Part 3: The ACE Test - No Score for This (A Note from Shawn)

They handed me a form once.

Ten questions. Check the boxes. Add up your score.

It was supposed to explain everything.

Why my body won’t sleep.

Why I flinch when a door closes too hard.

Why silence feels like threat and noise feels worse.

Why I learned to disappear before I learned to read.

The ACE test. “Adverse Childhood Experiences.”

It covers things like divorce. Yelling. Addiction.

Sexual abuse—one line. Just one.

One question isn’t big enough to hold what happened.

Not when it wasn’t just abuse.

Not when it was a job.

Not when people paid to keep it going.

They don’t ask how many hands were involved.

How many men. How many nights.

They don’t ask what it does to a kid when the cop isn’t just part of it. He runs it.

When survival depends on silence. And obeying.

And staying.

They don’t ask how long you stayed.

Or how young you were when it started.

Or what you had to do to make it stop.

So yeah—I blew the test. Scored through the roof.

But the thing is… it still missed most of it.

Because trauma doesn’t follow forms.

And pain doesn’t wait for boxes.

That paper tried to measure me in ten lines.

I’ve lived thousands.

– Shawn