It would happen without warning. In a flash, Reyna Saldana would erupt. She would throw tables and punches with an athletic force honed by days spent shooting hoops and hours resisting staff who pinned her down.

All around her, it seemed, the disapproving faces were convinced she was going nowhere but prison. The teenage Reyna started to believe it. Already a ward of the state, she had been bouncing around foster homes, treatment facilities and detention since she was 4 years old.

If any of those who didn't believe in her had stopped to consider what Reyna came from and what was happening in her brain, they might have been able to predict who she could become. Today, at 18, she is a high school graduate, preparing to begin training to be a nurse. She is free from bars. Peaceful.

Reyna is sharing her story with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin readers because she hopes to reframe how people see youth with mental health challenges, especially those whose behavior is misread as malicious or categorized as criminal. If given care, tools and treatment, youth suffering from trauma and mental illness can learn to cope in healthy ways and recover. She hopes no child will be given up on the way it almost happened to her.

"There were times I would hurt people I really, truly cared about, and I felt like such a horrible monster," Reyna said. "I see people like that every day now. I feel like I have this weird telescope where I can spot people out.

"I want to help other people like that."

In our second year of reporting for the Kids in Crisis series on youth mental health, Reyna's story will help illustrate how young brains can be damaged and healed depending on the support and resources around them. As state health officials put greater focus on understanding childhood experiences that shape mental health, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin's stories will look in detail at how these key experiences happen, how we can prevent the most traumatic ones, and how we can help youth like Reyna recover from them.


Recent brain science paints a nuanced picture of mental health. While in some cases genetics are the strong determining factor of mental health, there is growing evidence that positive and negative experiences, especially during key times of growth in childhood, can build resiliency or cause mental illnesses to develop. Experts say it's crucial to understand this science to best serve youth with mental health challenges.

Elizabeth Hudson, director of the state Office of Children's Mental Health, said she hopes the science leads to prevention of root causes of stress in children's lives and earlier intervention after children experience trauma.

"When people have that information, they see the implications — not the least of which is all the prevention that can happen if it's recognized early," Hudson said. "For most people, mental health issues are not a genetic destiny."

Hudson's office has come out with a list of indicators of youth well-being in Wisconsin. In addition to medical factors such as access to treatment and psychiatrists, the list includes factors like neighborhood safety, racism and poverty, all of which can cause toxic stress for youth and can have lasting consequences on the brain and the rest of the body. The applications of this science are endless. By understanding these stressors as root causes of many mental health and behavioral issues, Hudson said caregivers and professionals can help kids get the support and coping tools they need, rather than adding to stress with traditional disciplinary responses like seclusion, restraint, or arrest.

"If we see that many of the behavioral issues are grounded in experiences in adversity, then doing something to a child that will create more toxic stress is not going to be helpful," Hudson said.

Reyna now considers trauma the source of her mental health diagnoses, which include depression, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. She only wishes she — and those around her — had seen it earlier.

Stress, trauma sculpt the brain

A baby's brain is similar to a dry sponge. As a baby is exposed to stimuli, including sights, sounds and smells, the baby's tiny brain soaks up the experience and the information. During the first three years of life, a baby's brain increases to almost 80 percent of its adult size.

Babies who grow up in loving, nurturing, stimulating and healthy environments are building a foundation for future success in education, social skills and careers, said Lisa Kegler, a therapist with the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

"If a trauma happens, whatever development is supposed to be going on with the brain at that time, it can profoundly affect that brain development," Kegler said.

During trauma, the brain's amygdala gets fired up. It is responsible for fight-or-flight reactions, and humans have long depended on its quick response for survival. But when a child is repeatedly put in positions of fear and stress, the amygdala becomes hypersensitized and may start recognizing threats where there are none, Kegler said.

It may explain why Reyna often reacted in "fight" mode to situations that reminded her brain of dangerous moments from her past. The reactions happened so fast and automatically that she would feel like she blacked out during them. When she would "snap out of it," she would be shocked at what she had done.

"When I was done, I would see what I had done to people or what I had done to the room, and I would just cry," Reyna said. "And I was like, 'oh my god, I'm so sorry.'"

