14-time award winning trauma book!

"Painful childhood stresses, struggles, and traumas naturally follow you into adulthood and continue to impact self-views and interpersonal functioning. Natural responses to these experiences remain obstacles to becoming your healthiest, most productive, and fulfilled self."

Prolonged periods of stress (turbulent divorces, abuse, neglect, poverty, etc) cause a young brain to create physical and mental habits that it believes will help you survive. Unfortunately, these survival-based habits and core beliefs work against your adult life and relationship goals. These obstacles can include:

• Unhealthy relationship with yourself

• Chaotic, combative, toxic relationships

• Chronic anxiety symptoms

• Dysfunctional family dynamics

• Personal or family addictions

• Mental health disorders

These are all perfectly normal reactions to childhood struggles, and they do not automatically go away when you grow up! Healing from family trauma is challenging, but not impossible. Instead of hoping these issues will fix themselves (hint: they won't), self-education and guided skills building can empower you to eliminate many obstacles and successfully manage others throughout your life.

This encouraging and reality-based guide to healing from childhood and family trauma was authored by Life & Trauma Coach Ernest Ellender, PhD, who poured into it the best of his clinical experiences and educational insights derived from his 20+ years career in clinical psychology, during which he worked directly with survivors of various types of childhood trauma.

This Is How We Heal From Painful Childhoods presents 20 concepts that must be addressed to comprehensively heal from and thrive past your childhood. Each chapter explains the critical educational concepts before presenting realistic workbook drills to retrain unhelpful thinking, dysfunctional interpersonal dynamics, and unhealthy physical habits.

Slow down... think... and choose your path!

What is your ACE score?

This questionnaire was used to assess participants in the original Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study conducted by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente and published in 1998. This empirically validated tool is still widely used today by trained providers to measure the impact of various childhood struggles upon adult health and well-being. A simple 'yes' or 'no' to each of 10 questions adds up to identify your personal ACE score.

What does your ACE score tell you?

Firstly, let us understand that Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) scores are based on the averages of many thousands of study participants, which means that potential issues are just that... potential issues for you. It is helpful, however, to acknowledge the fact that experiencing stressful childhood events naturally leads to numerous physical and psychological challenges throughout adulthood. There are books written just about this study, but here are just a few glimpses into potential issues:

• "Yes" on just one ACE item leads to a 50% greater chance of experiencing clinical depression at some point in life. Three ACEs ups the likelihood to 250-300% compared to adults who experienced zero ACEs.

• Four+ ACEs makes a girl 2x more likely to get pregnant as a teenager compared to girls who experience zero ACEs. Childhood stresses often lead to risky behaviors like unprotected sex as teens attempt to rapidly connect with their peers.

• Two ACEs triples the likelihood of a suicide attempt in adulthood. Over 18% of adults who experienced four+ ACEs attempt suicide in their lifetime.

• While smoking can temporarily relieve moments of stress, it is an unhealthy self-soothing habit because it accumulates damage in one's lungs, circulation, and body. Ideally, parents teach children how to self-soothe through controlled breathing, relaxation, and communication skills.

• Three+ ACEs doubles the likelihood of experiencing Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which is most often caused by smoking. Liver disease can be caused by excessive alcohol intake, as well as obesity, genetics, and exposure to toxins.

• Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) damage the human body in two main ways: 1) Adults engage in risky or unhealthy behaviors as poor coping mechanisms for their troubling emotions. 2) The chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system (i.e. being 'stuck' in survival mode) prevents the body from spending more time in the parasympathetic 'rest-and-digest' mode when the body repairs itself toward optimal health.

• For adults with zero ACEs, just under 5% (average between males and females) experience being raped as an adult. Two ACEs increases that likelihood to over 16%, and four+ ACEs leads to a 32% likelihood (a 6x increase)!

• Men and women who experienced 5+ ACEs in childhood are 4-5x more likely to abuse their partners or children (domestic violence). Intergenerational trauma and family dysfunction often model for children unhealthy ways of interacting with and controlling others.

• Lack of personal coping skills combine with medical issues to negatively impact the work performances of adults with significant ACE scores, which in turn often leads to significant financial struggles. Stress (without healthy coping) leads to medical issues that lead to financial issues that cause more stress... a terrible cycle to be stuck in!!

Click on image for questionnaire

So... what do we do about it?!

We start with knowing that even a 10/10 ACE score is not a death sentence!! The fact that you are alive and reading this very sentence is a testament to your personal resilience, deep inner strength, and capacity for a healthier, happier future! In other words, we start with acknowledgement, hope, and ambition.

Next, you can start with a training curriculum that addresses deficits in personal and interpersonal skills that may be lacking due to your childhood that lacked supportive and critical educational components! This Is How We Heal from Painful Childhoods presents 20 rules that offer education and training to empower you with the skills your childhood may have missed! For example, consider the following areas of your functioning that may need some attention:

Self-soothing coping skills

Repeated childhood stressors are not so bad if paired with parental guidance that teaches a child how to effectively self-soothe, problem-solve, and handle such stressors. Unfortunately, when this attentive parental guidance is absent, stressed children are left to 'get by' on their own and naturally remain stuck in survival mode throughout their lives... until they focus specifically on skills like controlled breathing, muscle relaxation, meditation, grounding, thought correction, and proactive problem-solving.

Core beliefs & self-confidence

Adverse childhood experiences, including big 'T' and little 't' traumas, naturally teach a child that the world is a dangerous place, that their safety is not a priority, and that they must save themselves (by fight, flight, freeze, or fawn). Unfortunately, these subconscious thoughts become core beliefs that persist into adulthood, eroding self-esteem and guiding them toward unhealthy beliefs, choices, and behaviors that prevent adult thriving... until they focus specifically on replacing these negative core beliefs with affirming, self-empowering life truths!

Interpersonal & connectivity skills

Stressful home environments typically include combative, manipulative, and isolating interpersonal dynamics that leave children feeling alone, unsafe, unprotected, and unsupported. Unfortunately, these dysfunctional attachment issues persist into adulthood until adult survivors focus on replacing unhealthy (combative, indirect, manipulative) communication and attachment styles (passive-aggressive, overtly aggressive, submissive) with effective, direct, collaborative communication and connectivity skills.

Start with your guidebook!

My first softcover draft in 2024

FREE book summary!

The definitive guide to direct, collaborative communication to replace repetitive, manipulative, or combative arguments. Enhance your communication skills today!

Communication Cheat Sheet

Breathe-Plan-Do Formula

Enjoy this FREE 36-page summary that includes all 20 rules! Familiarize yourself with the concepts and some tools before reading the rest of the book.

Shift from survivalistic, reactive functioning to mindful, goals-driven thinking and behaving! Looks simple, but takes years to develop professional level thriving skills!

How about some FREE resources from my book to help you along your journey?

These resources below represent a sampling of valuable tools and concepts from This Is How We Heal from Painful Childhoods to keep you moving forward!

Audiobook Supplemental stuff

55-pages of supplemental resources that include graphics, worksheets, and other bonus materials to accompany your audiobook (or softcover, ebook, etc.).

Contact

Reach out for support or questions

eellender@gmail.com

(985) 381-7848

© 2026. All rights reserved.

Ernest Ellender, PhD