Mental Margins: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Release Date: 06/04/2025
Mental Margins: Schizoaffective Disorder
Mental Health Rewritten
When Tamika talks about becoming a mother, you can hear how it rewrote her sense of identity. But when her daughter Allegra was later diagnosed with severe depression and psychosis, that identity began to unravel—and reveal something much deeper. Behind the scenes of her family’s history was an untreated illness that had already shaped the shoreline: schizoaffective disorder. This episode dives into the space where psychosis meets mood disorder, where reality and emotion overlap in ways that can feel impossible to untangle.
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Mental Margins: When Mental Health Crashes Like a Car Accident
Mental Health Rewritten
In this Mental Margins segment, we share bonus content and confront a critical question with Jack Register from episode 106: Why do we treat mental health crises differently than physical ones? If someone has a diabetic episode behind the wheel, we rush in with the jaws of life, pull them from the wreckage, and never question their willpower. Yet when a person spirals into suicidality or psychosis, society often steps back—expecting them to “help themselves” before we decide they’re worth saving. This conversation dives into the systemic contradictions at the heart of mental health...
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Mental Margins: Director's Cut-Episode 106
Mental Health Rewritten
A breakdown of episode 106
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Suicide: Rewriting the Conversation Around Those Who Were Left Behind
Mental Health Rewritten
In this episode, we explore the aftermath of mental health crises through personal stories and expert insight. Featuring voices of Tamika Christy, Jack Register, and Ashley Holder, the discussion delves into grief after suicide loss, the challenges within mental health systems, and the emotional toll on caregivers and first responders. We also examine how trauma ripples through communities and the evolving ways we memorialize those we’ve lost online. Key Segments & Topics Grief and Suicide Loss: Author Tamika Christy shares her experience after losing a loved one to suicide,...
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Mental Margins: Before We Dive Back In
Mental Health Rewritten
In this special reflection, Dominic steps away from the usual storytelling format to speak directly with listeners. After the powerful response to Episode 105, where we shared Nia’s story, Dominic opens up about the impact that episode had on his own mental health—and why Mental Health Rewritten exists in the first place. He shares the outpouring of messages from listeners who connected deeply with Nia’s journey, and how those words of gratitude also brought a heavy reminder: that even in telling these stories, healing is not linear. The weight of these conversations can stir up personal...
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Mental Margins: Three A.M. in Mexico
Mental Health Rewritten
The call from the sheriff’s office. The Netflix notification from Baja. The 3 a.m. plea for a room. Each detail reads like a breadcrumb trail—fragile, almost surreal—marking the chaos of a loved one’s unraveling. What happens when systems meant to protect instead withhold? When family becomes both the lifeline and the witness to an impending collapse? This Mental Margin segment pulls us into that liminal space between presence and absence, where silence from a loved one becomes unbearable, and news delivered at the doorstep turns final. This preview sets the scene for our upcoming full...
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Mental Margins: Layers of Suicidality in the Hijacked Mind
Mental Health Rewritten
This Mental Margins bonus segment expands on Episode 105: Rewriting the Conversation Around Suicide. In the full episode, we heard Ashley-Lauren Elrod’s powerful story of surviving prolonged suicidal ideation. Here, Tina Aggarwal offers additional commentary that did not make it into the main release—breaking down the complex, overlapping forces that can drive someone toward a suicide attempt. Tina emphasizes a critical truth: suicidality is never the result of a single factor. Instead, it emerges from a combination of influences—mental illness, racial trauma, childhood sexual trauma,...
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Mental Margins: The Anchor in the Dark
Mental Health Rewritten
In this segement of Mental Margins, we share two perspectives on the hidden weight of high-functioning pain. First, trauma therapist Denise D. Moore shares a testimonial and reflects on dismantling the “strong Black woman” stereotype—reminding us that while not every story ends with a cure, every story can still carry meaning. Then, from Episode 105: Rewriting the Conversation Around Suicide, we check in with Nia—the friend who remembers every birthday, keeps the group chat alive, and always shows up for everyone else. From the outside, she’s the glue holding her circle...
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Mental Margins: Major Depressive Disorder
Mental Health Rewritten
In this week's Mental Margin, we step back from the noise and dig deep into Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)—not just as a diagnosis, but as a lived experience. With over 700,000 lives lost to suicide annually, understanding MDD isn't just clinical—it's critical. We explore how Major Depressive Disorder manifests beyond sadness: in executive dysfunction, in physical exhaustion, in a feeling of cognitive suffocation.
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Suicide: Rewriting the Conversation Around Suicide
Mental Health Rewritten
In this episode of Mental Health Rewritten, we tackle the subject of suicidal ideation with care, nuance, and urgency. Through a combination of real survivor stories, fictionalized scenes, clinical insight, and historical framing, host Dominic Lawson guides listeners through what it means to live on the edge of despair — and what it takes to survive it. We hear the stories of: Nia, a high-functioning professional whose emotional unraveling is invisible until it’s too late. Ashley-Lauren, a survivor navigating abuse, chronic illness, and a suicide attempt that ultimately catalyzed her...
info_outlineIn this introspective and educational Mental Margin segment, we explore how trauma isn't always loud. Sometimes it whispers through our adult decisions, shaped quietly and powerfully by Adverse Childhood Experiences—ACEs. With the expertise of Dr. Justin Dodson, we trace how witnessing violence, enduring emotional wounds, and growing up without safety all carve paths into who we become.
🧠Key Themes
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The Foundation Matters:
Dr. Dodson reminds us that healing starts with understanding our beginnings. Our behaviors today—whether defensive, compulsive, or withdrawn—are reactions to things that happened long before. “If I am the way I am today, something happened before today…” -
Trauma Isn’t Just What’s Done To You—It’s What You Witness:
A key point made by Dr. Dodson: witnessing domestic violence can be as developmentally damaging as direct sexual abuse. It’s about observing power and control, internalizing helplessness, and learning distorted attachments. -
ACEs Explained:
Host Dominic Lawson breaks down ACEs: traumatic experiences before age 18, including abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. Each ACE adds to the risk of mental health issues, substance abuse, and behavioral struggles later in life. -
Marcus’s Story – A Mirror for Many:
In a fictional but familiar example, Marcus—a 30-year-old struggling with depression and anxiety—reveals five ACEs: abandonment, parental addiction, witnessed abuse, neglect, and emotional maltreatment. His struggles become clearer in context, not confusion.
đź“š Educational Moment
This episode underscores a key point: ACEs shape much of what clinicians see in real life. That makes understanding them even more essential.
🧾 Take the ACEs Quiz
Curious about your own ACE score?
👉 Visit numberstory.org (developed by the Center for Youth Wellness) for a confidential self-assessment and access to resources.
đź’ˇ Final Takeaway
“Understanding our past helps us rewrite our future.”
When we start at the beginning, we don’t just find pain—we find patterns. And once we see them, we can choose how our story unfolds.
đź“Ś For more narrative tools and healing resources, visit: MentalHealthRewrittenPodcast.com