In addition to being at the root of many behavioral issues, the toxic stress of trauma can cause long-term health issues such as heart disease, substance abuse, depression and other chronic illnesses.

Researchers have identified about a dozen key "adverse childhood experiences," called ACEs for short, that are especially strongly linked to health problems. The most common are emotional abuse, living with someone who has a substance abuse problem and having separated parents. We created an online quiz you can take to find out if you or your children have experienced any.  

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services surveyed the state population about ACEs in 2015. The graph shows the percentage of adult respondents who said they experienced each of the following ACEs in their childhoods:

The list is not comprehensive. Many of the ACEs listed are things that happen in a household, while many stressors in children's lives come from outside pressures such as school environments, bullying, poverty, racism and other prejudices.

"That list, while it's based on important research ... ends up with an unfortunate emphasis because there's already such a tendency to point the finger at the parents and say this must be something you did, and parents feel so isolated and overwhelmed and such incredible stigma," said Joanne Juhnke, policy director for Wisconsin Family Ties. "I think we need to keep our lens broad on this."

Even with the limited scope, ACE scores can shed a light on many of the hardships Wisconsin youth are facing — particularly those like Reyna whose behaviors land them in the juvenile justice system. About 98 percent of youth in detention at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake reported at least one ACE; most of them had experienced three or more.

As readers will learn throughout this year's Kids in Crisis series, Reyna has experienced most of the ACE categories. She would be the first to offer the reminder that a high ACE score is not a life sentence.

Recovery is possible: 'Everyone needs themselves a Joann' 

Brain science also identifies several ways children and adults can develop resiliency to better cope with adversity.

At the Center for Healthy Minds, based at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Richard Davidson has been leading studies that show how people can teach their brains to heal and grow in healthy ways.

"The very mechanism that allows trauma to get under the skin and leave a scar is the same mechanism that is the key to understanding healing and well-being," Davidson said.

Meditation and mindfulness are tools at the center of Davidson's research. But he said one of the most significant ways a child's brain can recover is through a healthy relationship with a caregiver, who can take many forms.

"The caregiver doesn't always have to be the parent," Davidson said. "To develop a healthy brain we simply need a positive caregiver, whoever the individual might be."

Indeed, Reyna credits her relationship with a mentor, Joann Stephens, as fundamental to her learning to cope better with her mental health challenges and traumatic past. She's the closest figure to a mother she has.

"Everyone needs themselves a Joann," Reyna said. "She gave me love and support, and showed me I wasn't a monster. ... She showed me that even though I had this ugly side to me, it wasn't ugly to her."

Stephens, who works for the Office of Children's Mental Health and has long been a mental health advocate, immediately recognized Reyna's behaviors as reactions to trauma. Stephens helped Reyna recognize that abuses she had endured were not her fault and that she could find tools cope with triggers.

Beyond all that, Stephens greatest impact may be simply her refusal to give up on Reyna despite several barriers they've faced. Before Stephens, everyone in Reyna's life had left her when things got hard, or when she was transferred to another city. Stephens isn't going anywhere, and that's something that registers deep within Reyna's brain.

"I think the biggest misconception is that the brain is relatively fixed at a certain point in life and we're sort of born with certain propensities that then irrevocably constrain us or dictate how we unfold," Davidson said.

The safe feelings associated with a secure relationship like the one Reyna found is enough to improve brain function and emotional regulation, Davidson said.

Unlike the countless people who had made Reyna believe as a child that she was destined for a life in prison, Stephens always saw all that Reyna had to offer. Now they're proving the world wrong.

"For everything this kid has been through, you can see how she beams," Joann said. "She has this beam of love and hope and generosity to her. Her heart is huge and full of gold and I just don't even know how it's possible to have such a good outlook... I just think she has an amazing future and I think she's going to change the world."

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin will share more pieces of Reyna's story in future Kids in Crisis installments.

Rory Linnane: 920-993-7184 or; on Twitter @rorylinnane. Liz Welter: 715-384-3131 or; on Twitter @welter_liz.

"Kids in Crisis," which launched last year and will continue through 2017, is a series that explores barriers and solutions for supporting youth with mental health challenges. You can keep up with our latest stories on our home page and by subscribing to our e-newsletter.

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