Be VicTORIEus Ep. 88

Book Announcement and ACEs Introduction 0:00

Hey, you guys. It's me, Doctor Tori. My book is officially out and yes, it is time to talk about aces. You guys can find the books everywhere. However, I would encourage you to go to my website, BeVictorious.com and place your order today. Yes, It is Time to Talk About Aces. Let's go, y'all. Hello, hello, Hello you Guys. Welcome to another episode of Be Victorious! I am panning over here, you guys. I had to share this with you, guys, to have this young lady here in this podcast series of Cycle Breakers is a dream come true for me.

This young Lady was one of the original. When I tell you she was at Kaiser Permanente 30 years ago, I have seen the certificates, the people that she has worked with. These are the People that I talk about all the time.

Diana Bishopu2019s Background and Kaiser Work 1:14

Dr. Andrew Faliti and Dr Robert and she knows who they are. She was there when I mean, she is a coach, you guys certified practitioner, all of that. And then some miss Diana Bishop is here ready to share her story. Diana, where are you? Damn, Sheila, yes, I am fan-facing you guys. For people that know about ACES, you have to know there were so many key players in making history. This is history, guys, this is something that has been out for 30 years, and you had your hand all in it. I did, So exciting.

Yay. Tell us, tell us more about you. Introduce yourself to our audience. Right on. So first and foremost, Dr. Torrey, you're amazing. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. Uh, so a little bit about me, as you mentioned, I've been with Kaiser Permanente 30 years and was hired on to support the ACEs study. I'll get into that a little bit more. But I am, by training, I'm a master's degree in drama therapy and worked at the weight management clinic at Kaiser. That's where the study came out of for 15 years.

And then for the last 15 have been in our Center for Healthy Living. So I kind of moved away from therapy, direct therapy and became a board certified health coach. And now we provide wellness programming to our employer groups. We do Worksite Wellness, we do coaching, We Do Education. we build curricula, I write curricular. I mentor, have a small private practice as well. Let's see, what else can I tell you? I have a 28 year old or 23 year-old son. I'm married to a prior service military person with a 10 out of 10 ace.

He's a ten out 10. How did I find that? Somebody with the higher score than I am. Yeah, so I am just in this certain season of my life where I'm really looking to be more myself. and feel proud of the work that I've done and, feel confident about the, work I have done as well. Because similarly to many folks who have high A scores, I am a recovering co-dependent.

How the ACEs Study Began 4:04

Thank you very much. People pleaser. You too. It's taken me a really long time to find my voice. I had been challenging myself the last couple of years to get back to who or actually to meet myself, I suppose, you know. Your inner child. Yeah, to find that. So that's a little bit about me. And it's amazing because when I tell people that the two doctors really started at a weight loss clinic, people don't believe me, it is like, how does that make sense? And then when i put the 2 and 2 together, its like oh yeah.

I always start off, I actually have a class called ACES 101 because I really want people to know how it started, the reason why, and that type of thing. So that's what made me kind of go off on a limb. I tried it. And I did a case study on myself. So I, you understand, that's how deep I'm in it to say that because I wasn't that interested in finding out about ISIS. I couldn't believe it. When I first found out, I was like, oh my God, this is what I've been looking for all my life. So, And I lost my weight at a weight loss clinic.

And from there, that's when I went into, Hey, can I help with some classes to help people and all of that. So that really how I started to surprisingly. When I mean in Diana, I am in. Now, Can you tell us, The original ACES study was how many questions? Well, okay, so let me tell you how this all played out. Dr. Vincent Felitti is who you were. He was the physician who hired me. So he was overseeing back in the day at Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser is a huge health organization and scattered throughout the United States.

But here in San Diego, we had a phenomenal, it was a, if you were a Kaiser member in San Diego County, you had to go through this physical system. And so in any given year, we would see, thousands of people in one facility that was going, kind of like from station to station, to get your physical. He was responsible for what was called health appraisal and the weight management program. Back in the day we used Optifast. If anybody remembers that, that whole thing. Oprah and Optifast, but he was the physician overseeing that.

What would happen is that folks would come in for the physical, and then they'd be referred for weight management, go through that program, drop 80 to 100 pounds in less than six months, then come back. This drove him nuts. He's like, why would anybody go through all that hardship to drop all of that weight only to regain it again. He's just an internist, I shouldn't say just, but he was a very inquisitive kind of guy. What he would do is he'd take some of these folks who were literally at death's door morbidly obese on the verge And he would interview them.

He started just having, he was curious. Right. Having like nosy in one way, people would be. And, and he Tell me about yourself. Tell about your childhood. Who asks these questions? What physician has ever had that kind of time? Physicians don't typically give a darn. They just want to follow the rules, do what I tell you to, and we'll be good. His exploration of these conversations that led him to these deep moments with people, he wasn't skilled as a psychiatrist or therapist. And he'd have people literally falling apart in his office because it was the very first that you'll hear this from many of his patients.

