Intergenerational Trauma
After years of research, a predisposition to the onset of mental health disorders may be orientated to the trauma endured within a family’s generations. In other words, the trauma our parents endured and the symptoms of such as anger and reactive responses, substance abuse move from the parents to their children. Those children then pass it to their children and perhaps to other members of the family such as aunts, cousins, and siblings.
Trauma from previous generations can be passed through predisposing and increasing vulnerability to mental health disorders, repeated patterns of abusive or neglectful behaviour, poor parent-child relationships, negative beliefs about parenting, personality disorders, substance abuse, family violence, sexual abuse, and other unhealthy behaviour patterns and attitudes. Even more so, negative core beliefs, negative thoughts about the self, others, and the world, which impacts one sense of belonging, self-esteem, and levels of confidence.
Intergenerational trauma, through my studies and self-education, has focused on the impact of residential schools on indigenous and first nations communities. When I attended my trauma-informed practice training, it was taught through an indigenous lens, and the elder described being a child and being taken away from her parents. Through despair and understandably so, lack of coping strategies to harness the grief of their children taken from them, endured maladaptive thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. More so, as these parents lost their children, they lost their ability to parent, so when children were sent back to their parents, the parents lack proper parenting skills. The consequences these individuals endured, spread through the generations.
Outside of any culture, there are many families, because of shame, guilt and other thoughts and feelings, hide sexual abuse for many generations. Sexual, physical and emotional abuse can create a highly toxic and damaging emotional atmosphere which intertwines itself into many family interactions. Children who are told not to talk about the abuse they endured, are left with keeping their feelings and thoughts to themselves, which eventually can cause the child to engage in maladaptive behaviours into adolescence and adulthood.
Shame is a feeling which is deeply integrated with families who have endured any or all the forms of abuse, and the shame becomes deeply ingrained. These internalized feelings of shame damage perceptions of the self, others, and the world, and can lead to self-blame and self-harm. Shame also encourages, as mentioned above, silence and avoidance to ask for help and lead to paths of finding ways to cope and find closure.
Intergenerational trauma can be reduced with awareness, education and understanding. When the elder spoke her story of residential schools, it was an eye-opener for me as I had never looked at the perspective of lost parenting skills, this increased my levels of compassion and empathy.
Trauma bonding, as mentioned in one of my other blogs, is related to intergenerational trauma. Trauma bonding in intergenerational trauma occurs in families, or intimate relationships were patterns of violence, and emotional abuse is switched with nurturing and reconciliation. However, the cyclical pattern of love and hate is very damaging for children. They do not know whom to love, how to love, what will get them trouble; they cannot establish a sense of consistency and boundaries. As these children mature, the patterns demonstrated by their parents or caregivers are repeated. Intergenerational trauma requires a strong soul to step out from the chain and move toward healing to break the cycle.
Intergenerational trauma has strong ties to anxiety, as it is passed down from generations because of continued lack of nurturance. Nurturance is provided in healthy environments where children learn to cope with uncertainty and learn to soothe their fears or self-regulate their emotions. Coping abilities are modelled through nurturing parents or caregivers who interact and connect as emotionally stable and supportive. When this environment is neglected, children cannot self-regulate biological, cognitively, and emotionally.
Although reading this may feel as if you are going to be stuck in the intergenerational trauma chain, there are ways of reducing the impact and many resources available. You have not lost a part of yourself but have the opportunity to change parts and refresh them with coping skills and education. When we face the trauma brought down to us, we gain strength which allows us to live a rich and full life.
Attending individual therapy may look like digging down deep to the depths of roots of the trauma, embrace the trauma, hold space for the pain and not avoid it, but slowly release it. Think of yourself as a bottle of pop which has been shaken, so it is rock hard. If we release the cap, we make a big mess as pop explodes everywhere. When we do it slowly, the tension releases, air or pain can slowly dissipate and not be a shock to the system.
When we do not release the pain, we are not living, we are reactive, not proactive, we are surviving and just getting by instead of thriving. Be the one who takes the cutters to the chain and break the cycle; you can do this!
If intergenerational trauma resonates with you and you feel this may be something which affects your life. Additionally, if you have any other questions regarding intergenerational trauma, contact us at admin@ovcs.ca.
Feel free to check out my other blogs on other mental health topics 😊.
