Overview

What if everything we think we know about America's health crisis is wrong? Hidden in government data lies a shocking discovery: childhood trauma is responsible for 1,401 American deaths every single day-more than tobacco, accidents, or stroke. Among the 11.4 million Americans who experienced severe childhood trauma, every one will die 24 years too soon. Nearly 90% of teen suicide attempts trace back to adverse childhood experiences. And this epidemic costs America $14 trillion annually-roughly 60% of our entire GDP. We've been counting the bodies wrong. When someone with severe childhood trauma dies of a heart attack at 55 instead of 75, we record it as heart disease. When they overdose, it's addiction. When they take their own life, it's suicide. But these aren't separate epidemics-they're symptoms of the same hidden crisis that's been destroying lives for generations. Michael J. Menard knows this crisis firsthand. Growing up one of fourteen children in a 900-square-foot home below the poverty line, he watched childhood trauma ripple through his family-claiming two brothers to addiction and leaving invisible wounds across generations. Yet from these origins, Menard rose to become a world-renowned inventor with fourteen patents, advising NASA and the United Nations, and serving as Vice President of Worldwide Engineering at Johnson & Johnson. Greater Than Gravity isn't just another trauma book. It's a meticulously researched exposé that connects dots no one else has connected-revealing how childhood trauma alters brain development, ravages the immune system, and creates cascading destruction across mental, physical, spiritual, and social dimensions of life. Menard brings his engineer's mind to humanity's greatest unaddressed public health crisis, transforming cold statistics into compelling human stories while offering concrete pathways to healing. With endorsements from leading trauma experts including Dr. Glenn Schiraldi, this groundbreaking work serves three audiences: survivors seeking hope and healing, loved ones who want to understand, and anyone ready to join a movement to end this epidemic. The numbers are irrefutable. The suffering is real. The time for action is now.

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9781968559007

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""Hope remains, and this book is its voice."" In the ancient Greek myth, Zeus, ruler of the gods, was determined to punish humankind by sending Pandora to live among them with a sealed jar. Curious, she opened the seal, unwittingly releasing epidemics of sickness and famine and war. Since the turn of the 21st century, healthcare researchers and clini- cians have understood that sickness and violence and substance abuse and even early death have a common root, and that root is child- hood trauma. The original study that documented this truth has been replicated numerous times across a variety of cultures and countries. Yet somehow, policymakers and even many clinicians, have remained unknowing and thus powerless. In Pandora's jar, one thing remained: hope. Michael Menard's work is that hope. In Greater Than Gravity, he explains both the neurological and the societal impact of childhood trauma in ways both personal and accessibly academic, then offers a blueprint for a way forward. This is not only a book to be read-it is a book to be enacted for the sake of our children and our grandchildren. Hugh Marr, Ph.D., clinical psychologist Author of A Clinician's Guide to Foundational Story Psy- chotherapy: Co-changing Narratives, Co-changing Lives; and of Finding Your Story: Using Archetypes to Guide Your Personal Journey; co-author (with Carol Pearson, Ph.D.) of the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator

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