ACEs: Looking Back to Move Forward – A Call to Protect What Matters Most

Written on 08/08/2025
MAGNUS ONE SME

In the world of public safety, military service, and other high-stakes professions, the focus is often on protecting others. You suit up, step into chaos, and do what needs to be done—day after day, year after year. But in the process, many rarely stop to ask a deeper question:

What am I carrying home?

Matron Bobbie Shake of the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Office invites us to do just that in her six-part series on ACEs—Adverse Childhood Experiences. This is not an easy conversation. In fact, it can be deeply uncomfortable. Because when you start looking at ACEs, you’re not just looking at statistics or case studies—you’re looking at yourself, your past, and, perhaps hardest of all, how your own patterns may be shaping your children’s futures.

This series is both a mirror and a doorway. A mirror—because it reflects the hidden ways our childhood experiences influence how we respond to stress, conflict, and relationships today. And a doorway—because it offers hope and practical steps for creating something better for ourselves and for the people who matter most.


What Are ACEs—and Why Do They Matter So Much?

The term Adverse Childhood Experiences comes from a landmark study by the Centers for Disease Control and Kaiser Permanente in the 1990s. Researchers surveyed over 17,000 adults about ten categories of adversity they may have faced before age 18—things like physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; neglect; and household dysfunction such as substance abuse, mental illness, or incarceration.

The findings were groundbreaking—and sobering:

  • Nearly two-thirds of participants had at least one ACE, and more than 1 in 5 had three or more (Felitti et al., 1998).

  • The higher a person’s ACE score, the greater their risk for chronic health conditions, mental health struggles, and risky behaviors in adulthood.

  • A score of 4 or more ACEs was linked to dramatically higher rates of heart disease, depression, substance use, and even early death.

But here’s the part that’s especially relevant to public safety and other high-stakes professions: many of us entered this work not just because of what we wanted to do, but because of what we’ve lived through. We bring with us our own histories, our own scars—and the job itself can add new layers of trauma on top.


The Two-Way Street: What We Carry—and What We Pass On

One of the most confronting truths about ACEs is that trauma doesn’t stay contained in the past. If left unexamined, it shows up in our parenting, our relationships, and even our tone of voice or body language at home. Our children are always watching and absorbing—not just our words, but our stress levels, coping mechanisms, and presence (or absence) in their daily lives.

And the cycle can continue. Research shows that parental stress and unresolved trauma can significantly affect a child’s emotional and physical health, even in homes without abuse or neglect (Shonkoff et al., 2012). In other words, how we handle our own stress has a direct impact on how resilient—or vulnerable—our kids become.

This doesn’t mean we’re doomed to repeat the past. It means we have an opportunity—right now—to interrupt the cycle.


Why Facing This Matters in Public Safety

In this profession, the culture has long been, “Strap on your boots. I’m fine. I can handle it.” Talking about your mental health—or how the job is impacting your family—is still far from the norm.

But the reality is:

  • Public safety professionals face higher rates of PTSD, depression, and substance misuse than the general population (Stanley et al., 2016).

  • Chronic exposure to trauma on the job doesn’t just affect you—it can follow you home in the form of irritability, emotional numbing, withdrawal, or unhealthy coping.

  • If we don’t intentionally process and release what we’ve been through, it piles up—quietly influencing everything from our patience with our kids to our ability to connect with our spouse.

As Doc Shauna Springer says, “We’re all resilient until we’re not.”


The Good News: Healing Is Possible at Any Stage

The ACEs research is clear about the risks, but it also offers hope: your score is not your destiny. Studies show that positive, consistent relationships with caring adults can buffer and even reverse many of the long-term impacts of childhood adversity (Harvard Center on the Developing Child, 2015).

That means no matter where you’re starting from today—whether you’re working through your own history, rethinking how you handle the stress of the job, or realizing for the first time that your kids may be absorbing more than you thought—you can make meaningful changes.

Even small shifts—like listening without distraction, modeling healthy coping, or simply being emotionally present—can change the trajectory for your children.


Bobbie Shake’s Challenge to Us All

Over the course of this series, Bobbie doesn’t just talk about ACEs as an abstract concept. She asks hard but necessary questions:

  • What are you taking home from the job?

  • How is it showing up in your family?

  • What do you want to model for your children about how to handle stress, conflict, and emotion?

And she reminds us that the work doesn’t end after one conversation or one breakthrough. Just like you can’t go to the gym once and walk out with the body you want, you can’t tend to your mental and emotional well-being one time and call it done. You have to keep showing up—for yourself, and for them.


Your Invitation

This is not about blame. It’s about choice.

It’s about being willing to look—really look—at what’s driving you, how it’s affecting you, and how it’s shaping your family. It’s about deciding that the cycle stops here, with you.

You’ve trained to protect strangers on the hardest day of their lives. Now it’s time to bring that same courage, skill, and commitment to protecting your own family’s future.

Start today.

  • Learn your ACE score.

  • Talk to someone you trust about what you discover.

  • Begin one small, daily habit that builds connection with your kids or your partner.

Your past may explain you—but it doesn’t have to define you. And the way you choose to show up, starting right now, can change everything.

A Simple Mindfulness Practice to Grow Your Self-Awareness

The most important step in changing how you show up—for yourself and for your family—is growing your capacity for personal self-awareness.
Why?
Because you can’t change what you don’t see.

You can’t shift a habit, a reaction, or a pattern unless you first recognize it in the moment. And that recognition is exactly what mindfulness builds: the ability to notice your thoughts, emotions, and body signals as they’re happening—before they take over.

Here’s one way to start.


The 2-Minute Check-In

When: Once a day, at a consistent time—before walking into work, before leaving work, or before walking into your home.

How:

  1. Pause. Put down your phone, stop moving, and let your eyes rest softly on one spot.

  2. Breathe. Take one slow, deep breath in through your nose, counting to 4. Hold for 1–2 seconds. Then exhale through your mouth for a count of 6. Repeat this two more times.

  3. Notice. Without trying to fix or change anything, ask yourself:

    • What am I feeling in my body right now? (Tension in your jaw, tightness in your chest, heaviness in your shoulders?)

    • What emotions are present? (Irritation, fatigue, sadness, calm, anticipation?)

    • What thoughts are running through my mind? (Worries about work, things you need to do, a conversation replaying?)

  4. Name it. Silently put words to what you notice: “Tight shoulders… feeling stressed… thinking about tomorrow’s shift.”

  5. Choose. Before moving on, ask: Given what I’m feeling, how do I want to show up in the next hour? Pick one word—calm, patient, curious, steady—and let that guide you forward.


This practice works because it interrupts autopilot. Over time, it strengthens the “mental muscle” that lets you notice what’s happening inside you before it spills out in your tone, actions, or presence at home.

It’s only two minutes, but done consistently, it’s the foundation for changing your patterns, protecting your relationships, and breaking the cycles you don’t want to pass on.