoholic, or who used street drugs?

9.  Was a household member depressed or mentally ill, or did a household member attempt suicide?

10.  Did a household member go to prison?

The researchers found strong relationships between ACE scores and health outcomes. The higher the ACE score, the greater the risk for chronic disease.

Among other things, 67% of the respondents had at least one ACE point, and 12.6% had scores of four or higher. Persons with a score of four or more were 2.5 times higher risk for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and hepatitis. Scores of four or more were 4 times more likely to have depression and at 12 times greater risk for suicide. A score of seven or more had a 3 times greater lifetime risk for lung cancer and 3.5 times higher risk for ischemic heart disease, the number one killer in this country.

It didn’t seem to matter which specific items were chosen, but rather the number of adverse experiences children had been exposed to.

One coin, two sides…

One of the wonders of the human body is its ability to protect us. The autonomic (read, automatic) nervous system has a couple of divisions. The 'alarm side' is referred to as flight or fight. The 'calming side' is known as rest and digest where the body does just that, going about the business of supporting our daily lives.

It works like this: When confronted with a perceived threat, say a bear suddenly appears while hiking in the woods. Our bodies go into full alert. Adrenalin drives our heart rate up, opens our lungs for more air, increases nutrition to our muscles, and increases blood pressure. Hormones designed to save our lives are poured into our systems. Other regulators take over once the threat has been removed and we return to physiologic balance. All of us have experienced this kind of response in our lives.

But what happens when we live with the bear? What happens when we find ourselves on alert daily because of continual threats? What happens when this occurs consistently throughout childhood years? Hormones designed to save, in the ebb and flow of normal life, become toxic and, over time, lead to chronic disease. The lifesavers becoming life takers. Rest and digest never fully returns the body to physiologic balance.

Traditional thinking has been that children are resilient. Kids that overcome early adversity leave it all behind. This, like a lot of non-scientific medical opinion, is simply wrong! Moreover, anyone reading this who has survived childhood trauma knows of a certainty it is wrong. The tail on that dog, while buried, influences our lives in immeasurable ways.

Many adults who have had early life experiences like those unearthed in the ACE questions, are ashamed of them, or have buried them so deeply they are never spoken of.

An epiphany

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing or reading. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the effects of chronic stress. I had taught stress management my whole professional life. But I was missing a critical piece related to the source of many of the chronic disease lifestyle issues I had worked with. My curiosity was peaked.

In the reference material for the course was a book titled deepest well by Nadine Harris, MD, a pediatrician from San Francisco. I was curious, did a web search, and read a review. I found her giving a TED Talk on early childhood adversity. It was an articulate and compelling overview of this topic (ref 2). It inspired me to read her book. It was an awe-inspiring read, that was a revelation of understanding. Her ability to raise social awareness was great, but the physiology she presented was compelling.

What to do?

Bill Bryson in The Body: An operator’s manual says most of us commit suicide by lifestyle, and it takes ages. That is an entertaining, but fairly accurate of the ‘…is what it is…’

But what do we do when we realize we are carriers of deeply rooted chronic stressors, when the ‘turn off’ mechanisms are broken? What does it mean to appreciate unrelenting stress in our early lives that may have unknowingly led to chronic health issues we may be suffering now? Is there anything that can be done?

The good news lies in the amazing recuperative power of the body. There are tools we can use to help it in the process of recovery.

The following are areas of life that, if addressed, have been shown to work as antidotes to the contamination of chronic disease. They are sleep, mental health, healthy relationships, exercise, nutrition, and mindfulness. Healthy changes in these areas of life may not turn back the clock, but they can help repair long-term physiologic damage and increase quality of life.

It might take professional help to address some of these areas, but for the most part, they are things over which we can take control. Sometimes we just need permission, a nudge to begin to take power in our lives.

When I return to the classroom, I will have a new and deeper appreciation for the way I interact with my students. The 'Peace and Justice Institute' is responsible for increasing my sensitivity toward students (and administration).

As a result of the ACE, however, I will never look at my students the same way again. I don't really have a lot of answers, but a place to start is to ensure they have a safe place to learn. A place where I can teach some of the new things I have learned...so that it won't take them seventy-three years to think about the decisions they make in their lives.

If I thought attending a weeklong virtual conference behind a computer screen, might not be the best way to learn – I was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t touchy-feely, but the jury is in. I would do it again in a heartbeat!

- ted

References:

1.   Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The adverse Child Experience Study – Amer Jour of Prev Med. 14(4), 1998, pp245-258.

2.   https://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_burke_harris_how_childhood_trauma_affects_health_across_a_lifetime/transcript).