It was first time anyone bothered to ask me the question. So from those initial interviews, he decided to sort of like, wow, if this is happening with this cohort about 10, 20 people, you just started small. he had a feeling there was something more to it. And so because we had the ability to see thousands of people in a year, he created a system for this questionnaire.

Personal ACE Score and Healing Journey 9:13

So it starts out straight, like, do you have a family history, diabetes, all the usual stuff? And then he kind of snuck in some questions toward the end. Gosh, the original physical had way too many questions on it. It was probably like 50 questions because it was physical and emotional. And then he started paring it down. When he starting to see some trends, that's when he got with Dr. Anda and said, I'm going to need some statistical research. backing here. I don't have the bandwidth and it's outside my scope of practice.

So that's when they got into creating the original study that had 10 questions, right? But when you hear, if you've ever heard Dr. Fility speak, he's so interesting. He's very matter of fact. Yes. And he gets, he's like, how can I say this? He'll share the stories from these conversations that he had with his first patients and he didn't understand that relationship with food. And once he started, He said it was like they would come in. It was, like confessional. and sharing these really deep feelings and secrets about this intimate relationship that food had been for them as a savings grace.

He figured out, he'll say, I forget how he says it, and he said it so succinctly, but something about food isn't the problem, it's a solution. It's a temporary solution to some really deep pain. And once he started to understand that this was, people were utilizing this stuff, food or whatever it was. You can insert whatever as a coping mechanism. He's like, holy heck. Then he's started understand what was what was going on over a lifetime. So if you look at the statistics from the original study, you'll see that, unfortunately, those first two waves of people are Caucasian with health insurance and mostly well-educated and Also older, so it's a lot of folks over 50. So what he started to put two and two together was that the higher the ACE score, the high risk for comorbidity or actually premature death because of these coping skills over time become so destructive to body and mind.

Right. Yeah, that's how that went. And I love it because that's how it went for me trying it on myself. I took my statistics to the clinic and said, listen, you're gonna have people that are gonna wanna come back or they're going to come because of their coping mechanisms. So when you do your second challenge, I challenge you can I do a class and that's how I get my classes started, but that actually also how. I started this podcast because I knew that I wasn't by myself, I know that people have aces I new again me surprisingly.

being 229 pounds. I knew what it was, exactly what Dr. Felitti said. You know what I mean? I know that. But then also the researcher in me knew. this is what I wanted to do. So that's when I went to the CDC and said, hey, I wanna do a study, can I please? And they were, that one of the things that I love about the CEC because there's so many other, there are thousands of studies in regards to this one. And this was the reason why I tell people this the second largest study in the United States, the 2nd largest.

But I also let people know the study came from the United States, but it's a worldwide issue. So- Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh yeah. And here we are. Have you ever heard his quotes, Dr. Floyd's quote about obesity? He said something like he had a woman in his office and she was staring at the floor and said, being overweight is being overlooked and overlook is what I need to be. For safety. Yeah. So when you're, when your obese, nobody looks at you. Nobody looks you in the eye. And, and what he saw with, especially the, the correlate between, you know, we're talking about significant, like 80 to a hundred to 200 pounds.

Yes. People with their sexuality, When you drop them down and they don't know what's going to happen. you know, well intended people will come up to you and say, man, you are looking great. And you're like, get away, don't get close to me. So I, I just think it's so interesting to understand and have that compassion for what people are trying to do to just to keep going. That's it. I went back after I lost my weight and wanted to lose some more. for the keep going, I need it. I realized after the you can do it, give me two more.

Those words of encouragement is really what I needed. So I started coming back for class for people that were in the class, encourage them, to tell them. That's really how I got into the coaching aspect of it because you could do with it Give me two more, give me three more. You need those type of people that are going to help you, especially for those that didn't. They have the challenges out here. Lose 20 pounds, you get this. What about the ones that don't? When I mean Diana, I was in it, and I doing this around the same time that I actually in school, doing research, getting a degree.

It was personal, but it was also helping me with getting my own study and doing what I needed to do to get that information out there and that awareness out. Yes, a little deep for me, here we are, ACES awareness in education. So you knew about ACEs, you learned about aces, You know about the ACes categories, but professionally, so personally, which one do you relate to the most? So it was, it's interesting, and it sort of hit me like a ton of bricks. while I was working there, I, you know, it was just kind of doing my job, wasn't thinking about ACEs on a personal level at all, just doing what I need to be doing.

Current Research and Menu2019s Experiences 16:48

And then we had a phenomenal psychotherapist, Dr. Brian Allman, who I think you've seen. I have met him. Yes, he's- Having us see very soon. He's a dear friend and colleague of mine. And the game changer Brian is, Brian has something and I love him to bits, but he came in and did training with us. And I, I cannot tell you Dr. Torrey what he said, But something got me to thinking about, Oh my gosh. I've never taken my own ACE score. What am I going to do with it? When, you know, it's just like, cause I was, let's see 30. 31, 31 probably when that sort of went going on and was very much in denial of it because I'm a mental health professional, right?

