Paul Szmal: And welcome back to FLX Morning. It is 8.15. I'm joined by Scott Ostrowski from Family Counseling Service of the Finger Lakes. Scott, good morning. How are you, sir?
Scott Ostrowski: Good morning. Glad to be here.
Paul Szmal: Good to have you as well and appreciate you jumping in here at the last minute. Scott is a supervisor of training and staff development at Family Counseling Service of the Finger Lakes. I had no idea that this month was Mental Health Awareness Month.
Scott Ostrowski: Yeah, so actually it was Katie, my colleague, that alerted me to it. So when I think about mental health and mental health awareness, I think for so many people, we get this image in our minds of what mental health is all about based on how the media portrays it or how commercial might advertise for an antidepressant. And I think so much of what we think about in terms of mental health is based in that, what I like to call the conversation of what's wrong with a person. And I think a topic that I'm super passionate about is adverse childhood experiences and resilience. And I think part of that conversation is shifting first from that conversation of what's wrong to the idea of what happened for a person that's shaping their experience today. And that's really the essence of the importance of understanding ACEs.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I am slightly familiar with the term adverse childhood experiences, not really sure 100% what it means. Can you give us a little definition?
Scott Ostrowski: Absolutely. So going way back to the 1990s, if you can believe it, it was a research project. Two doctors in conjunction with the CDC and Kaiser Permanente Insurance Company were looking at health outcomes later in life. This was everything from mental health to addiction to physical health, cancer, diabetes, wondering, you know, here we have these systems built to really treat the problems that are happening, but nobody was really looking at why they were happening. So the ACEs study was the first kind of look at this idea that certain adverse experiences during childhood could increase the likelihood of poor outcomes later on in life. And so they looked at things like abuse during childhood or growing up in a stressful environment where there was neglect or there was a parent who was struggling with addiction. And we've since learned that adversity has many, many shapes and forms. And the idea that these things occur in a child's life frequently, often the child experiences no control or may not have the supports in place to help deal with it or overcome that can lead to stress responses in the body that over time result in some of these physical and mental health issues later in life. And so, you know, like a lot of my passion is around making sure that people have an understanding of what this is. And also know that this, even though it seems like a gloom and doom story, there's this other thing that we know as resilience that is so powerful in overcoming ACEs. And it's so important to talk about that piece as well.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I want to get to that in just a minute. We're talking with Scott Ostrowski from Family Counseling Service of the Finger Lakes here on, excuse me, on FLX Morning. It's this, all makes logical sense to me. And the thing that strikes me is that, you know, when you're a child, you don't realize probably when some of these types of events are happening that may wind up informing your decisions and even your physical health later in life.
Scott Ostrowski: Sure. So Dr. Bruce Perry, he's one that wrote a book called What Happened to You, which is kind of, you can tell, like I'm sharing some of that language here. But he talks about this idea of use dependence in the brain. So the way I like to describe that is like, if you have an athlete that emphasizes one group of muscles, you know, to perform whatever athletic event they're trying to achieve, they may neglect other muscle groups, right? So I have a picture on my presentation of a bodybuilder who's obviously, you know, done a lot of work on his upper body, but hasn't done much to strengthen his legs. And I always joke that I could probably outrun him on a bicycle, even though I might not be able to, you know, lift as much as he can. But the brain works the same way. So if you are firing the, you know, there's a saying, this is the neurons that fire together, wire together. So if your world growing up is constantly like this exposure to adversity and hardship, like you become hyper sensitive or wired to looking for danger in your world and developing ways to deal with that at the expense of sometimes those pieces of the brain that are more inclined to help with cognition and regulation. So it's, there really is a lot to this topic and understanding how it comes about. But again, there's also a lot of hope around this subject too.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, let's get into that hope or resilience, if you will. When you hear the word resilience on the surface, I think the first thing a lot of people would think is, well, you can just tough it out and you'll be fine. And I don't think that's the case.
Scott Ostrowski: No, I mean, it was certainly like personal characteristics can play a part in it. But when we look at the pieces of resilience that really, what comprises resilience for a person. And by the way, like when I talk about ACEs, I talk about the language used is you are more likely, if you experience adversity as a child, you are more likely to experience some of these later health outcomes. That doesn't mean that you're going to, or that doesn't mean that even if you experience them, that they can't be overcome. And the reason for that is resilience. And really resilience is, aside from personal characteristics, it's about the relationships, the connections you make in the world. It's about competency or mastery in certain tasks. It's about feeling confident. It's about how you're able to give back to your community. It's about your value system. It's about your ability to develop empathy and understand the world around you. There are so many pieces that go into resilience. And what we know is that resilience is a stronger predictor of later outcomes than ACEs. All the gloom and doom that I talk about in terms of ACEs, the real message here is that we all have the opportunity to make a difference for one another just by being that support. I tell a story about my former foster kiddo who, you know, we'd have to go to the family court every six months. And at the last time we were supposed to go, you know, the judge gave them the option of not having to come back because they were going to age out. And my kiddo said, no, I want to come back. And I said, what's this all about? And they said, like, well, this person's been, you know, more of a grandmother to me than my own grandma. Every time I go to family court, the judge says that she likes the way I'm dressed and she believes in me and she's proud of me, sees all the progress that I'm making. That's resilience in a nutshell. That was five minutes every six months made a difference for my kid's life. And those are the little things that we can do in this world to help somebody's resilience story. That's really why I got into this work and what still fuels my passion today.
Paul Szmal: Are there certain techniques to develop and refine this resilience that we're talking about?
Scott Ostrowski: Sure. I mean, I have a colleague who likes to talk about the seven Cs of resilience. I always tease her because I keep finding more Cs to add to that. But the Cs she would state are developing a sense of control, helping people understand or helping them make decisions and give choices. Competence is about building strengths and abilities. Confidence is belief in those strengths and abilities, exploring things that make meaning for them. Connection, of course, I just talked about. Character is based on helping people understand their own personal values and developing a sense of empathy. Coping skills, this might be the one that really is, you know, we talk about this a lot, that idea of self-care. And people might talk about meditation and yoga or exercise. Those are all excellent things to add to a resilience regimen. They aren't the only things, but they are excellent things. If you're looking personally to increase your resilience, those are great ways to go about that. And then contribution, giving back to society, finding a way to volunteer or feel like you're part of something greater than yourself. Those are all ways to foster resilience.
Paul Szmal: All right. For more information on this topic, Scott, where can people find some resources or perhaps go directly to the Family Counseling Service of the Finger Lakes?
Scott Ostrowski: Sure. We are fcsfl.org online. I would also, you know, for anybody interested in learning more about the ACEs topic, a good place to start would be Dr. Bruce Perry. If you Google that name, you'll come up with a whole bunch of great resources, information, and information on this topic.
Paul Szmal: Wonderful. Wonderful. We could go on about this, but unfortunately we're out of time this morning. But I certainly appreciate the conversation. Thank you, Scott.
Scott Ostrowski: I appreciate it, too. Thanks for having me.
Paul Szmal: All right. 826 on FLX Morning.