Who somehow or another got through grad school and never kind of faced any of that kind took it and started to do some inventory, personal inventory of it. It started shift my work, which was a good thing. Because I was you're with me in the household dysfunction category. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that when I had to start kind of being honest with what was happening, I have to break free. I did did some funky things, too, because I'd been such a people pleaser. And then when he started breaking free, it kind too far the other way.

But anyway, so I guess what I would say about that is that the journey of working for Kaiser, doing the work. So I was doing drama therapy with profoundly, how can I say this? What's the profound, with women who had been through significant traumatic events, but were brave enough to come and be with me and play because drama therapy is about utilizing theater skills to create an atmosphere of safety, but also an environment because there are no words for some of the pain. There's no way because it's so deep and developmentally, it may have been pre-vocabulary.

But to be with other women and to watch them bond together for the first time in pain, but to find that common language. The first time ever being accepted for who they really were, and for them to allow me into that world with them, to walk with through their journey, was probably the biggest honor of my life, because they finally had a social network that wasn't going to put them at risk. Right. So I think that, and then walking my own walk, it was extremely painful. I had to face some things that I hadn't wanted to.

But I will tell you, I hope this is true, that it changed the way I work. Absolutely. You know how you can smell when somebody's not real? And it's talking out of their tush. Yes. And so there are a lot of people in this field that have no right, no business really, because they're like, they think they are all that. Especially in social media, there's a bunch of folks that really hurt me in my heart because you're watching them and they put stuff out there that's not real. Right. So in that, so my journey has really been about that authenticity.

Um, and to people can like, when I'll start to talk, especially in a coaching session, they're like. You get it. I'm like and I call myself a trauma translator. I speak that, I get that. That's right. It's all good. And what's been lovely, also I don't know if you found this as well, because I was watching the podcast recently you did with a man. Men are forgotten in this to some extent. The way we work with men, there's a different sensibility. I love working with guys. Me too. And so we'll talk about that one.

Yeah, yeah, anyway, so I actually have a study right now with Wayne State University. I'm doing with a professor there. His name is Andre Charlie. We did it at his conference last year. Nice. we presented it to Wayne state this year, all of their people were there and they were like, you're doing this again, right? Because the data so on the I loved it.

ACEs Updates and Part Two Teaser 22:08

My undergrad was in psychology, the research aspect of it, so that is fun for me. And we did it in the men in that room. It was a male conference. They were like, Yeah. So this is the, these are the discussions that we have to have. Trust me when I say, I know, you know. Understand this work that We are doing, Diana, it is of something. When I tell you it's going to impact so many, as you've seen as we've worked together, is spreading. We got to continue this education, we got continue what we're doing because it actually really helping, It's the awareness that people need to see.

I think that's what's been working because me saying it's time to talk about ACES, it is definitely time now. They're definitely... Oh my God. Well, yeah. A little mind blowing what is happening in the world right now, but... Especially. Oh, my gosh. So that is the reason why I kind of want to split this up because we have the introduction of ACEs. It was 30 years ago, and times have shifted, things have happened, but it's 2025. I want to say they started looking for participants between 1995 and 1997, correct?

Yeah, he actually was dabbling a couple years before that, okay, But he hooked, got connected with the CDC in 95, Formalize it, yep. So this is what we're gonna do. All right. I would love to dad in on what's going on in today's society. Because I think the awareness really is working, but I thing people have to understand the purpose of what happened in 1995 and the recent updates. Oh, yeah. Thank goodness. Yeah. Yes. So this is what we're going to do if you're OK. I think I actually have not had a part two since episode 20. Episode 20 was one of my close to this day.

He is one my closest friends. And he's helped me do research. We have a young lady that is at the University of Liverpool. She's getting her doctor degree. in ACES education. Nice. So we, I have my hands everywhere. I think what we're going to do is do a part two where we can continue to have this conversation so we could delve in together and let people know those updates. We know about the first three categories which was the abuse, and neglect and the household dysfunction. But what I've been diving in, the reason why I got out of education, and I took a leap of faith I did and did this racist education worldwide is because of 2023 and updates.

Let's get back together, have this conversation and go from there because I think those recent updates were needed. Yeah. And I'm so glad that they're there. Time out, you guys. Go ahead and say what you're going to say, Diane. What I was going say is social determinants of health are really where I come from in that way to see that evolution of what we now, it's like, come on now. Let's really look at this big picture. So you know we're on the same page. Okay, guys. This is so we'll say, and we are doing this spontaneously you guys, this is part one of this episode.

We're going to come back and do episode part two here shortly. So stay tuned, another episode. This time, don't forget your papers and pencil, you guys. Have your paper and pencils ready because that's exactly what we doing, breaking it down so you can understand ACES as cycle breakers should. See you, guys, in a bit.